Technics SC-CX700 ACTIVE LOUDSPEAKER

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

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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. 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.