Click pics to enlarge. Top, TC-60 energizes Ray as he works.
For details of my equipment, including those in the background of the 2 photos below, see here.
The first time I heard Spica TC-50s, there had already been a bevy of first serious speaker contestants for me. I remember listening to some Boston Acoustics, A40 and A70, also some T830’s, Polk Audio RTA-something bookshelf, Infinity Kappa 9’s, MB Quarts, etc. These were the marques that were in vogue during my entry point to specialist hi-fi. I had no benchmarks as to what constitute good hi-fi then. Exposure to classic speakers like Dahlquist DQ-10s, Quad ESLs, or Apogees were still just glints in the eye and would not be happening for a few more years. What I did have in my ear-brain connection was a remembrance of sound past. A sound that stimulated my brain and sent it to a whole new vista of experience. A connection to the music that goes beyond extended frequencies or transparency and detail in sound. Jazz did not sound like the players were in the room, of course, but it did enable me to lock in the groove and feel what the musicians were serving.
When I was auditioning speakers, this was the sound I was looking for which I did not know I was looking for. I only know that I was not finding it in a large number of speakers I had been auditioning. It’s a bit like Edison looking for the proper filament for his incandescent bulb with no preconceived notions, or so the lore goes. When he finds it, he will know. I perused the Yellow Pages to look for audio stores within a 50-mile radius, so that I could return and have dinner with my new wife like nothing unusual happened during the day, I’m sure you audio nerds can relate! I was losing hope in finding something within my budget that can fit in my medium-sized apartment. Do I wait until I come to some B&W 801-money before I can call myself a certified audiophile (a logical enough term to call hobbyists like us but the baggage of how it’s used makes me shudder at the thought sometimes)?
I found this audio store not very far from where I lived. Jerry the salesperson looked me over, figured I was not there for Magnepan Tympani’s and sat me down in front of two wedge-shaped speakers on solid steel stands, fired up an integrated amp on consignment, which I would later find out was an Accuphase, put on Green Flower Street from The Nightfly CD, and I. Was. Sold. I’ve heard better frequency extension from the other speakers I’ve auditioned, but something struck me about the TC-50s - it’s that undefinable oneness of sound that I was looking for. The sensation that, even though their dynamics are limited, that actual humans are playing or singing the same time you are hearing the music. There are less layers of disbelief. I have found the “girl of my dreams”!
After living with them for three decades now, I believe it is that (phase) coherence that shines through more than any other quality from these speakers. One thing Mr. Jerry Audio Sales Guy told me back then still holds true for me now: “The TC-50s (with Quicksilver 8417 Mono’s) are all I will ever need.” Even after owning much dearer components, even after discovering triodes, horns, full-range drivers, I still kinda feel the same way.
I became obsessed with the TC-50s and learned everything about them – how John Bau designed them not by ear, but with precision quality measuring tools with a clear-eyed approach to the time-alignment between the woofer and the tweeter, making them virtual point-sources. I read all the rave reviews, positive show impressions, but also the legitimate complaints about them (rolled-off highs, limited bass). I have also come to realize that the quality I like from the TC-50s, the immediacy of sound via that coherence of images in the listening space, however, is not by a long shot exclusive to them. Subsequent exposure to other systems, new designs and classics have also given me glimpses of greatness, regardless of price, and regardless of design ethos. As a typical audio nerd, I pushed headlong to other speakers that might offer me more of the same, or I should say, better of the same. I had no intentional direction or biases. To that end, I got to own Quads, LS3/5As, Spendors. I explored other “time-aligned” speakers, such as Vandersteens (still own 1B’s – a bargain in the used market), Thiels, Dunlavy’s, Reference 3A’s, Sequerra Met 7’s. I experienced WE755’s (wonderful). The strange thing about it is, they all have that oneness of sound, but the characters are all different. The Reference 3A De Capo I, in particular, is persnickety in its choice of amp. Pick the wrong amp, and you can deem them “peaky”-sounding and/or soulless. 300Bs and gainclones sound wonderful with them. The Sequerra Met 7’s, for a smaller speaker (tiny, in fact), are even more dynamic and overtly detailed than the TC-50. They are also very believable and live-sounding, and it’s my belief that the cone tweeter that Dick Sequerra (RIP) preferred gives them the dynamics and “push” that is unusual for speakers that small. The midrange, if not as glorious as the TC-50, does present you with a different strength based on superior microdynamics.
