Tangent Spectrum X5 BT Active Speaker Review

Haven’t we met somewhere before?

by Ed Selley
Hi-Fi Review

1

Recommended
Tangent Spectrum X5 BT Active Speaker Review
MSRP: £300.00

Introduction- What is the X5 BT?

One of more commonly used terms in modern manufacturing is ‘platform sharing.’ If you are going to the effort of designing something, it stands to reason that you want to get the most use out of it as you can- without of course making the same thing in different (and hence more expensive) ways but only appealing to a single set of customers. As a process, platform sharing has evolved to become one of the single most important processes a manufacturer can get right. The generally acknowledged master of this process is the Volkswagen group. The oily bits that form the underside of a Volkswagen Golf turn up in a bewildering variety of vehicles, all of which are aimed at different price points, demographics and requirements.

Platform sharing is a little different in the audio industry. We have a remarkable number of shadowy companies you have likely never heard of, producing key components for many brands, but besides ensuring you can put more than one product into a piece of casework, there is rather less in the way of true platform sharing in audio. This makes what you see here an interesting anomaly. Last year I enjoyed a nostalgic revisit of the Eltax Monitor III BT- a bookshelf speaker that has been in existence for nearly fifteen years and that has recently been modified to go active and wireless. This active amp and Bluetooth receiver has now been fitted into a rather newer, sleeker and with it, more expensive speakers from sister brand Tangent. While a little rough and ready, the Eltax was a bit of a bargain- does the platform stand up to being used in something more expensive?

What does the X5 BT do?

Tangent Spectrum X5BT
The Tangent is a two way standmount speaker that is part of the Spectrum range of speakers. This comprises the compact X4 and still fairly small X5. The BT is the same size as the X5 (barring some additional protuberances at the back from terminals and other connections). The system comprises an active speaker with amp, connections and output to a second speaker and completely passive second speaker that receives a signal via speaker cable from the active one.

These connections are a useful spread. The Tangent offers Apt-X Bluetooth, coaxial digital and optical inputs (which like the Monitor III top out at 48kHz) and analogue input both as RCA and 3.5mm connections. This is then output to the second speaker by a pair of sturdy speaker terminals and you can also connect a sub if you need more bass. Really the only thing missing from this is a USB audio connection (the socket visible on the back is for charging devices which is handy to stop monstering the battery of your smartphone when using Bluetooth but won’t do anything with a computer).
Tangent Spectrum X5BT
The amplifier itself is a 20 watt design that appears to be Class D or at the very least a switching amp of some description as it has no heatsinks and runs consistently cool in use. 20 watts doesn’t sound like a huge amount of power- mainly because it isn’t- but the Tangent has a claimed sensitivity of 90dB/w and doesn’t feel underpowered in use.

So how is the Tangent different from the Eltax?

Tangent Spectrum X5BT
While the functionality of the Tangent is the same as the Eltax, it differs in that the speaker that encases the amp is (fractionally) smaller, uses different drivers and looks rather better than the somewhat homely Eltax. The Tangent uses a not very state of the art combination of a 25mm soft dome tweeter with a 127mm paper mid bass. While not materials that are likely to have NASA ringing off the hook, they are more capable than a number of superficially more exciting materials at reproducing believable tonality. The cabinet they are placed in is an altogether more solid and substantial affair than the Eltax too. Each Tangent is broadly about a kilo heavier than their respective Monitor III and this makes for a rather more dense and hefty feeling product than the cheaper Eltax.
Tangent Spectrum X5BT
It is also rather better looking too. The Tangent is a rather lovely piece of industrial design with little details like the recessed tweeter (which like the main driver is protected by an integral grille) are rather smart and the speaker as a whole has a minimalist and rather elegant air to it. Perhaps the best touch is the slim piece of veneer that sits at the bottom which serves to very effectively break up the effect of the speaker being a vast expanse of a single colour. This plinth also contains the status light and IR window of the active speaker which is a neater solution than the front panel cut out of the Eltax. The sheen finish to the black cabinets is very up to the minute (although it is also the mother of all fingerprint magnets- presumably why Tangent supplies a pair of Jacko-esque ‘handling gloves’ in the box) and whole speaker does feel worth a price premium over the Eltax.

The fit and finish is good too. The speakers are finished to a high standard and everything feels usefully solid. When you consider that all the Tangent needs is a source- and that your phone is perfectly capable of performing that task, it must be said that they feel pretty good value at the £300 asking price.

Any drawbacks?

Platform sharing is intended to use the complex aspects of a design and then change the aesthetics. Something of a grey area in this regard is the remote. The Tangent is supplied with the same remote as the Eltax and while it works pretty well and has a useful selection of functions on it, it would take a great deal of alcohol before you’d describe it as anything other than functional. It would have been good if Tangent could have made a nicer remote to accompany the nicer speaker but there are of course cost implications to this.
Tangent Spectrum X5BT
The Tangent is a rather lovely piece of industrial design

How was the Tangent tested?

