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Can anyone tell me what the difference between the Spendor BC1 and BC3 is? Which one is larger? Which one sounds better? Does anyone know the specifications of either of these??
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BC3s are larger, play lower & louder & also higher (containing a larger woofer + a super-tweeter), and possess (obligatory imho) even more of the mid-range magic that made ex-BBC engineer Spenser Hughes (r.i.p,), who also worked on the LS3/5a design, so justly famous. BC3s, if they can be placed clear of walls, are still the closest thing I have heard in a coned speaker to electrostats + balls + bass (tho bass remains a trade-off with room-pacement), wrt delicacy & "information retrieval". I say this as one who put my $$ where my mouth is -- I have owned a pair of BC3s for about 20 years. I bought them after exhaustive comparison (in at least 3 different cities with & vs. multiple alternative systems-- e.g., various Magnepans, Quad ESL 63's, Martin-Logan CLSs in whatever incarnation, B&W 801's ditto, Accoustat 3s, Infinity RS1Bs, large Duntechs, Monitor Audio MA3s, Apogee Scintillas, and, of course, the smaller Spender sisters). The only other loudspeaker I ever heard come close to my ideal was the Snell A3i -- louder, lower, but not quite as mid-range accurate tho closer than most. You don't need a lot of amp to drive the BC3s to good levels, but you do need the highest quality other components in the chain since the BC3s are more informative re which component you changed, e.g., than any other speaker I know. I think the term reviewers use is "mercilessly revealing" of other components. BTW, should you decide to buy a pair, I still have the "manual", such as it was, & can assist in set-up. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
BC3s are larger, play lower & louder & also higher (containing a larger woofer + a super-tweeter), and possess (obligatory imho) even more of the mid-range magic that made ex-BBC engineer Spenser Hughes (r.i.p,), who also worked on the LS3/5a design, so justly famous. BC3s, if they can be placed clear of walls, are still the closest thing I have heard in a coned speaker to electrostats + balls + bass (tho bass remains a trade-off with room-pacement), wrt delicacy & "information retrieval". I say this as one who put my $$ where my mouth is -- I have owned a pair of BC3s for about 20 years. I bought them after exhaustive comparison (in at least 3 different cities with & vs. multiple alternative systems-- e.g., various Magnepans, Quad ESL 63's, Martin-Logan CLSs in whatever incarnation, B&W 801's ditto, Accoustat 3s, Infinity RS1Bs, large Duntechs, Monitor Audio MA3s, Apogee Scintillas, and, of course, the smaller Spender sisters). The only other loudspeaker I ever heard come close to my ideal was the Snell A3i -- louder, lower, but not quite as mid-range accurate tho closer than most). You don't need a lot of amp to drive the BC3s to good levels, but you do need the highest quality other components in the chain since the BC3s are more informative re which component you changed, e.g., than any other speaker I know. I think the term reviewers use is "mercilessly revealing" of other components. BTW, should you decide to buy a pair, I still have the "manual", such as it was, & can assist in set-up. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
You might want to ask at the Spendor Classics group on Yahoo. They seem to have a wealth of information regarding the older Spendor models. See the link below.
Spendor's web site contains a "family tree" diagram showing various models and their ancestors, along with brief summaries. Just go to the History section.It looks like the BC1 evolved into the SP1/2 and the BC3 into the SP100, so I guess the BC3 is larger than the BC1, but I don't have any personal experience to back that up.
Ron
The BC3 is sort of a 4 way version of the BC1/BC2 with 12" woofer added. See answer in vintage section.
By the way an A at the end of a Spendor number, BC1A, BC3A means it's a powered version with built in amp. I don't think there were many of these exported to the US. They were more popular in Europe for professional use. I think the German radio industry used A versions for monitoring.
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