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I Ordered a Pair of SP Tech Speakers

After much exhausting research, I ended up ordering a pair of SP Technology Timepiece 3.0 speakers a couple of weeks ago. This company flys low under the radar, so I thought I'd post this to help boost the existance of the company. Personally, I have never heard or seen (in person) any of their speakers, but decided to take a huge risk and try them. The reasons? There are many, but I'm interested in the waveguide technology (explained in detail on their site at www.4sptech.com) as well as the fact that they are professional (studio) speakers that are suitable for home stereo use. I own my own home recording studio and I'll use these (on occasion) to audition my mixes on in my living room. As far as the reviews on these speakers, there has never been anything less than fabulous written about them. I've also never seen any for sale used outside of a couple of show demos. That in itself speaks volumes. SP Tech is a small company with the usual large problems condusive of making a superior product, and because of that, there are the usual longwait times and (seemingly) never ending delays. Such is life though when your product isn't mass produced. I'm hoping that once these speakers get into the hands (and ears) of more consumers, that the company will reap the benefits that they deserve. I'm also hoping that the state of the economy doesn't lead to longer production times. If you're looking for a new set of speakers, I highly recommend looking at SP Technology. They are a dedicated group of individuals who sacrifice a lot to make what are arguably the best speakers made today in the eyes of a lucky few. I hope this thread will grow with testaments from those who own SP Tech speakers. Let's see if we can't help them start flying above the radar for a change.
spenceroo
spenceroo OP
183 posts
 
Oops,
Maybe I should clarify that statement and say that there's not many competitors with waveguide technology.
audiokinesis
1,872 posts
 
Spenceroo, I agree that there are not many competitors to SP Tech that use waveguide technology.

KEF and Pioneer TAD Home Audio and Tannoy and Gradient and Nomad (and probably a few others that I can't remember offhand) use coaxial drivers where the woofer cone acts as a waveguide for the tweeter. The problem is, it's not physically possible to get an ideal waveguide shape (along with throat transition and smooth mouth flare into the baffle) with this format. Still, it's possible to get a significant improvement in radiation pattern control with a good coaxial configuration.

Amphion uses a fairly shallow, wide-pattern waveguide and I think they are pretty close, conceptually, to what SP Tech is doing - but Amphion does it in a much narrower cabinet and so they won't have good pattern control down as low as the SP Tech device. YG Acoustics uses an even shallower waveguide in their designs, so it's probably only a marginal improvement over a flat baffle.

For a while Earl Geddes was manufacturing and selling large-format 90-degree waveguide-based speakers here in the US. Geddes is the source for modern waveguide theory, and I believe the SP Tech waveguide draws on his foundational work. At the moment, Geddes' designs are being manufactured in Thailand for the prosound market and he does not currently have US distribution.

The Emerald Physics CS2 uses a 75-degree pattern waveguide for the high frequency section mated to a dipole woofer section via a DSP crossover, with bi-amplification required. The larger prototypes shown at RMAF 2006 and CES 2007 used a 90-degree waveguide.

Yours truly uses a 90-degree waveguide based on the work of Geddes. I think the SP Tech waveguide is 110 or 120 degrees, but otherwise what we're doing is conceptually similar - though we have different ideas about crossover points and a few other details.

There are several prosound companies (Genelec comes to mind) that use waveguides in the design of their monitors.

I'm sure there are others that I'm inadvertently leaving out. By way of disclosure, I either presently am or have been a dealer for several of the lines mentioned in this post.

Duke
gene_bonin
8 posts
 
Spenceroo,
I'm sorta in the same boat. I recently ordered a pair of TP mini's unseen and unheard. I blame it on all the positive posts on the SP Tech Circle. I'm really looking forward to it. Now I'm in a search for a proper amp. Always something.

Gene
tedmbrady
208 posts
 
I own a complete 5.1 set of SP Tech speakers, with the top-of-the-line Revelations (w/ Ultimate Mundorf external crssovers) being the first to arrive (two days after Christmas). The huge Mundorf caps are finally near break-in (600 hours) and I am more than pleased with the result (understatement). Pat (rx8man) loved the sound he heard from my setup, too.

Next to arrive are three Continuum A.D's, each with external Mundorf crossovers One as center, the other pair as dedicated music surrounds). Bob should have those to me in the next 20 days or so.

I am in awe of what the Sp Tech design is doing for my 3500 cubic foot room. The dynamics, speed, leading edge transients, bass response, transparency (almost mini-monitor-like) and overall "sheer nakedness" (as reviewer/recording engineer extraordinare Jim Merod called it) are surprising me every day. I'm done for quite awhile with the merry-go-round called speaker evaluation.
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
i am looking for speakers. i won't consider a cone design. i have 2 candidates, namely the analysis audio omega and the quads unlimited quads.

bot of these speakers are alternatives to the sps and therefore are competitors.

there are no best speakers. it's about perception and preference.

it s a shame that there isn't one or perhaps 5 speakers preferred by most "audiophiles". such a situation would make speaker selection much easier. alas, there are too many speakers and its hard to hear all of them.
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