[VonLoon]

I've been deep in the headphone end of the audiophile pool for a decade now, and I finally took the plunge into 2 channel.  Purchased a pair of early 2021 vintage x3's from a reputable dealer in texas and took delivery of them today.

To my surprise I found 3 caps in parallel going into the AMT driver.  They are laid out kind of messy and slightly different on each speaker, but the solder connections looked like they survived any bumps on the road so I went ahead with setup.  Maybe I'm just an idiot and never noticed them while drooling over posts and reviews.

Get everything set up.  singxer i2s bridge> Audio-gd NOS-11 dac-preamp> First Watt J2> X3 .  First test track thoroughly underwhelmed .

I go back to tweek the sub when I get a good look at the sticker on the back with date, serial number, impedance; they are clearly listed as 4 ohms.  Has anyone heard of Spatial Audio selling 4 ohm variants on request?  How about adding extra caps to the AMT, i can make out a 1 uf and .01 uf but the physically largest cap is blank or mounted with text facing inward.  Dunland tinned copper and Vcap, so no complaints about quality.

I'm fairly upset right now, strongly considering returning the speakers, maybe trying to get the dealer to pay shipping costs.  I'm running an amp particularly good at higher impedance loads, I'm definitely not happy to get some odd lower impedance variant.  Also it looks like the sticker on the back of each plate amp was peeled back to a screw, leading me to believe the speakers previous owner may have had a go at the crossover also.

Should I be upset? What would you do?

[VonLoon]

My primary rig up until now was this same chain with heavily modded Hifi-Man He-6 so I'm very familiar with how the rest of the gear sounds.  (he-6 is a notoriously inefficient headphones)


I haven't played around with placement much yet and I'm still in negotiations for how far we are going to take room treatments in the large combined living room/kitchen.  I'm going to try not to rush to judgement on the speakers but the situation is less than ideal.

That first test track was from The Ystad Concert (A Tribute To Jan Johansson) track 2.  I found violins faint compared to how I'm used to hearing them.  Piano sounded good but not great.  Getting into tracks with standup bass revealed sloppiness in the low-mids and upper-bass, the twang of strings in air lacked liveliness and presence.

I might be able to work out both these problems by removing the caps and working on my room, but it's still going to irk me that they are 4 ohm and not knowing if any other changes were made.

Also listen to a tour of Rock from folk to death and as well as some cruising with a sub style hip-hop.  These genres tended to fare better in that they sounded different and not just wrong.

[RonN5]

Hard to understand a dealer that would not disclose that they were 4 ohm…

Suggest you call Clayton and ask him if he ever made a pair of 4 ohm X’s…and if not and you keep them they may prove to be a hard to resell unicorn.

[rooze]

My X3’s were also marked as 4ohms. The consensus at the time was that they were mislabeled at the factory. But now, another pair?
Mine also sounded quite poor but no signs of any modifications.

[dket]

VonLoon, were these the speakers featured on the Audiophile Junkie's forum?

[mrotino332]

The X3 speakers in the Audiophile Junkie You tube videos in the recent other thread also had a few external caps visible similar as to what you just mentioned.  Who knows maybe those are the same speakers that Audiophile Junkie posted on his you tube videos.  My understanding is the tweeter from the factory should only have one 3.9 uf capacitor so it seems these speakers have been modified.

[richidoo]

If you keep them, send pics of suspected modifications to Clayton to confirm if they are correct parts.

He can help you restore it back to stock if desired, but mods aren't always bad. They are usually just upgrade parts of nominal size, but the modification technique might be improved. 3 caps in series doesn't make sense to me.

You can use Dayton DATS to measure the impedance accurately.

Impedance is variable with frequency on all speakers. Low impedance dips are OK if the amp can handle it.
Speakers are chosen to suit the unique room and music choice and listening styles. and the amp must serve whatever requirements that speaker demands. Amp fetish is fun as long as the candidate amps all meet the speaker's needs. I suspect J2 ain't cuttin the mustard.

First Watt 25W amps are not intended for complex, low impedance load. They have low negative feedback, so they prefer flat high impedance load, high sensitivity speakers. Best with bass frequencies shifted to a more suitable amplifier.

If you keep the speakers, I would recommend a higher power amplifier with negative feedback to provide more electrical damping to the low impedance dips, like purifi.

[Desertpilot]

I have three X3s, ordered, constructed and delivered from Spatial Audio Lab in 2021.  Two were delivered mid May, 2021.  The third one was delivered August, 2021.  All three say 8 Ohms.  There are two wires attached to the underside of the AMT driver, two wires attached to the underside of the mid-Range driver and two wires attached to the underside of the subwoofer.  All wires are hidden inside except for the short amount exposed showing attachment to each driver.  There are no visible crossover parts.