Now contrast this to the LS3/5A and its derivatives, such as Spendor S3/5 and Harbeth P3. To my ears, their sound is very seductive to listen to. I would not blame listeners waxing rhapsodic over their qualities either (I do still own LS3/5A’s, in fact.). You could just own one of these, drive them with a copacetic 6L6-based amp, a classic British integrated, a big-ish Class AB, or even the Aiyima T9, and you are set. However, I do miss that from-the-core-of-the-music delivery that the TC-50 gives me.
Let me touch briefly on the other Spica models. In his speaker-designing life, John Bau, the erudite Spica designer, only came out with five models. The first model, SC-50, actually started out as studio monitors that he made for himself, being unsatisfied with what was available at the time. The SC-50 (I have an earlier variant) does sound like monitors in the best way possible. No exaggerations or aberrations in the frequency spectrum, very flat like how a monitor should sound in the studio. They are surprisingly detailed, and even if not “time-coherent”, the crossover is seamless. The second model was, of course, the TC-50. The third model was the Angelus. The Angelus deserves an article of its own. I have always said that it is a genius design done with frugality. If constructed today with more advanced manufacturing, finishing, and speaker drivers, it would give a lot of current market models a run for their money. Just to put it succinctly, it has a different sound than the TC-50, not only in terms of better extension, but in the sense that it gives the listener this whole “curtain of sound”, almost electrostatic-like in speed but with more palpable images.
The fourth Spica design was the SC-30, a budget model. John Bau used very inexpensive drivers, even a cone tweeter for the SC-30. They still have the Spica hallmarks, have even lower bass than the TC-50, but full-sounding and not as tight. They are more efficient and could be driven by low-wattage amplifiers. In my mind, they are the most Snell-like of all his designs, in sound and in appearance. My only reservation about this model is that the cone tweeter has a definite sound signature to it, which I remedied by applying some natural varnish on the cone. I tried the SC-30’s with a friend’s 845-based SET, and that amp’s distortion profile ameliorated the SC-30’s quirks and turned them into a big-sounding, complete-immersion speakers. Not bad for a budget model, eh? The fifth, and last model, just right after Parasound bought the Spica brand from Bau, was the TC-60. John quit almost right after designing the TC-60, disillusioned by the Home Theater Damocles sword hanging over his head. Well, we all know what happened to Home Theater, right? John retired and no amount of convincing from people missing his designs could bring him back to designing.
The TC-60, in essence, is an obviously more mature design, a culmination of everything he had learned by that point, especially from the TC-50 and the Angelus designs, as you can see influences of both on the TC-60. If you are a fan of the directness of the TC-50 but also like the fullness of the LS3/5A, you will like the TC-60. It sounds like a TC-50 that went to a finishing school but retained that sneaky rebellious streak. It is not a diluted design or vision, but I believe more of a progression informed by things learned along the way. It is the only Spica design that is not a sealed box. There is a small port in the back that was said to be angled inside the box. Even with the simple port, there is some innovative thinking used, I am pretty sure still with the help of Bau’s industrial precision measuring instruments.
As I’m working on my laptop and also typing this article, I am listening to the TC-60’s closed-up (see pic). Khruangbin is sounding just fab and head-bob inducing! They are shoved into corners and driven by the aforementioned Aiyima T9, sitting on custom-made KEF B139 transmission line “sub” woofers driven by a gainclone amp (cheap gentle-sloped in-line low-pass crossovers used). Even with the less than optimum placement, they simply put a smile on my face. Who needs headphones?
In closing, yes, I’ve heard and owned lots of speakers (no Wilson-priced ones, though), and yet I still am with the “girl of my dreams”. The one that hit me like a bolt of lightning, courtesy of Jerry, Mr. Audio Sales Guy. He was correct, the right one is all you need. Sometimes, a harem of speakers makes not for satisfaction but only amusing distraction. Nothing wrong with that...But, like Donald Fagen sings in that jaded voice of his, “Aja, when all my dime-dancing is through, I run to you…”
Editor: Brilliant and heartfelt! I wish I had a salesman like Jerry when I started out, but then neither did I have the sound in my head that Ray was equipped with even at the start. I missed out on all those Spica when they were current, as I was then not a serious audiophile. It was in Hong Kong that I heard a few in secondhand shops, but always in passing. The only serious time was a pair of, I think, TC-50 brought to the home of limage, Maggie Guru. Placed near-field, they indeed disappeared and was sonically almost indistinguishable from Maggie 3's, except the bass was even weaker, all just as Ray described. Not easy to find them in good condition!
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