Bookshelf Loudspeakers: Spendor SP3/1P

     What is one to do when music is more important than sound? When my wife and I bought a new house, we began to note the inevitable necessity of music in the living room, though neither of us wants a ten-component system dominating conversation. This journal has occasionally run pieces on compiling audiophile-grade systems for those whose musical sensibilities outstrip their patience for audiophilia, but what is an audiophile to do when he wants a downstairs system downstairs?
     Like many of you, I have an actual listening space (which I share with my home office), but I do not have time to luxuriate there all day. Alas, much of my listening occurs in my car, in which resides a _nice little system - excellent bass, tolerable imaging, unsafe maximum volume - for which I make no apologies. And much of the rest of my listening occurs in my living room, reading the paper, chatting with my wife, entertaining friends. Decorum alone would prohibit the display of expensive electronic equipment in here.
     Nonetheless, music being an enduring element of my life, doing without seems impossible, and here our quest begins. Assembling a small system (CD, integrated, speakers) for the living room presents expediencies for the seizing. Armed with a modest CD player and amplifier, I undertook the survey of a small number of petite speakers. The idea was simple: a respectable and musical pair of boxes that could be placed on inconspicuous stands (or, hush, actually pressed into service apposite their nomenclature: on a bookshelf).
     It should not have surprised me that nearly every available shoebox-sized woofer and tweeter would begin rolling in. Manufacturers are more willing to part with $1,500 loudspeakers than with $10,000 tube amplifiers. I resolved to give each a fair hearing, beginning with time on a more sophisticated "reference" system in my main listening room, and then moving the operations to the living room. Herewith the beginning of a series of speaker reviews, apropos of a literal "downstairs" system. Damn, these little things are heavy.