Me?  I would suspect aftermarket mods.

Marcus

[Tyson]

With my X3's, when I modded them they also sounded very wrong (muted at the top end, just not very lively at all).  I'd created an external crossover to completely bypass the parts that were inside the speaker. 

What I didn't realize is that if you plug your speaker wire in to the binding posts, all the old parts are still in-line and affecting the signal.  I had to bypass the binding posts entirely and wire everything direct to (drivers and amp).  Only after I did that did the speakers sound right. 

[morganc]

Tyson is correct, if those caps are in line from what I remember in discussions with Clayton!  Have to run a new wire if they are modded......

I had X5's from 2020, and they sounded fabulous FYI, my guess is this has nothing to do with the speakers or impedence but that after market mod....

[Jon L]

My understanding is the tweeter from the factory should only have one 3.9 uf capacitor so it seems these speakers have been modified.

Since OP reports 3 caps in parallel, 0.01 uF and 1 uF and the largest cap of unknown uF, one can hazard a guess. 

If original cap is supposed to be 3.9 uF, somebody probably "upgraded" that cap with the 1 uF plus unknown (likely 3 uF).  He then probably added the 0.01 uF as bypass. 

Either case, I would take good photos of the "upgrade" (hopefully the entire crossover board) and send them to Spatial to review and comment.

[DBT AUDIO]

I'm fairly upset right now, strongly considering returning the speakers, maybe trying to get the dealer to pay shipping costs.  I'm running an amp particularly good at higher impedance loads, I'm definitely not happy to get some odd lower impedance variant.  Also it looks like the sticker on the back of each plate amp was peeled back to a screw, leading me to believe the speakers previous owner may have had a go at the crossover also.

Should I be upset? What would you do?

Yes, you should be upset and if you are still in your window of return, I would return them.  I own the X5s and my speaker build is the same as the other forum members who chimed in.  As one mentioned, resale could be a problem.

[FullRangeMan]

STM the original owner custom ordered it 4Ω.

[Latimfr]

  Since I am the original owner of these speakers, I thought I would make a post to clear things up.
These speakers are 8 ohms, they were mislabeled by one of the employees at Spatial. I know
of other pairs that were mislabeled the same way. One person that had a pair labeled this way called Clayton
and he verified that there was no 4 ohm version.
  A couple of people I know had received X5s and they wanted to experiment with different caps for
the AMT. So SPATIAL mounted the 3.9 MFD cap on the back of of the baffle instead of inside out of view.
I had mine built the same way. The original cap is in the circuit as designed.
I added two bypass caps, a .1 MFD and a .01 mfd parallel to the original 3.9 mfd.
This gives a total capacitance of 4.01 mfd a small difference from the original 3.9 mfd.
I found this to improve air and detail in the highs a little.
If these are removed the speakers would be exactly stock.
Hope this clears things up.
Best regards, Frank Latimer.

[richidoo]

Since I am the original owner of these speakers, I thought I would make a post to clear things up.

Kudos to you, sir, for clearing up the confusion! 
Sounds like a well-loved pair of speakers.

[Mr. Big]

The dealer should have informed the buyer that the speakers were modified to be fair. I can understand the buyer being upset. Like all things audio what one person finds good the other might not, I had a guy who shore my changing caps to Mondofts and adding a resistor to the tweeter, swore by it, so I said come by and I give it a try, so he added the mods and we listened for a bit, well it took me one song in my head to say this is not a good change, everything was thrown off, the speaker sound just plan weird, the sonic balance was gone, after awhile I ask him lets go back to stock, so he took the changes out of the circuit and all the balance was back as Clayton designed them to sound. Like any mod, yes they will sound different but not better. Different yes. I tried mods over many years on and off, and I cam to my own conclusion, if I don't like the sound for my own taste than I sell that product and buy something new because how we buy gear is how the designer wanted them to sound.

[radarnyc]

So now the question is…why don’t they sound good. I seem to recall the guy that I bought my X3s from indicate that he had a First Watt with them initially and they sounded terrible. Is Tim O (shakeydeal) watching this thread?

[Early B.]

OK, so it sounds like two questions have been answered -- it's an 8-ohm speaker and the bypass caps are a minor concern. They can easily be removed, but probably not necessary. The OP reported listening to the first track and being underwhelmed -- this may be the real issue. Hopefully, he'll report back after breaking them in and listening for a while longer.