Alpine SPR-60C Type R Two-Way Component speakers

Product Details
Manufacturer: Alpine
Website: http://www.alpine-europe.com/united_kingdom/home.html
Typical Selling price: £199.99
With 40% smaller passive crossover boxes, these SPR-60C Type R components from Alpine still retain a high power handling and indeed, the four channel Infinity Kappa amplifier I used (also on test) to really give these speakers a pull through, didn’t upset them at all. They were tested alongside a pair of SPR-69 ovals as well, with these components on the front channels and the ovals on the rear ones, those that come with a bass boost function.
The midbass cones feature a solid phase plug at their centre and the HAMR surrounds do in practice seem to allow a very high excursion and thus good bass. The chassis of this year’s Type-R speaker crop from Alpine is fashioned from an injection moulded polymer involving the use of glass fibre as well, which makes for a stiffer, more inert basket than pressed steel.
The tweeters are a ring dome type and reach up very high, although the box says 29kHz as the upper limit, while the web data said it was 27kHz. Either way, that’s bat frequencies and means the tweeters aughta be unstressed at our normal hearing frequencies. The high extension takes the break-up modes way up outside the range of our normal hearing.
Smartly built, they are supplied with a lot of hardware, especially lots of options for mounting the swivelly tweeters.
– Glass fibre reinforced polymer chassis big improvement over pressed steel (low resonance)
– Layered Hybrid fibre bass cone with HAMR surround. (High Amplitude Multiple Roll)
– Neodymium magnet motor structure
– Machined phase plug in centre of midbass driver
– 25mm Silk ring-dome tweeter with swivel mount
– Power handling 110w RMS, 330w peak
– Sensitivity 87dB (2.83V, 1m)
– Frequency Response: 65Hz to 27kHz
– Impedance 4 Ohms
– Mounting depth 59mm
– Lug connection terminals for spade-end speaker connectors
– Fixings included
– Separate badges for application after install or to trim if desired
– Steel mesh and plastic frame injection moulded grilles
– Perforated stiff card template on printed box, which has all technical details printed on it
Editor review : Alpine SPR-60C Type R Two-Way Component Speakers
Seriously sexy! They were not fibbing when they said the cosmetics had been enhanced for this year as they look really smart. I especially like the loose badges as a custom installer could plonk them onto a panel with his own custom grilles nearby like Bowers & Wilkins do for their OEM Jaguar stuff, lovely!
The HAMR surround works, it creates a huge rich bass ability that really does fill in the lower tones a treat. The HF can be a bit spitchy if overdriven as after all, Alpine do go a long way further upmarket with tweeters but not at this price. That said, the bar is terribly high as these are better devices than any price could have offered a few years back. A good inch diameter of tweeter also means they can go bloody loud, versus the 19mm piffly Mylar domes of some other makers, this silken ring dome rocks!
They made a really good voice match with the ovals of the same series, with a nice blending of the sound stage front to back with the perfectly matched timbre. I like these a lot and suspect they might go up a point in SQ once they have been played well for a month or two and the complex extra wobbly suspensions become even more soft and compliant.
Overall 8.2
Sound Quality 8
Build Quality 9
Power Handling 9
Efficiency 7
Value For Money 8