Audiovector X3 Super Loudspeakers - Review

[Macca]

It's been a long time since I had any metal driver speakers to play with, the last time was a pair of Studio Power MC2000s which I sold way back in 1993. Although I've had overall better speakers since I always missed that 'crispness' you only get from metal drivers. I've heard Audiovector loudspeakers before so when I spotted this minty pair going for a very reasonable price I thought I'd take a punt.

Original retail price seems to have been 1800 Euros but I did see some discounted to 1000 Euros at a bin-end warehouse seller.

There's not many reviews of this speaker out there and only one I could find in English language, Audiovector are a Danish company and sell mostly in continental Europe. After a lot of searching I did find one review with some measurements but can't find it again now so can't link to it. Essentially they are reasonably flat in frequency response but with a little upturn at both frequency extremes. Not so much a smiley-curve response that was always said in the past to characterise many European loudspeakers, these have more of a 'Mona Lisa' half smile.

What we have then is a two and half way speaker with a metal bass driver, metal bass/mid driver and metal dome tweeter standing about 3 and half feet tall, with a large port in the rear and a built-in plinth on the bottom. Spikes are supplied but I didn't use them, I have thick carpet and underlay over a concrete floor and never use spikes, just float the speakers on that.

Finish is in gloss white, but gloss black was also an option. A visitor did rave about the finish on them, describing it as 'flawless.' I think they look good in a sort of 'Bauhaus' way, like they need you to play some Kraftwerk on them right away. But regrettably I don't have any.

I compared the speakers to the JM Lab Focal Elektra 926 you can see sat next to them in the photo above. Although both speakers are similar in size the JM Lab weigh twice as much being a far more heavily engineered (and consequently far more expensive) speaker. The JM Lab are also a proper 3 way as opposed to a two and half so not at all a fair comparison although the gap between them turned out to be a lot less than you might expect.

System used was Audiolab CDT6000 CD transport into Soncoz SGD1-DAC into a Krell KSA100Mk2 power amp, I also tried them with a Linn LK100 power amp, more of which later.

The are several things you notice about these speakers as soon as they are fired up. They have a very solid bottom end on them, they never lose the bass line and on a recording where there's some wallop in the bass they deliver it forcefully. They keep the rhythm very well as a consequence, my foot actually got tired from tapping involuntarily.

You also notice that the speakers are very crisp and fast, percussion and acoustic guitar in particular showed this up. A metal cone is stiff so acts more like a piston than softer materials, in theory giving lower distortion especially on transients. This theory seemed to be borne out here. With sparse acoustic stuff like some Neil Young tunes the realism and clarity on offer was mesmerising.

The drive units are pretty small though so this did limit the max SPL a little. I could get them to start shouting a bit but only when cranked up to very high level, one beyond what I would ever want to listen at. Bass went deep enough and with enough power behind it for me to rate it as acceptable. They didn't quite match the JM Labs here but it was only really noticeable on just a couple of Erykah Badu songs which rely on a very deep bass line to make the rhythm work.

Bass tone was well portrayed though, there was texture and distinctive sound to it rather than just a low frequency noise. Lots of budget floorstanders don't achieve that.

The third thing you notice is a solidity and precision to the sound. They made the JM Labs sound a little diffuse by comparison. The flip side to that is they did sound a bit more 'box-bound' than the JM Labs (which can disappear like electrostatics do). If you prefer precise rhythm over soundstage you might prefer the Audiovectors though. Ideally you would want both but this is loudspeakers and they're all compromised in some way.

I think part of this 'solidity' is due to Audiovectors policy of minimal damping inside the cabs. Having designed speakers and experimented with this myself I think they are right in principle. But the flip side is you need to compensate with thick, heavily braced cabs and these speakers don't have sufficient there IMO. You can hear the box 'thrum' a little with powerful bass notes, not in a bad way, it never played its own tune, but it is a coloration and you don't want it really. Again though this is compared to a much more expensive speaker.

After a week or so powering the speakers with the Krell I decided to try another power amp with them so put in a Linn LK100. I actually slightly preferred the sound with this amp, with the Krell there was just too much bass slam sometimes, I think due to the speaker's boosted bottom end. Also the slightly sweet character of the Linn amp seemed to gel better with the super-crisp sound of the metal drivers and it all sounded a bit more natural. These differences were pretty small though.

The Linn is a 50watt amp, only half the power of the Krell, but had no trouble driving the speakers to acceptable levels without clipping and bass response remained good, so no need for using a powerhouse on these speakers.

One thing I did notice was the speakers were very good for low-level listening late on at night. I think partly because of the boosts in the frequency response at either extreme mimic the old 'Loudness' buttons on the amps of yesteryear, and also because of the crisp, clean sound of the drivers. Also be good for an A/V system in that respect I think, keeping dialogue clear even at low volumes.

On the whole then, a good speaker which impressed me more than I thought they would, as in general I'm not much of a fan of 2 way cone/dome speakers. Although overall they are not as good as the JM Lab they do some things equal or even better. Even after 3 weeks with them in the system I've not experienced any great desire to swap them out and I'm still enjoying listening to them right now with a bit of Issac Hayes. So that has to say something.