Thoughts and experiences on the Spendor SP100 R2

I bought a demo pair with stands from a dealer in my area last year and love them. They do everything extremely well with no listener fatigue ever. Maybe not headbanger speakers but I do listen to a good deal of album rock on them. Outstanding on acoustical music of course, and spooky good imaging on ambient. No buyers remorse here.

Agree completely with jjss49. 
I have owned 19 different pairs of good speakers, and the SP100'S the only speakers that I regret selling. I had several others between them and my current Klipsch Epics, and I do love the Epics, but I love the SP100 just as much. The Epics are more dynamic and somewhat larger in scale, but as soon as I got them. I noticed that in comparison to the Spendor, there was a certain warmth in the mid bass that added an ineffable richness to the music that I missed. 
They are soo god at everything overall that I would recommend them to anyone. They are good for all types of music, but yes, if you are an audiophile who picks everything apart to the nth degree, they may not be for you; but they are a speaker that satisfies every time that you sit with them, and you never feel like you are missing the content, or the intent of the music you are listening to. 
I give them 5 stars.

 

How about a comparison to their lesser siblings? I hope this will not feel like derailing the thread. I'm thinking about upgrading from the SP2/3R2, which I love, to the SP100R2, but I couldn't find a single comparison between them. Should I expect better midrange detail due to the 3 way construction? Also, any extra punch to be gained? (I mean impactfull, hard hitting upper- and mid-bass, not talking about extended, full and weighty bass which I'm sure is much superior) Any downsides (like lesser coherence, maybe)?

Oh, and would they fit in a 23 square meters room with about 80 cm free space behind and playing at a moderate volume level? Maybe it's not wise, but I'm more tempted to move to the SP100R2's than to add a pair of subwoofers...

Thank you!

I can't help you with the comparison, but I can tell you that the SP100s were very tolerant of a smaller 12 x 15 room. I had no problem with bass nodes. They were on Sound Anchor stands.   

@donquichotte

i have not heard the sp2/3 r2, but historically, the sp2 line was a true two way (with a single tweeter) and counterintuitively, this model was known to have most midrange and midbass warmth of all the 3 founding models (s100 the big brother, sp1 the middle brother, and sp2 the little brother), despite the bass extension to the lowest octave was most limited (almost non existent) - the cost of this warmth was a loss of transparency and tactility through the treble and mids, although the midrange still sounds quite ’beautiful’

the bc1/sp1 was the founding model, with the best midrange magic, very good treble, and decent/passable bass, tremendous overall transparency

the s100 gave you almost as good midrange magic, terrific transparency and coherence, but even more extended highs and significantly deeper weightier fuller bass -- and, very importantly, the biggest soundstage

over time i am sure the revisions to the sp2 series, leading to the r2 designation, gave it (and all their revised speakers) more treble energy and touch more bass speed, but overall, these speakers still all have a more ’rolling’ or ’enveloping’ nature of bass energy, rather than ’pounding/slammy’ bass... this applies to the big bro s100 as well, although once again, each revision improves the slam marginally

(side note - this is why spendor launched the a and d series of floor standing ’modern sound’ speakers... with greater overt transparency, speed and slam - the two lines are as differentiated in style of sound as they are in their appearance)

all this is all a long way of saying, i think the sp2 series is most compromised in terms of the legendary spendor magic top to bottom transparency and coherence, and has the smallest soundstage, so my suggestion to you would be to get a sp1/2 series speaker and couple THAT with good subs for the best sound with the more slammy bass you seek -- or -- just go for d7 or d9’s if you don’t losing a little midrange magic and timbral accuracy for modern hifi traits in the highs and lows

sorry for the meander... hope this helps nonetheless