I think I could live with either, but didn't spend nearly as much time listening to the Emeralds. The Emeralds that were being played came in at a much higher price point I believe. Not sure they match the efficiency specs of the Spatial either. The Spatials just seemed to check all the right boxes plus a 45 day in-home audition sounded very attractive. This all said, there's still a few issues that have to be clarified. First being the 4 ohm nominal impedance statement in their specs. I really wanted to see " 4 ohm minimal" as I use tube amplification. Maybe they have a tube friendly impedance curve as Clayton stated, but I've got to verify for sure. Also I believe there is a restocking fee if you return the speakers. I don't think I'd ever return them based on what I heard at RMAF, but one never knows until they're actually in your room. I have a very small listening room ( 11 x 11) and the only speaker that has 100% worked in that room has been an Ohm 1000. The Soundfield Monitor 1's also do fine in this small setting, but not quite the equal of the 1000's. When I spoke with Clayton about room size, he felt they would work fine in a small room, but.....? Research continues and your thoughts would be appreciated.
Hi Mick,
My listening room is 12 ft. wide by 16.7 ft. long by 9.9 ft. high (approximately 1980 cubic feet). According to some sources I have read, this would be considered a small medium sized room.
I live in Italy where very little is made of wood so this room has stone/marble floors and plaster walls and ceiling. The wall to the left of me (as i face the speakers) has, in the last 3rd of the wall (the part farthest from the speakers), a 7.8 ft. by 6.9 ft. picture window. The wall to the right of me has a door made of wood frame and large glass panels... much more glass than wood. This door is at the same relative position as the picture window and is just about the same size. On the wall behind me there is, way to the left of me, a smaller door which is one third wood (the lower third) and two thirds glass (the upper two thirds).
As you can imagined, when this room was devoid of any furniture or rug it was a sonically a very live room, to say the least.
Other than just furnishing the room I have done no specific acoustic treatments. I have a large leather armchair and a two seat leather divan (where my listening position is located). On the floor I have placed a largish persian rug (which still leaves a relatively large space... 2.6 ft... of stone floor exposed on every side). I have rather thick drapes on the picture window and much thinner drapes on the entrance door (and I hardly ever close them).
I have not covered the door going out to the terrace at all.
In each corner of the front wall (the ones behind the speakers) I have placed a CD holder which is 6.5 ft. tall, 8 inches wide and 8 inches deep (these are the ones that IKEA sells). These CD holders are not placed flush with either wall but rather are set kitty corner. I have them set this way to help attenuate any possible bass issues. On the wall behind me i have hung a small persian rug (33 inches by 50 inches).
The room, set up this way... without any other treatments... has served me through 4 different speaker systems and the sound was actually pretty good in that I seemed to have no significant issues.
Then a couple of years ago, when I was running my Gallo Reference 3.5 speakers (the ones I was using prior to purchasing the Hologram M2s) I decided to try the Spatial Audio HD room correction and I discovered that it was indeed needed. The improvement was really significant and I was able to hear, for the first time, just what my system was capable of. The sound went from good to really great.
Although the intention is to have Clayton do the room correction for the M2s up to now no correction has been effected. The correction that was done for the 3.5s is useless with the M2s, so I am totally bypassing Spatial HD.
And the point of all this is:
The M2s without any room correction outshine the Gallo 3.5s with room correction by a considerably WIDE margin. The difference is NOT subtle. It is significant. And this is true no matter where I place the M2s in my listening room!!
Given the M2s ability to integrate and play so well in my room no matter where I position them, I am going to go out on a limb and say that i am pretty sure that they will also work very well in your room. But as you so aptly pointed out, you will not know until you try them in your environment.
If you have read the various previews written by reviewers who have experienced the Holograms at the HiFi shows where Clayton was showing them, you probably are aware of the fact that the Holograms' room friendliness is one of the things that was noted. At the Axpona show in Chicago (where Clayton was showing the base model M2, not the Turbo version) one reviewer was particularly impressed with this feature.
Here is the link to that preview:
AXPONA 2014: Spatial has got your skinny | Confessions of a Part-Time Audiophile
While I can't help you with the restocking issue i can tell you this:
Unless you happen to get a pair of Holograms which have been considerably broken in, these speakers, out of the box, will sound ''hot'' ( a hard edgy sound in the highs) and they will need a lot of run-in time to really smooth out. This is probably the reason why Clayton offers a 45 day trial period rather than the usual 30 days.
