The SX2 is the top stand mounts from Mission’s new range of
flagship speakers.
Huntingdon-based, Mission is a company whose provenance
stretches back to 1977, where the very first Henry Azima-designed 770 loudspeaker
rolled off the production line. It quickly gained a reputation for design
excellence, and soon widened its product range to include the 700, which was
the company’s first ‘small’ speaker. Jump forward 15 years and the whole world
was in love with its small boxes – with products such as the 760 showing just
how good the breed could sound.
At the time, Mission also did a more upmarket small speaker
called the 780, which looked an awful lot like the 760, but was made much
better. Selling for around $470.09, it was one of my favorite ‘affordable high
end’ stand mourners of the nineties – and lo and behold the SX2 seems to be its
spiritual heir. Here we have Mission’s new flagship range – there are seven
models in total, with two stand mounts, three floor standers and two center
speakers. They range from $940.17 to $3,089.13 per pair, and the SX2s tested
here are the company’s best ‘bookshelf’ design.
Mission SX2:
Mission Statement
The cabinet comes
in a choice of finishes
In a nicely circuitous way, one of the strongest rivals to
that early eighties Mission 700 was Heybrook’s HB1, designed by a certain Mr.
Peter Come au. Now, it is this very man who heads the Mission design team. For
the new SX range, he has overseen the development of a brand new metal/fiber
composite cone material. This uses a mixture of pulp and aramid particles
bonded to a precision-formed alloy ‘voice plate’, and is said to have just the
right amount of rigidity and self-damping to stop unwanted resonances and cone
breakup. The SX2 sports a 160mm version of this unit.
The front baffle is die cast aluminum, and the SX MC
driver’s cast aluminum shell is securely affixed to this, alongside the
company’s new 25mm SX TD treble unit. This sports a titanium dome fitted with a
surrounding phase-correcting plate – this isn’t in itself anything novel. But
it’s the execution that counts, and Mission has paid special attention to all
the details, with it securely housed in an elastomer chamber to isolate it from
low-frequency vibration. This is mated to a specially developed crossover,
which was refined over hundreds of hours of listening.
The SX2s are not difficult loudspeakers to set up; they have
well behaved, sensibly sized cabinets and sit on stands happily about 35cm from
the rear wall; I told them in slightly. The quoted sensitivity of 85dB/1W/1m
isn’t great, so these aren’t the sort of speakers that will knock your parrot
of its perch with just a few watts. Rather, expect to have a decent transistor
amplifier of around 50W RMS per channel minimum; I use a Creek Destiny 2, which
proves an ideal partner.
Sound quality
An unassailably
enjoyable sound that makes all types of music great fun
‘Quintessentially Mission’ is how you’d best describe the
sound of the SX2. Not surprising perhaps, as this brand more than most has been
able to develop a signature sound over the years and keep to it. This means
that, just as the 780 did some 20 years back, the SX2 sounds lively, fast and
expressive, yet slightly warm and full bodied. That trademark upper bass bloom
is still there – every small Mission I’ve heard has this – and it subtly boosts
the bass guitar on rock and soul tracks to give a slightly fuller-bodied sound.
4hero’s give in shows this perfectly, the SX2s mixing a fulsome bottom end with
a lovely crisp midland and treble.
There have been plenty of speakers with titanium dome
tweeters, and many sound pretty gruesome up top. Not a bit of it with the SX2;
it still has the trademark crispness of a metal dome – it never sounds muffled
like some fabric domes can – but there’s none of the toothache-inducing
shrillness from hi-hats or high-range female vocals. The result is that these
speakers sound really rather lovely; treble is nicely carried, fast and
distinct, but doesn’t grate; midland is clean and detailed with fine image
projection and a wide soundstage; and bass is warm, but tuneful.
