Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

The usual Specifications sidebar in this review is a nuts-and-bolts listing of the electrical and physical properties of the Technics SC-CX700 loudspeaker ($2999.99/pair), who made it and where, and a widely varying amount of information about its electrical and acoustical performance. The information comes from the included literature, available downloads, and whatever I could find on the manufacturer's website.

Note the complete absence of the usual technical information about the design or construction of the coaxial driver or about the crossover frequency and slope. Missing, too, are performance specifications for frequency response, sound-pressure level, and distortion. That disappoints me because I like numbers, but all the really interesting stuff about these speakers—though expressed without as many numbers as I'd wish—can be found on the Technics website (footnote 1). These include: what Technics calls "Acoustic Solitude Construction," which isolates the electronics from the loudspeakers structurally and spatially; "Model Based Diaphragm Control," which adjusts diaphragm movement in real time; and "Space Tune," which includes four acoustical presets and two levels of measurement-based room correction. In this review, I will weave that information into my own observations.

The CX700 wireless speaker system embodies two important trends in 21st century loudspeaker design. The first is the use of a coaxial driver. The concept is not new; it dates to the massive Tannoy Dual Concentric and Altec Lansing 604 Super Duplex Concentric drivers of the mid–20th century, but those were pretty much sui generis, heroic designs that did not trickle down to the market's lower reaches. It took advances in materials science and engineering to arrive at the sophisticated coaxial drivers becoming popular today. One of these drivers is the basis of Technics's passive loudspeakers, including these.

The other trend is what is referred to as "wireless speakers." Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call them "integrated speakers," or "system loudspeakers," because they integrate everything necessary for a complete stereo system that can access, control, and stream music wirelessly (or with a wired Ethernet connection) from a wide selection of online streaming sources as well as local file sources without any other equipment. Physical sources are also fair game: a CD player, a smart TV—even a turntable with no phono preamp as long as it uses a moving magnet cartridge. This speaker system also offers tone controls, room EQ, and a subwoofer output.

Arrival and setup
The pair of charcoal-black CX700s arrived in a single 50lb cardboard box, each nestled into multilayer corrugated blocks to support and protect it. At first this seemed archaic in this age of custom plastic forms, but the packaging was entirely suitable. The speakers were well-protected even though they took a detour to managing editor Mark Henninger before coming to me. Plus, it's nice to know that the packaging (and the speakers!) are CARB phase 2 compliant for formaldehyde emissions. The packaging is recyclable.

As I reached in to lift out each speaker, I realized that, first, these are hefty for their size; second, they have slotted vents like those on amplifiers; and third, their front and sides are covered in a suede-like material that's nice to touch and makes the speaker easy to grip. Many and perhaps most wireless speakers have a "primary" speaker that houses all the electronics (except in some cases, for the other speaker's amplifiers). As in most such cases, the primary and secondary speakers are easy to distinguish by the population of switches on the top and back panel: The primary speaker, of course, has far more switches. The primary CX700 can be positioned right or left, whichever is closer to the input connections; R/L signal routing can be selected to suit. Because each speaker contains its own amplification, both speakers must be plugged in to an AC outlet.

The two speakers have similar dimensions and structure. The single coaxial driver dominates the front, with its silver diaphragm and tweeter. The black woofer surround transitions smoothly to a wide, rubbery, contoured ring that in turn grades smoothly into a flat front panel. The woofer's center pole is flared to smooth the transition from the ring radiator tweeter to the woofer cone; diffractive transitions seem to be avoided here. There is a wide rectangular port below the coaxial driver. At its bottom edge is a blue LED power indicator and, on the primary speaker, a sensor for the supplied remote control.

Each speaker is vented via a series of small slots on its top surface which, in aggregate, vent the space that isolates the power electronics from the loudspeaker drivers (the aforementioned Acoustic Solitude Construction). A lateral cutaway view shows a substantial partition between the vented enclosure in the front and the separate, independently vented enclosure in the rear.

In addition, the primary speaker has a control/indicator panel on the top surface, above the acoustical compartment. Controls include On/Standby, Mute, Volume (up and down), and a seven-button/LED array to select the input: Ethernet, Bluetooth, optical, HDMI, USB, Aux (line-level analog), and Phono (to connect that moving magnet phono cartridge). The seven LEDs also serve as error indicators. There is also a microphone for room-correction measurements.

