Alpine SPR-17C Type R Two-Way Coaxial speakers

A pair of coaxial speakers from Alpine’s Type R range, which is their highest for speakers bar their SPXes. Type R speakers are available in both 5.25in and 6.5in (as here) as well as oval 6x9s and are sold both as coaxials and as component systems with off board passive crossovers and separate tweeters. The comps are made with the same drivers, just given more control by way of the passives. The SPR-17C speakers are clearly designed for high power use and employ three-element passive crossovers built right onto their speaker terminals in a cluster. They include a large iron-cored inductor as well as a goodly-sized capacitor and a resistor in the circuit, making a twelve decibel slope passive network for the tweeter’s feed. I gather the midbass driver is just allowed to roll off naturally as the frequency rises. They look attractive with metal mesh grilles with peepholes like a sex shop brassiere for the tweeters to play through. The grilles are injection mouldings but have a nice gunmetal-look finish and a cool ‘Type R logo’ printed upon the mesh. You get three more mouldings, a piece that goes just inside the grille and forms an inner ring and support and two chunky adaptors of ABS, one with multiple flanges, brass bushings and bits you can snap-off if not needed to allow for maximum flexibility with installation in OEM locations and another with 17mm of ‘rise’ and three big clips protruding off the back, again for OEM fitment help.
– Power Handling 100w RMS CEA-2031 rated
– Sensitivity 87dB 1w/1M
– Passband 65Hz to 27kHz
– Tweeter diameter 25mm
– Tweeter: Ring radiator on swivel mount with Neodymium magnet
– Woofer mounting Depth 63.2mm
– Woofer magnet: Strontium Rare-Earth type for more ‘shove’
– Woofer Cone: Hybrid multi-layer paper pulp with Kevlar reinforced dustcap and edge-wound copper voice coil
– Chassis: cast Aluminium
– Grilles with metal mesh panels and openings for the tweeters, fixings, three OEM mounting adapter plates and panel sealant material included
– Perforated stiff card template on printed box, which shows all technical details
Review by Adam Rayner
Very good looking and chunky, these have what I call a high ‘Donald Gennaro’ rating. He was the accountant in Jurassic Park who valued tech by how weighty it was and these are dense little spuds. Not just possessed of phat magnets but also ones that are infused with a rare Earth element called Strontium. This makes the magnet badder-assed. Not as hardcore as Neodymium and yet less costly than Samarium-Cobalt!
The ring radiator tweeters are a very sexy type indeed, not seen on many others makers’ kit AT ALL, they are so cool. This is a whole class of ‘better tweeter’ and started out as violently expensive technology and only for the lucky and discerning. There is something inherent in the design that allows these types of tweeters to reach so high up into the frequency spectrum that bats can enjoy them. Upper cut-off figures of over 40kHz were not unusual early on with the pricey ones. But now, clearly the tech has filtered down some.
We see a top cut off figure of 27kHz, or seven ‘K’ clean above what is normally considered the upper limit for Human hearing. Leaving aside any arguments as to whether we can feel or hear overtones and harmonics subconsciously in this rarefied zone and miss them on poorer systems that cannot reach such bat-esque tones is moot but one thing it definitely means is performance. Because the part where we really can hear what is going on in the ‘normal’ audible upper frequencies is easy-peasy for the driver. It isn’t about how well it works as it reaches its upper limits, it’s about coasting along with plenty of range left to go before it struggles. The stuff you get to listen to is like a Hyabusa at 100mph. Fast but not even trying.
They are clearly aimed at the discerning buyer who is just short of wanting to go component yet offer as good a coaxial experience as Alpine make. So I was keen to find out how impressive they might be. Rated at an Alpine-agreeing 100 watts by the rigorous CEA system, these are proper use-with-an-amp product, so got connected up to the Genesis SM100 Talk Audio reference amplifier to play from a Pioneer DEH-P88RSII.
These were an order of magnitude bigger and better than the entry level custom replacements I had tried earlier. They are not that smooth in the crossover point and there seems to be a slight lack of midband presence which may well be down to the big boomy enclosure I was trying out for the first time, or it could be that these are meant for going in doors without enclosures. By putting them in proper boxes I think I was inviting a stronger low end response.
I also confess to a few teething problems in that with the greater power I could use in the SPR-17C as against the SWXE-1725S, I also woke up a box-rattle and discovered that I needed to seriously tighten up all eight of the Allen headed bolts holding the front baffle in place on one box – in fact I tightened them all on both. The system uses different baffle boards, just like the old one but a load more acceptable to have in my hallway as much as I do as the old ones are ratty and tatty and look like they belong in a warehouse.
I played some of everything. A bit of modern Blues influenced stuff on the B&W-gifted Mudbone CD, some Adele (ghod she’s sooo sexeh!) and then some of the Waheeda track from the Focal Spirit of Sound #6 disc, before finally getting childish and putting the dB Drag CD up them.
These are potent speakers and again, great value for money. At this level you get a slice of Alpine power and definition, Particularly noteworthy in the bass end, these make a lovely tight, fast and controlled low end that is melodic and can track deep into the bass zone while still keeping aplomb with the midbass.
The tweeters are a powerful and meaty output device and in fact, I did find myself craving a sexy passive crossover with a choice of HF attenuation options. (At this point I am of to see if that is the case with the full compos�) And after looking I can tell you that there are six levels of attenuation possible via the component version’s passive. And as they are passive that can not be a ‘+’ but six different amounts of ‘-‘. So the components versions do offer an advantage.
The main issue here, with these SPR-17C coaxials, is an inherent quality and potency that again transcends what you will have spent to own a pair of these and while you may need to use one or both of the generously provided spacer rings to allow fitment to your stock locations, they are a bargain of high quality and impressively high power sound. To get any more major low end out of a pair of sixes, you are talking about US derived big-arsed huge magnet driver type products. These are a good balance of quality and cost and just one pair will work a treat as a front end, held up with a subwoofer in the boot. A very cool front end speaker solution and dead easy to fit.
Sound Quality 8.0
Build Quality 9.0
Power Handling 9.0
Efficiency 7.0
Value For Money 10.0
Overall rating 8.6 >