John Darko
Technics’ SC-CX700 is an active two-way standmount loudspeaker with streaming smarts whose Ethernet and wireless inputs talk to Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Google Cast and Roon Readiness. Technics’ Audio Center (TAC) app wraps Qobuz, Amazon Music, Tidal, and Deezer and adds speaker placement EQ and – for iPhone users – SpaceTune room optimisation. We can additionally send the primary speaker a digital signal from: a CD transport over TOSLINK; a TV over HDMI ARC; a PC or Mac over USB-C; and, if you’re not network streaming, via AAC/SBC Bluetooth.
The primary SC-CX700 speaker’s plastic top plate gives us touch controls for input selection and click buttons for volume up/down, power on/off and mute. Vinyl spinners aren’t left out in the cold: connect a phono stage to the (digitised) 3.5mm line-level aux socket or tap the (digitised) internal MM phono stage via the neighbouring RCA sockets.
The primary speaker hands off a digital signal to the secondary speaker over a 24bit/192kHz wired (or 24bit/96kHz wireless) connection. An unfiltered subwoofer output allows us to mine for musical information below the SC-CX700’s natural bass roll-off but Technics has yet to specify a -3dB point. There’s a choice of three ‘Dinamica’ fabric finishes: Silk Grey, Charcoal Black or Terracotta Brown. Price? US$2999 or €2499 per pair.
So far, so basic. So, let’s dig a little deeper…
The Dinamica™️ fabric wrap comes from Asahi Kasei — the Japanese company that makes AKM DAC chips also produces fabrics for the car industry. According to my Technics contact, Dinamica™️ can be found in SEAT cars.
That ‘soft-suede’-like Dinamica™️ wraps an MDF cabinet whose front chamber houses the drivers and the rear chamber the streaming electronics amplifiers. Vibration insulation comes by way of an internal divider and an 8mm air gap. Technics calls this ‘Acoustic Solitude Construction’.
The amplification used in each speaker isn’t Class A/B or Class D. It’s digital. This is where the interceding DAC stage is foregone in favour of the PWM signal switching the output devices directly. According to Technics, a ‘JENO Engine’ jitter corrects the PWM signal in both speakers before 60 Watts of amplification is applied to the mid/bass driver and 40 Watts to the coaxially aligned ‘ring’ tweeter.
Technics asserts that a ring tweeter’s lower weight permits faster rise and fall times than a traditional dome tweeter. The SC-CX700’s ring tweeter output is phase-corrected by something called ‘Linear Phase Equalizer’ where a pointy phase plug and outer ring smooth the tweeter’s hand-off to the waveguiding mid/bass driver to eliminate a 10kHz dip (among other frequency response improvements). The two drivers are crossed over in DSP with a third-order slope applied to the tweeter and a second-order slope to the mid/bass driver.
The two drivers aren’t fixed to the front baffle. They are held in place by Technics’ ‘Balanced Driver Mounting Architecture’, essentially an internal structure fitted to the speaker cabinet’s centre of gravity for lower levels of cabinet talk. The 50Hz ‘Smooth Flow’ bass reflex port is flared at its (front baffle) output and its interior input, the latter located where standing wave pressure inside the cabinet is lowest and, therefore, air movement highest.
Technics has also done something clever with the SC-CX700’s HDMI ARC input. My contact at Technics explained it as follows (and I hope I’ve remembered it correctly): for a device to receive an audio signal through its HDMI ARC socket it must first transmit a video signal. However, according to Technics, the video signal can cause unwanted noise. To reduce this noise, video signals are output from the SC-CX700 at a lower rate with each pixel’s colour value set to zero. Technics claims “This ensures low-load operation between the HDMI transmitting/receiving devices, preventing any unwanted noise generation by the video signals.”
The package is rounded out by an MM phono stage that isn’t built around an IC but discrete components, a plastic infra-red remote control and eco-friendly cardboard packaging free from Styrofoam.
The elephant in my Berlin room is that I no longer have a pair of KEF’s LS50 Wireless II with I would otherwise perform the most obvious side-by-side comparison. Sorry. That’s just the way the reviewer cookie crumbles sometimes. Instead, I’ll triangulate the SC-CX700’s performance with two other streaming active loudspeakers: the costlier Buchardt A500 and the more affordable PSB Alpha iQ. If there is time, I will also put the Technics side-by-side with a similarly-priced and streaming-capable passive loudspeaker system.
Expect to see our video review land sometime in February.
Further information: Technics
