Open Baffle vs Box

If your room is smalliish... you won’t need subs unless you are listening to a lot of EDM( which at times I do and I add stereo subs)... additionally the bass you do have is very fast .. no overhang, no bloated farts, no boom.. just clean fast right low end. Admittedly open baffles need a lot of surface area to get really low, but I love my Spatials even without subs... imaging is open full of air and well defined. You have to make sure you have the space to pull them away from the walls at least 2 feet.. I was disappointed I didn’t get to hear Claytons new sapphires model this year at Rocky Mountain audio fest.. they look nice... AND when your neighbors are gone they can literally shake the house off the foundation .. it’s one of the speakers I own I feel do every genre of music justice. Jazz, big and small classical, rock, edm, acoustic guitar, everything... fantastic imaging...

@birdfan
Thanks. I don’t do hardly any EDM but rather lots of punk, reggae, 80’s/90’s alternative, hip hop with a sprinkling of metal and some deep sub bass exploration.

@helomech could you add some more of your experience in how bass behavior is different with the Spatials? I’m on the fence but since I listen to a lot of bass heavy music I’m trying to create a mental picture of how OB bass differs.

The bass of the M4s is articulate. It's not the fastest I've experienced but neither is it slow. The Vandys have lower extension by at least half an octave but that's to be expected. I did experience a small amount of bass-boom with the M4s after the woofers began to loosen up. However, I attribute that to my unusual room that has thick concrete walls on 3 sides and a concrete floor. It's the most challenging room I've ever dealt with in terms of bass, so I wouldn't fault the speakers.

I probably could have resolved the issue with different placement but I wasn't willing to compromise on that at the time. 

Spatial grants a 60-day in-home trial, so there's really nothing to risk aside from return shipping cost, which in my case was quite reasonable being that I'm only three states away. Even though I didn't keep them, I still believe they're one of the best (if not THE best) speaker values out there. Most speakers that sound their equal in absolute terms cost at least twice the price. 

@helomech Thanks!

audiosaurusrex


I think there is one more aspect of the new Spatial M3 that you will only know for sure by trying them at home....that is the saphire (ceramic) mid/tweet driver.

(from the Spatial Audio page on Audio Circle..." new wideband, large dome unit which operates from 500Hz to 40kHz"....and...." the 2 woofers operate in parallel below 100Hz, so the impedance drops to 4 Ohms.... Minimum is about 3 Ohms over a very narrow range)."    So, the way I read this....both 15" woofers operate together below 100hz...one 15" woofer covers 100-500hz and then the ceramic driver covers the rest.

I heard the original M3 non turbo units at Spatial in a somewhat small rectangular corner or their speaker assembly area in Salt Lake...and they sounded darn good...not a hint of brightness...so I'm guessing these sound even better....and with the 60 day home trial, the only thing you risk is a couple hundred bucks of return shipping....