Kenwood SP0001 speakers sure to spice up your in-house raves
By Laura June 
posted April 18th 2009 10:34AM
posted April 18th 2009 10:34AM
Kenwood's about to unleash some really crazy speakers upon the world... if you live in Japan anyway. The bad-looking dudes have 10-watt, 2 channel speakers with 6-centimeter woofers and 2.5-centimeter tweeters, which isn't exactly super powerful, granted -- but they are transparent. Oh, and they have some awesome LED effects, as well. We're not sure exactly when they'll be available, but they're going to run you ¥100,000 (about $1,000) when they are. Check another shot (with LEDs in full effect) after the break.
Don't you mean woofers not subwoofers?
Either way, expect "crystal clear" music.
Zing!
@ Samboini: I see what you did there...or rather, I didn't see it...
@EricC: or rather you see right through it...
No, he means woofers.
for kids' room? or gay pub?
Now make a see through amp to go with it. NOW
There are already hundreds of low wattage boutique and Vintage Tube Amplifiers on the market. If the sensitivity of these speakers is over 105DB/WM, then 10 watts should make them scream.
They look cool!!!
NOT.
Blue LED's are so 1985. Come on, at that time a blue LED was something new. Today, Blue is just so trailer-trash taste.
$1,000 for 10 Watt speakers? Pass.
And what do you know about these speakers from the 10W spec?
Just how much power they will eat, but nothing about the sound pressure they will create!
The efficiency is surely at an excellent ratio with these ones.
@rndmnme you get the marketing angle right but not the scientific one. Just because they are 10 Watt speakers doesn't necessarily make them weak. What matters is how much electricity they convert to sound as mentioned by @dodo. We usually find big numbers with many digits on HiFi equipment but they fail to mention all the nitty gritty details.
I am not well versed in the physics but I did hear what I said above from an electrical engineer. He told me that he built a 10 Watt speaker back in college and while thinking it to be a mediocre device, it turned out to be way louder than expected.
@dodo or generic (or anybody else who can answer this question)
So in terms of making that information useful for the consumer... what can I look for in terms of specs that indicates the "sound pressure" or whatever is efficient?
@chris speakers will usually have a sensitivity rating in db per watts. Something like 98db at 1watt for instance (which would be very efficient). The higher the sensitivity, the higher that db number will be for a set at 1 watt or 10 or whatever it may be.
My first thought, upon seeing the image, was that Engadget was doing an article on a new washer/dyer combo.
Another example of function being sacrificed for beauty and consumers being charged way too much to get it.
1000$? Okay, Iamrich...
Marry me
2.5" drivers advertised as "subwoofers"?! $1000 a pair?!!! I am speechless!!!
Make them 75/150 bi-amplified watts and a lot deeper, and they'll end up in everyone's studio.
Or just as good, make them passive and able to handle 150 clean watts.
Leave them at 10 watts? computer speaker junk! only a few people would buy them.
actually studios will allways prefer speakers built into the walls.
also it is a very short list of speakers that studios mostly use.
and most of that list is of older model brand name stuff.
i'd expect to see these speakers in some hipsters penthouse.
nice design and the sound quality wont be bad.
Exactly. For the price you could have any number of solid self-powered monitors, or a lovely set of passive speakers, or a decent set of passive speakers, a basic power amp, and a six pack of your favorite craft brew.
These things don't exactly make me wanna throw my Event TR6's in the trash...
My thumbs up was to Grif, not Pookie.
One, it doesn't really make sense to talk about 'powerful' speakers, as speakers are generally passive. Even 'active' speakers are just a pair of speakers with an amp unit built in. The article doesn't make it clear whether these have their own 10W amp, or if they're just passive speakers only capable of handling 10W input.
Anyhoo - small, low power, transparent decent quality speakers? Sounds rather like these:
http://www.dansdata.com/nf01.htm
which you can get off eBay for well south of a hundred bucks. I've got a pair. They're great for what they do.
http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/20080603/kenwood.htm
http://www.odelic.co.jp/product/speaker/index.html
http://www.ec-kenwood.com/cgi-bin/omc?port=33971&req=misc/camp090403.html
These have apparently been kicking around since last summer, though they've only just made it to market.
They are not active speakers, its a passive 2-way design. 10W is the maximum input power. The maximum SPL is only 80 dB. The 2 way concentric design has a 1 inch tweeter and a 2.5 inch (6cm) woofer. 85hz-25khz frequency response. Sensitivity is not quoted, but I imagine it is very low.
Not much more than a glorified set of computer speakers, but they might sound OK if used in conjunction with a subwoofer to fill in the missing lower octives, a high quality amplifier, and installed in a small room and played at low volume. (ahem...)
No, this wouldn't probably be on my list of "recommended speakers for $1000", but considering people pay $500 for power cords in this game, asking $1000 for a set of well built little desktop speakers with a truly unique look is a rather minor offense.
Doing more reading...
They seem to have started out as a "pod" thing that you moved around the ceiling on lighting tracks. For background music in stores or restaurants and homes. Someone at Kenwood I suppose had the bright idea of potting the module in a lump of glass and making it into a bookshelf speaker.
http://www.odelic.co.jp/product/speaker/pdf/speaker0806.pdf
Considering the market, Japan, which live close confinement to their neighbors and in smaller sized rooms. 10W is probably ideal for this market.
Sorry, but these things are tacky as hell. I'm not sure who they are thinking will spend 1k on these things. You can get some fantastic POWERED monitors that I'll bet sound 10x as good for what those cost.
but are those monitors see through?
You could totally DIY these with some car speakers and some epoxy.
@juan YEAH I COULD DIY THESE FOR WAY LESS MONEY TOO...
This is almost as dumb as buying monster cables... Buy quality not looks... it is sad that kenwood is heading down the same isle as Bose, producing a fancy brand name and flashy systems rather than producing quality audio products. JBL (Synthesis), Nad, Cambridge, Yamaha, Marantz, THIEL, Vincent Audio, PSB, Martin Logan, and even Boston produce quality components. Everyone else just produces hype garbage. Check out better cables for really nice cables.
I find it saddening that
a) your whitelist of "serious" audio companies has less than a dozen entries
b) you dismiss the Kenwood speakers before listening to them
Kenwood are a curious company. Just look at their "media keg" answer to the iPod. They have their own ideas and don't seem to care very much what the rest of the world thinks of them. They do mass market stuff, and the do some boutique products. Both are underrated.
@bebop
You beat me to it. Although I am no fan of Kenwood, it is impossible to determine the value of a speaker without hearing it first. It appears that these speakers are going to fall in the not-an-iphone category.
thats just car speakers in plastic:P regular cone, and a tweeter bracket:P
+$$$