Has anyone tried the Hologram M3 Turbo speakers?

Jdawg, I don't think these are distributed widely outside of the US - certainly not in the UK - so you may not get many opinions on how they fare in a Naim system.  An interesting looking speaker - high sensitivity but a fairly low impedance  (3 ohm min.).  Great name too! Have you heard a pair yet?

Not yet, but they have a money back guarantee home trial that is very tempting.  If I go for it, I will post a review.  Jd

jdawg, I have been interested in these as well.  Look forward to a review if you do the home trial.  

Interesting - I always wondered why speakers needed to be cooped up inside a wooden box!! Let us know your thoughts if you get to hear them.

jdawg or anyone, have you auditioned any of the Spatial Hologram models with Naim? Not that I need any more loudspeakers, but I find the technology of the Holograms interesting (including the very low crossover frequency and the fully passive implementation).

The Nova review in the current TAS issue mentions testing with Spatial X-2s, but doesn't get into anything more specific than mentioning their efficiency, and that they made the reviewer "...aware of the Uniti's excellent lateral imaging specificity and dimensional cue retention."

which such a name they must be overly hyped and crappy

No arguments that the company name + model name + revision names is a bit over the top with the latest editions of M3 and M4. It appears to be toned down a bit with the newest models like X2 for example. Anyway, what's in a naim?

I'd love to hear from anyone that's had a chance to hear any of the Spatial loudspeakers with a Naim system. (crickets?)

ChrisSU posted:

Interesting - I always wondered why speakers needed to be cooped up inside a wooden box!! Let us know your thoughts if you get to hear them.

With conventional motors, the front of the drive unit is specifically designed an shaped to produce the in-phase air movement. The rear of the unit and the physical structure of the bracing generally has no where near the same consideration with regards to the out of phase movement. The enclosure can, however, provide mitigation of effects of this and use the additional internal air flow to augment lower frequencies. 

The idea that a speaker should have an enclosure is not carved in stone, but conventional motors simply don't lend themselves to zero cabinets very well. Unlike something like electrostatics where the out of phase rear is nearly symmetric with the in phase front.

There is even a school of thought that the cabinet is more important than the drive units. There is a local speaker manufacturer near me that started out making speed boats and adapted the tech from hull design and vibration management to speakers (which they claim is far simpler than the design requirements for boats). They use some fairly low cost off-the-shelf drive units but extremely exotic moulded plywood cabinets which they claim are responsible for most of the sound and charge Statement level prices.

The point being that with both excellent boxed speakers and excellent zero cabinet speakers and also dire speakers in each category, I don't think the basic premise that a speakers should or should not be constricted a certain way has any fundamental truth.

The M3s do look fantastically decor friendly - I must admit. If a bit on the short side.

Looks like there’s some being assembled in Germany for the European market with Spacial sending the drivers etc but assembly in Bavaria with local MDF. Can’t see any turbines though, maybe they’re refering to the compression driver. The name conjures up images of razors with too many blades ( which don’t spin either).