The Tangents were parked on a pair of Soundstyle Z60 stands and mainly used on Bluetooth connected to a Motorola Moto X and Google Nexus 5- both of which are Apt-X capable. Some additional testing was carried out with a Chord Hugo into the RCA input to allow for a more absolute test of ability and the digital inputs were connected to a Sky HD box to test the performance with TV and film material. Music came via Tidal, Spotify and from my NAS over UPnP.

How does the Tangent sound with music?

Tangent Spectrum X5BT
Once paired up- something that is a cinch to do as the remote has a ‘pair’ button that will either set an unpaired speaker into pairing mode or unpair it and put it into pairing mode- the Tangent reveals a very positive trait from the off. In a perfect world, a speaker should have no cabinet at all. The drivers should work in free space and all you should be able to hear them. As levitation and zero point energy annoyingly remain in the annals of science fiction, a cabinet of some form or another is required. Once you introduce a cabinet, you, whether you like it or not, introduce the sound of the cabinet. It doesn’t take very long listening to the Tangent to establish that the X5 does a very good job of keeping the cabinet out of the performance as much as possible.

With the Eltax, there is always a sense of the enclosure that the drivers are mounted in being part of the performance. The Tangent gives far more of a focussed and open performance where the drivers are left to do most of the talking. I say ‘most’ because the very large rear bass port of the Tangent can become an audible feature if placed too close to a rear wall but otherwise it is commendably absent.

This wouldn’t be very good news if the drivers weren’t delivering much in the way of music but although they are very simple in construction, they give the X5 BT a lively and upbeat presentation that avoids becoming harsh or overly forward even when you push the Tangent fairly hard. Listening to Public Service Broadcasting’s brand new The Race for Space- an album packed full of samples, guitars and electric noodling like its predecessor- the Tangent makes sense of the mass of sound and unpicks to reveal the rather beautiful album underneath.

The fabulous track Sputnik reveals that the Tangent has more confidence and shove in the bass frequencies than the notional 50Hz roll-off suggests it should. There is impressive extension for a speaker of these relatively compact dimensions and this is well integrated with the rest of the frequency response rather than reached as a rather isolated blip. The impression isn’t that the Tangent has more bass than its relative but that the bass it produces is tighter, refined and more detailed.

The other significant and very noticeable aspect of the Tangent is that the soundstage is really rather good- provided you spend a minute or so positioning them correctly. With the speakers a little under three metres apart (the width of the current racks means that positioning of all stereo speakers is fairly wide these days) and facing straight forwards, the impression is of two speakers running at the same time but not exactly together. Get a little toe-in running on them (which will depend on the distance you have between them and their distance from you) and all of a sudden, the soundstage pops into focus and you have two speakers working in unison to produce a believable relationship between the performers.

This means that across the various inputs, the Tangent is confident, accurate and continuously grabs the attention rather than fading into the background. Thanks to a good tonal balance and the smoothness of that soft dome tweeter mean that it is extremely easy to listen to for long periods. As the demanding sort, there is the slightest sense than the very top end of the Tangent is very slightly smoothed off but this does mean that it is extremely forgiving with poorer recordings and more compressed material and in a real world situation, this is probably more important that wringing every last ounce of detail from a studio master- particularly as the Tangent tops out at 48kHz like the Eltax does.
Tangent Spectrum X5BT
across the various inputs, the Tangent is confident, accurate and continuously grabs the attention rather than fading into the background

How does the Tangent sound with Film and TV?

Nothing in the behavioural aspects of the Tangent with music suggest any problems with TV and film work and this is how everything pans out in practise. With the same attention paid to toe in, the Tangent is a very capable device for giving a bit of scale and depth to soundtracks. Like the Eltax, the simple width of the setup gives them a scale that few soundbars can get anywhere near. Likewise, that clean, well defined bass gives action and large scale material a useful bit of heft. The slightly lower overall levels of some broadcast material does push the levels that the Tangent is asked to work at a little higher and this reveals that like the Eltax, the amp can run out of steam a little abruptly but you do need to be driving the Tangent fairly hard to achieve this.

Conclusion

Pros

  • Refined, detailed sound
  • Handsome design
  • Good build

Cons

  • Limits to absolute volume
  • No high res
  • £100 more than the Eltax

Tangent Spectrum X5 BT Active Speaker Review

Having performed the same process on the Eltax not that long ago, the Tangent is an intriguing case of ‘the same but different.’ Nothing in the decoding or absolute behaviour of the two products is radically different but the X5 BT is an interesting demonstration that spending a little more on the materials can yield a speaker that manages to sound that little bit smoother and more refined without increasing in size. Equally appealing is that this is a piece of industrial design that really looks rather smart and should work in a more style focused room rather better than its slightly rough and ready cousin. They might share a common origin but the Tangent justifies its extra cost.




You can buy the Tangent speakers in White here or Black here

Scores

Build Quality

.
.
8

Connectivity

.
.
8

Ease of Use

.
9

Sound Quality

.
.
8

Features

.
.
8

Value for Money

.
.
8

Verdict

.
.
8
8
AVForumsSCORE
OUT OF
10

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