Downstairs, Downscale
     The Spendor SP3/1P is the latest incarnation from the dependable British manufacturer whose single greatest liability seems to be an omerta involving the naming of their speakers. Let me attempt to translate: the Spendor Model Three (the "3"), the smallest among the single-digit speakers, in its first iteration (the "1"), which is actually its second iteration, the first having no port and the one in question adding a rear-firing port (the "P"). Why it is not the 3/2 is anyone's guess, this kind of arcane obfuscation a seeming guilty pleasure to those pesky Brits.
     For some reason, the Spenders initially impressed me as more workmanlike than the effete-looking Aerial 5. At $1,495 (plus stands), there is the $500 difference (which buys a lot of veneer), but that can't be it. Perhaps it is that Spenders have always been unremarkable in the best sense, or that my sample pair was finished in the dreaded "black ash." (One imagines an endangered forest of black ash trees, clearcut by callous logging concerns. Does Spendor plant black ash trees in a show of enlightened environmentalism?) In any event, a rather attractive cherry finish is also available.
     This is a frustrating speaker, not because it is not good - it is. Rather, I struggle to describe in writing what I have heard, for its sum is not always represented by its parts. What the Spenders do wrong is easy to catalog: its faults are endemic to small speakers, and it is not uncolored. But somehow the Spendor manages to communicate music in spite of its faults, and for this deserves serious consideration in a modest system.
     To begin, the Spenders' port, while boosting the speakers' efficiency, complicates placement somewhat. Doug MacLeods You Can't Take My Blues [JVCXR-0027] boasts superb, coherent electric bass, but it plunges deep and quickly, and can excite the Spenders' ports something wicked - everything below the upper bass sounds like the same note. You can ameliorate this problem, of course, by moving the speakers closer to the front wall, but at the expense of some spaciousness of the soundstage.
     In other parts of the spectrum, the Spendors excel at emphasizing the yin in music. Richard Buckner's "Song of 27" sounds supremely calm, perhaps at the expense of some of its edginess. In "Lil Wallet Picture," the Spendors offer excellent Spatial delineation between the steel, the guitar, and the mandolin, even lending an air of the pacific to another of Buckner's anxiously obsessive tales.
     Throughout my listening, the Spendors' tone proved elusive and highly dependent on particular recordings. On Van Morrison's Moondance (Direct Disk Labs SD 16604), there is exceptional tonal accuracy in the steel-string guitar on "Caravan," and, with the speakers judiciously positioned, very fine, if not visceral, bass definition. On the 1962 Jack Marshall and Shelly Manne funfest, Sounds Unheard Of! [Contemporary S9006], the first salient trait was a superb sense of image and depth, as Mannes percussion chases itself around the speakers. Still, despite superior tonal definition of nylon-string guitar, quite good midrange transients, and accurate portrayal of the cymbals' reverberation, I could not help but think the bass was overstuffed at times.
     The drums that introduce "The Continental" exhibit space and midrange transients capably, but their weight is compromised and there is a thickness in the lowest guitar notes. Manne and Marshall's 1966 follow-up, Sounds [Capitol ST2610], is also an audiophile spectacular, more convincingly reproduced on the Spendors than its predecessor. Not surprisingly, recordings with bass slightly to somewhat reserved (which is to say, most non-audiophile spectaculars) fare quite well. The eponymous debut of the bluegrass Old & In The Way quintet [Round Records RX 103] offers excellent delineation of vocals in its folksy cover of "Wild Horses."
     Up-tilted recordings like Paul Desmonds Pure Desmond [CTI 6059 SI] create a synergy with the Spenders, allowing their greatest strength, an incredibly precise sense of image, to emerge. On the Cowboy Junkies' debut, The Trinity Session [RCA 8568-2], the first tracks flapping air vent is obvious behind and to Margo Timmins' right, her voice planted precisely at center. The Spendors can be pushed a little, but an unflinching 100 watts may be a little much. On the Cowboy Junkies' "Dreaming my Dreams with You," a familiar theme sounds: The bass is loose, the image otherwise precise.
     To this point, however, methinks the protest too loud. The last example suffices: the Spendors, despite their faults, are intoxicating. As soon as Margo Timmins begins to sing, and this Gemini stops listening with his anal-retentive side, he finds the Spendors rather more than capable in portraying the emotion of music. One is reminded of Horowitz or perhaps Garcia: While the technical aspects were at times unfathomable, they seldom failed to convey the emotion and soul of music. Is this a components job in the way that it is a musician's? I don't know, but I know that music is rather seductive through the Spenders, whatever their faults.
     The seduction continued downstairs. A visitor stared in disbelief at speakers ten feet apart, while Sarah Vaughan appeared between them, precisely. There was no apologizing, though, for Vaughan's unexpected testosterone rush, another manifestation of the Spenders' mellow balance. Margo Timmins' voice was also creamy, as was the lush guitar on "Blue Moon" (not on the original RCA album but on the CD and thankfully restored on the Classic reissue). Dusty Springfield's opening "Just a Little Lovin"' was simply dreamy, with the Spendors mitigating some of the top-end harshness on this white soul gem.
      In spite of their suavity, the Spendors did not soften the midrange. In "Stolen Moments," from Blues and the Abstract Truth, Nelson's tenor solo has the sting of the saxophone, and Freddie Hubbards trumpet conveys the proper tone in "Yearnin.'" On Ansermet's Borodin, the Spendors' portrayal of image triumphed yet again, and here it was instructive: not the over-focus of hi-fi, but the more amorphous precision of the real thing.
     With the low-powered Anthem on the Borodin, the Spendors compressed macrodynamics noticeably; with the Quicksilvers, they were overtaxed. But again, I am struggling to describe the utterly generous emotion conveyed by music through the Spenders. While this is not a product in the same league as, say, the Joule Electra OPS-2 phono stage (in either price or fidelity), there is some of the latters magic in the former: Despite all the faults, what they both communicate is music, and they remind us just how didactic criticism can become. The Spendors have substantial flaws, as do any audio products and especially those suitable to "downstairs" systems. But they are also, in their odd little British way, faithful to the soul of music; and while I can find many faults in my head, my heart hears nary a peep that is not sweet music.
     At this point on the price ladder, there are many good speakers, but no great ones that I'm aware of. Compromises are fairly substantial - in this light, is it acceptable to choose a piece of equipment that is pleasing even if not musically accurate? I think so: Who is to say that extended highs are more important than extended bass, or that a sin of commission, like a muddy midbass, is worse than a missing top end? Who, further, can say that the head counts more than the heart? The Spendor 3/1 is a music lover's speaker. And so it deserves consideration, most especially by those who were, and are, music lovers long before they are audiophiles.

Mick Evans 1999-2000

Last updated 29 February 2000

e-mail kevlar@kevlar.karoo.co.uk