LX-4
Floorstanding Speakers
By its very nature, speaker design is about balancing variables and finding the best possible compromise. At entry-level price points, where the cost of production is most constrained by the need to hit a specific retail price, the necessity of compromise is at its greatest. But does one have to accept that a ‘budget’ speaker will always deliver a ‘budget’ performance? Mission’s designers are not the easily accepting kind. They push for greatness in design, whereas most would be happy to stop at ‘good’.
What makes a great loudspeaker? What makes it sing? For Mission, the answer is simple: in a well-matched system, the speakers have to allow the performance of the music to shine through. It’s not a group of notes; it’s a performance. It’s not all about frequency response, impedance, sensitivity and directivity, although they all play a part. To paraphrase a famous expression, it’s the music, the whole music and nothing but the music – and that, in a nutshell, is Mission’s philosophy.
For the LX Series, the speakers’ design has been stripped design back to its fundamentals to produce a range of speakers that Mission can be proud of in engineering terms, but even more so in terms of the enjoyment the speakers’ owners will experience.
Awards
LX-4 Specifications
| General description | Floor-standing |
| Enclosure type | Ported |
| Transducer complement | 2-way |
| Midrange driver | |
| Bass driver | 2 x 165mm advanced fibre |
| Treble driver | 25mm microfibre dome |
| AV magnetically shielded | No |
| Sensitivity (1W @ 1m) | 90db |
| Recommended amplifier power | 15-150w |
| Nominal impedance | 6 Ohms |
| Minimum impedance | 3.7 Ohms |
| Frequency response (+/-3dB) | 40-30kHz |
| Crossover frequency | 2.2kHz |
| Dimensions (mm) | |
| Height (on plinth & spikes) | 975+20mm |
| Width | 214mm |
| Depth (with grille) | 300+10mm |
| Carton size | 440 x 340 x 1110mm |
| Net weight | 25.5kg |
| Gross weight | 29 kg/carton |
| Finish | Black wood /Walnut /White |
NEW TWEETER UNITS
High-frequency drive units require extremely consistent parts and manufacturing in order to be selected for a Mission speaker. Given the tiny moving masses involved, one micro-drop extra of high-tech adhesive can destroy the balance of the design, thus affecting sensitivity and frequency response. For the LX Series, Mission has meticulously designed a tweeter with a neodymium magnet, selected for maximum magnetic force in a small space, and a 25mm microfibre dome, chosen for its repeatability and consistency in manufacture. It delivers sweetly incisive upper frequencies, crisp and detailed but never harsh.
Both the LX-2 and LX-3 are two-way designs, combining the 25mm tweeter with one 130mm mid/bass drive unit in the LX-2, and two such units in the LX-3. These drivers sports cones fashioned from an advanced fibre formulation, selected for its reduced susceptibility to hygroscopy as well as being very stiff for its mass with excellent self-damping. A high-strength ferrite magnet ensures that the magnetic field is directed precisely within the area of voice coil excursion, enabling an ultra-linear performance that minimises colouration.
Mid/bass driver
Crossover
The LX Series uses a 4th order (24dB per octave acoustic) Linkwitz-Riley crossover network, developed
through a combination of advanced computer modeling expertise and many hours of listening tests. It is
particularly notable for its ability to balance excellent off-axis performance with a flatter on-axis result.
The cabinet is as critical as the drive units and crossover to the overall performance of any loudspeaker system. Designing an effective low-cost box is tricky, as budget dictates that the designer can’t use expensive materials or high mass to create an inert structure.
With the help of 3D Computer-Aided Design, finite element analysis and laser interferometry, coupled with a great deal of experience, a budget cabinet can be designed that delivers better rigidity with lower radiated noise than most designers would believe achievable at such low material cost.