The rear panels are not the same at all. The secondary speaker has only an AC input receptacle, an RJ45 jack for making a wired connection with the primary speaker, and a button for pairing it wirelessly with the primary. This pairing is done at the factory, but this button can be used should that pairing fail or should one of the speakers need to be replaced.

The primary, on the other hand, is busy with connections. In addition to the AC input and the RJ45 for that inter-speaker cable, there's a wired output for a subwoofer (RCA), a switch to change L/R channel assignment, and the actual inputs corresponding to six of the seven signal inputs mentioned above. (You don't need a wired input for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth!)

Finally, there's a ground post for the phono input.

The CX700 can be operated with the provided remote control, the buttons on the top of the Primary speaker, or the Technics Audio Center app for your smartphone or tablet. Setup, however, demands use of the app; it is one of the most comprehensive and coherent control apps I've used. The speaker-top operations are limited and will likely not be as convenient to access as the remote control or the phone app. The app offers a graphic interface, which I find essential for music selection, but keeping the remote at the listening seat makes it handy to change, skip, or repeat tracks, to play or pause the music, or to adjust the volume if your phone or tablet's battery life is low or if you just don't feel like opening the app.

Where to put them?
Technics doesn't offer dedicated stands for the CX700s and did not offer me a pair. Many who buy these speakers will probably stack them on a console or other furniture; anyway, when it comes to speaker stands, you're on your own. I had none, so I appealed to my Stereophile colleagues; Editor Jim Austin rescued me by Ubering over a pair of generic, 20"-high steel stands. Until then, I put the CX700s on an open, wall-to-wall shelf that runs across the front of my room, just in front of the windows. That put them about 6.5' apart, about 15' from me and a couple of feet behind my KEF Blade Twos—not a configuration I would suggest or typically use myself.

When I prepared to play something, I found that one must choose a Space Tune setting; there is no obvious bypass option (footnote 2). I tried the acoustical presets for "Near a Wall" and "On a Shelf." With either, the CX700 sounded warm, a little dull, and small—not what I was hoping for. Setting it to "Free" made things worse, and "Corner" wiped away the bass.

I was very happy when the stands arrived, and I quickly placed them and the CX700s in front of the Blades about 7' apart and about 11' from my listening spot. As soon as I turned them on, using the now relevant "Free" setting, I knew things were going right—but were they right enough? There was still a lot to decide. Are there too many options?

Yes. And no. In addition to the four fixed Acoustical Presets (Free, Wall, Corner, Shelf; footnote 3), Space Tune offers two measurement-based options. They operate similarly, by delivering a series of pulses and sweeps to each speaker and using the recorded result to calculate a room-correction filter. The first of these two measurement options, called Auto, utilizes the microphone in the primary speaker, while the second, called Measured, utilizes the microphone on the smartphone the Technics app is running on. The Measured setting, taken at the listening position, should result in more effective correction.

That's a total of six correction options and an unlimited number of placement options. I chose to listen to three: On the front-wall shelf where the speakers started out, in front of the Blades as described above, and a similar configuration with the CX700s 9' apart. With all the correction possibilities, that's 18 combinations. Rather than describe them all, I'll offer some general observations.

The fixed presets make the differences you would expect: "Corner" lowers the bass compared to "Free." "Wall" is somewhere in between "Corner" and "Free"—only a bit warm but also brighter. The "Shelf " setting sounded thin in all three locations, probably because the speakers were not really on a shelf.

None of the fixed presets in any position let the CX700s sound as good as the results of either "Auto" or "Measured."

The results from "Auto" were well-balanced tonally, but with all three positions, they tended to be spatially expanded—"too big"—and endowed voices with a certain aura; my notes say "over ripe."

Consistently, the results from the "Measured" EQ, the ones made using the microphone at the listening position, were the most natural, balanced, and spacious sounding. Given the ease of doing it, this should be every CX700 user's default preset.

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Footnote 1: See us.technics.com/products/wireless-speaker-system-cx700.

Footnote 2: Technics tells me, "Free is the factory default and would be considered the standard setting."

Footnote 3: There is another preset, L/R Custom, which permits the user to assign any one of the four named presets to each channel individually. This is useful with asymmetric room layouts.