Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Hi-fi firms have begun in garages. The English Spendor company was started in a bathtub. Or was it a kitchen sink?

By days in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Spencer Hughes worked as part of the BBC's loudspeaker research team. Among other accomplishments, he helped develop the 5" midrange/woofer for the fabled LS3/5A loudspeaker.

As speaker designers from Henry Kloss to Sonus Faber's Franco Serblin have told me, designing a successful 5" driver is "a doddle" (British for easy) compared to creating an 8" or larger cone. "It becomes harder to maintain clarity, focus, speed, and midrange accuracy," the late Sr. Serblin told me over a latte.

Hughes, apparently, thought the same. At home he struggled long and hard to develop an 8" mid/woofer cone of Bextrene, a mix of acetate and cellulose (footnote 1). Misshapen cones piled up in his garage, until he got the cone's consistency just right.

Since he was still on staff at the BBC, Hughes felt honor-bound to offer them his new driver and the speaker design that used it. But the bigwigs there told him they wanted something more suited to modern music—ie, raucous rock. Free to strike out on his own, Hughes agreed to pay the BBC a small royalty for each BC-1 that he and his wife, Dorothy, sold through their new company: Spen(cer) + Dor(othy) = Spendor.

Soon after Spendor Audio Systems started production, the BBC changed its tune. Maybe they could use a larger, more accurate studio monitor after all. They began ordering BC1s. (Civilization carries on at the BBC's Radio 3.) Later, the BBC developed its own version, the LS3/6, which it licensed to Rogers Loudspeakers, which was then owned by Hughes's former BBC colleague, Jim Rogers. Stirling Broadcast makes a BBC-licensed version today.

For the BC1, Spendor sent out for a tweeter: a Celestion HF1300. Using OEM HF drivers has been Spendor's custom ever since. Spendor makes their own midrange and bass drivers in-house, but producing tweeters is an entirely different process. Some companies, like Focal, make woofers and tweeters in separate facilities. I've seen men and women making woofers, but only women assembling tweeters.

Spendor is now owned by a chap named Philip Swift, himself a speaker designer and co-founder of Audiolab. The factory is in Hailsham, in East Sussex. The speaker cabinets are produced elsewhere in England.

Spendor's Classic series is still in production—the SP1/2R2 is a direct descendant of the BC1: same size, same lossy, resonant, thin-walled wooden cabinet, same BBC-studio sound—BBC 3, at any rate. (What a joy it is to have BBC 3, which remains devoted to classical programming, via Internet radio.) Sales are especially strong in Asia. I owned a pair of BC1s from 1974 to 1978, and a pair of original SP1s in the mid-1980s.

I'd describe the sound of Spendor's Classic models as extended and sweet in the treble, smooth but ever so slightly polite in the midrange, and somewhat warm in the bass. I used to feel a somewhat spiritual attachment to the speakers, especially the BC1—as if they were handmade musical instruments, something almost alive. I would stroke the cabinets before going to bed. Goodnight, Spencer (the left speaker). Goodnight, Dorothy (the right).

40 years on, Spendor is still known for getting the midrange right. I was delighted to discover that this has been carried over to their new floorstanding model, the D7. It sells for $6495/pair (add $1000 for a premium finish). No stands necessary.

The D7
The D7 benefits from all the things Spencer Hughes couldn't dream of. Computer-aided design. Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) with computer-numerical control (CNC) machines. The ability to whip up and test prototype drivers within hours rather than weeks or months. Automation.

The D7 has a small footprint, as they say on the sales floor: 38" high (including spikes) by a mere 7.5" wide by 12.5" deep. Each weighs 46 lbs. A built-in platform ensures stability around dogs, cats, drunks. Each speaker has a port in a recessed chamber under the speaker connectors. Spike 'em good. (When the BC1 was invented, spikes had not yet been thought of.)

The D7's claimed sensitivity is 90dB/W/m. Its nominal impedance is specified as 8 ohms, not dropping below 4.5 ohms. I preferred the 8 ohm taps on my Quicksilver Silver 88 tubed monoblocks—a superb combination with the D7s, as was my solid-state Musical Fidelity M6PRX stereo power amp. Preamp? None, of course. I used my Music First Baby Reference transformer volume control. A trusty, vintage Denon DCD-1650AR CD player provided digital output to my Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista DAC.

The D7s did take some running in to come on song, as the British like to say. Dynamics opened up as the midrange and bass drivers limbered up. The bass extension improved over time, to the point where it is now excellent. Indeed, the D7 is one of the finest loudspeakers I have had in my listening room. I take back everything bad I've written about floorstanding speakers: troublesome bass, poor integration of drivers in the nearfield, etc.

Jay Rein, of Bluebird Music Limited, Spendor's North American distributor, delivered the Spendors and plopped them down in my listening room, where I'd laid down tape to mark the positions of some other speakers. Since then, I haven't moved the D7s so much as an inch. They're about 3' from the sidewalls, 4' from the front wall, and about 9' apart. My listening chair is 6' from the speakers. I find it far easier to move my Throne (as Marina calls it) than the speakers.

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Footnote 1: Martin Colloms clarifies that "the cone was of a moldable sheet plastic called Bextrene, a copolymer of butyl rubber and polystyrene previously used by KEF. Spen's labors concerned getting the choice of PVC plastic and its profile right for the surround/suspension, also the critical flare of the Bextrene cone, the mass and build of the voice-coil, and the hand-applied PVA damping painted on to both sides in multiple layers. He understood how to voice a cone assembly."