In late 1996, as Listener magazine entered its third year of existence, the Spendor SP100 became my reference loudspeaker, and would remain so for a considerable time. My decision to try the SP100 was influenced by John Atkinson's review of its antecedent, the nearly identical Spendor S100, in the December 1991 issue of Stereophile. But my purchase decision came down to two things: The SP100 did virtually everything one could ask a modern loudspeaker to do, requiring in the process far less amplifier power than usual. Just as important at the time, it sold for only $3300/pair—which explains how I could afford them on the spotty salary of a teacher turned fledgling publisher.
I might add a third factor: The unapologetically big, boxy Spendor SP100 fit my idea of what a loudspeaker ought to look like far better than any of the towers, triangles, pyramids, panels, or pee-wees on the market. Then as now.
Spendor remains among the few high-end speaker manufacturers that design and make their own drive-units; indeed, as company owner and design director Philip Swift mentioned in a recent conversation, some of the tooling used to make the drivers in my Classic SP100R2 review samples was used in the early 1970s, to make their classic BC3 monitor. That distinction, according to Swift, is more than just marketing fluff: "One of the things that sets Spendor apart is that we understand how our drivers work."
Two of the SP100R2's three drivers are made in Spendor's factory, in Hailsham, East Sussex. First is an 11.8" Bextrene-cone woofer that incorporates a cast-alloy frame, a ferrite magnet, a fabric dustcap, and a half-roll surround made from what Swift describes as "a synthetic simulation of a natural latex rubber" and says has the best qualities of a modern polymer. According to Swift, the damping of this driver is accomplished differently from that of its immediate predecessor, with a newly chosen compound on the rear side of the cone and a very thin coat of a cellulose-based material on the front.
The SP100R2's 7" midrange driver, also designed and made by Spendor, has undergone even more development, with a new polymer cone, 5" in diameter, that's said to be much stiffer than before. The driver's surround has also been made stiffer, while its ferrite magnet remains unchanged. As with my old SP100, the rear of the midrange driver is contained within a sealed subenclosure made of MDF. With crossover frequencies of 55Hz and 5kHz—the latter is exceptionally high—Spendor's 7" driver is responsible for the vast majority of the SP100R2's output.
The 0.8" tweeter, recently introduced to the line, is made to Spendor's specifications by the Norwegian firm SEAS. Its small textile dome is augmented with a larger-than-usual half-roll surround, which endows the tweeter with the power-handling capability and radiation characteristics of a larger unit, according to Swift.
In addition to the drive-units noted above, Spendor also makes some of the components used in their crossover networks—most notably their hand-wound chokes and autoformers. As Philip Swift observes, "We use an interesting technique: Our inductor has tapping points, so we get an extra two or three dimensions of control over the phase coherence of the crossover. It also means we don't put attenuating resistors in series with any of our drivers, since we can use a better-sounding autoformer instead."
As with all Spendor Classics, drivers and crossover networks are mated to an enclosure whose design has little in common with the products of most other contemporary speaker makers. It's an intentionally thin-walled and thus mildly resonant cabinet: not because the people at Spendor don't know "better," and not because they're too cheap to make and sell a more massive product, but because 40-plus years of experience has told them that this is the way to make the sorts of musically agreeable speakers demanded by an enduring portion of their consumer base. Swift elaborates: "If you have too much mass, you store energy—which, if released slowly, can spoil musical timing." The MDF cabinets do, however, make judicious use of internal bracing and thin, bituminous damping pads, the latter sharing space with what appears to be very-good-quality acoustical foam. But, in a first for this model, foam is no longer used to damp the two front-mounted reflex ports. "That was done for the good reason of preventing high-frequency noise from coming out of the port," Swift says. "But now we have a flared port which accomplishes the same thing—and looks much better."
There's just one more change evident in the SP100R2: Whereas earlier versions had three pairs of input terminals—and were thus triwirable—the SP100R2 has only two pairs, allowing the user to drive the woofer separately from the tweeter and midrange driver. "There was a time when everyone loved to play with biwiring and biamping," Philip Swift says, "but because we've continued to work so hard to balance the speaker overall, we prefer to see the product performing at its best in the field."
A final note: The Spendor SP100R2 is supplied with a nice-looking black-fabric grille, attached to the baffle by molded fasteners of the usual sort. Notwithstanding the textural lightness of the fabric, the grille very slightly dulled the sound, so I did all of my listening without.
There's Rickie, hiking and standing beneath a waterfall. Checking out the violent surf at famed Jaws in Maui's Pe'ahi. On the ocean, chasing after fish. Leaping from the resort's Cliff House from a 30-foot-high perch into the azure waters off Kapalua Bay. Hanging out with his Red Bull team buddies Ian Walsh and Kai Lenny.
There he goes, flying downhill on his mountain bike, like a tiny pebble careening down a stone wall.
"I put up some (Twitter) posts, and people are like, 'Shouldn't you be out practicing?' " Fowler said, laughing playfully at the thought. "This is our reward for winning last year. We get to come out here and enjoy the island. I'm for sure on island time, just hanging out."
The PGA Tour is a better place for having a young ambassador such as Rickie Fowler, or just plain "Rickie" for those who don the wildly vibrant orange, aqua and purple colors that he does and transform Tour galleries into a moving bouquet of pastels. He's one of a handful of players in today's game who is significantly moving the needle.
Fowler is talented at the sport he plays, plays the game with a proper respect, and to young and old, makes a stoic, stodgy game appear, well, so hip. Think of a young, tan, nattily-dressed Frank Sinatra with a presence beyond his years, only with a far better short game.
Nobilo's eyes were opened to Fowler when Nobilo was in Asia for a tournament broadcast three years ago and saw first-hand that the player with whom every fan wanted a picture or autograph. It was the smiling young kid in the bright Puma gear.
Fowler, who turned 24 last month, had a breakthrough season in 2012, mainly because it included the one large accomplishment that skeptics had impatiently waited on him to deliver: an official PGA Tour victory. It arrived in May at the Wells Fargo Championship, where one of the two men he conquered in a playoff just happened to be Rory McIlroy, the 23-year-old wunderkind from Northern Ireland against whom everyone wants to measure Fowler.
"I'm definitely a few wins behind him, a couple majors," deadpanned Fowler, who starts the year at No. 31 in the Official World Golf Ranking. "But no, definitely I look forward to playing against Rory for a long time. I hope that I can catch him at some point. You know, he's the No. 1 player in the world right now for a reason. He's played the best, hands down, in the last two years. … I've got plenty of time to catch him."
Fowler saw nice strides in his game last season, when he advanced through the FedEx Cup playoffs and qualified for his first Tour Championship. He drove the ball much better, and that took some pressure off having to scramble so much. And now that he'll be seeing tournament courses for the third and fourth go-around on Tour, he's noticing an enhanced level of comfort in his surroundings.
Not all went as planned in 2012, as he fell short of making the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Two years earlier, he'd risen on the big stage at Celtic Manor in Wales with four closing birdies to to keep U.S. victory hopes alive with an improbable singles halve against Europe's Edoardo Molinari.
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