Cambridge Audio Minx XL Speaker Review

[Billy Budapest]

That’s disappointing, especially coming from a company which has made some excellent measuring and sounding components in the past. I guess speakers are not their strong suit. I wonder how the non-XL Minx speakers measure.

 

[Maiky76]

This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of the Cambridge Audio Minx XL bookshelf speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US$299.
View attachment 428967
I should note however that I can't find new stock anywhere so maybe it is discontinued. As you can see, speaker is rather attractive with quality finish and stylish blending of the woofer and tweeter. Predictably, speaker is made in China even though the company is in UK:
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If you are not familiar with my speaker measurements, please watch this video:

Cambridge MINX XL Speaker Measurements
Let's start with our family of anechoic frequency response measurements:
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Gosh, this is disappointing. On axis response because quite variable post 400 Hz with wide dip around 2 kHz and exaggerated highs. Clearly speaker was not designed by research that shows not only do you want flat on-axis but smooth directivity. We can see the cause of some of the errors in near-field measurements:
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Dip in on-axis and poor directivity in the same region presents us with one of the worst early window responses:
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Which translates into same as far as predicted in-room response is concerned:
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I expect the sound to be somewhat bright and at the same time, recessed in lower treble.

Beamwidth is wide so should result in more spacious sound:
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We see diffractions in horizontal directivity at 3.5 and 4.5 kHz:
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Vertical directivity is never good in this type of 2-way speaker so stay around tweeter axis:
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Overall distortion picture is good:
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As noted though, we have an anomaly around 8.1 kHz (typo on graph). Relative THD measurement shows a lot more of them:
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Note that due to small size, I am only showing response up to 90 dBSPL. I did run the usual 96 dBSPL but speaker was audibly complaining and measurements were off the charts.
Impedance is the typical < 4 ohm:
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Sensitivity is also typical at 86 dB so you should not need a ton of power to drive it.

Waterfall shows expected resonances:
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Finally, here is the step response for fans of this measurement:
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Cambridge Minx XL Listening Tests and Equalization
Immediate impression was that of "warmth" which quickly turned into recessed upper range of vocals and sound that was both wooly, and bright at times. I first filled in the dip:

View attachment 428995
That nicely filled in the hole but then my attention kept going to high frequency sharpness. So I quickly dialed in that shelf. The transformation was quite nice. The sound now was quite neutral which when combined with wide dispersion and good power handling, was quite nice. Sub-bass response is not there but what it does play, is cleaner than speakers in its size.

Conclusions
The Minx XL could have been a much nicer speaker if modicum of effort was put in analyzing its objective response and cleaning up what is very obvious issues. I don't know why companies continue to ignore this science and let an OEM in China build them a random design. 20 years ago, sure. But today? A disappointing product from a well respected company.

I can't recommend the Cambridge Audio Minx XL. Not that it is horrible but because it could have been much better.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Here is my take on the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!

For the score rational your journey starts here
Explanation for the sub score
The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration.
If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ at LF for room integration, that is usually not optional… see hints there.

The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ: 2.9
With Sub: 5.7

Spinorama with no EQ:

• Another Batman?
• a few resonances
• Other can make it better in the same price bracket

Directivity:

Better stay at tweeter height
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/15deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range

EQ design:
I have generated two EQs. The APO config files are attached.

• The first one, labelled, LW is targeted at making the LW flat
• The second, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable.
• The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment although the LW might be better suited for this purpose.

Score EQ LW: 4.8
with sub: 7.5

Score EQ Score: 5.5
with sub: 8.1

Cambridge Audio Mini X APO EQ LW 96000Hz
February172025-110508

Preamp: -4.00 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 58.3 Hz Gain 0.00 dB Q 1.50
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 893.6 Hz Gain -2.13 dB Q 4.99
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 1787.5 Hz Gain 3.98 dB Q 1.96
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 3376.8 Hz Gain 1.98 dB Q 5.00
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 9519.9 Hz Gain -1.61 dB Q 5.00

Cambridge Audio Mini X APO EQ Score 96000Hz
February172025-110402

Preamp: -4.00 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 58.3 Hz Gain 0.00 dB Q 1.50
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 878.6 Hz Gain -2.31 dB Q 4.99
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 1835.5 Hz Gain 4.27 dB Q 1.67
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 3412.8 Hz Gain 2.28 dB Q 3.36
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 6193.1 Hz Gain -3.61 dB Q 0.95

Spinorama EQ LW

Spinorama EQ Score

Zoom PIR-LW-ON

Regression - Tonal

Radar no EQ vs EQ score
Nice improvements?

Bonus: Amirm EQ

Score EQ Score: 3.9
with sub: 6.7

 

[milosz]

Serious lack of energy in the "presence" region. These speakers would sound pretty bad, I would guess, from looking at the curve.

Perhaps the lads at Cambridge ought to spend less time at the local and more time in the lab. Just sayin'.

 

[DanielT]

Thank you for your review Amir.

Although I like your speaker tests the most out of all the tests you do, this one falls into the worst category, i.e. the bland category. That is, what most people voted for: Not terrible. That I interpret or translate to bland.

Nothing to either be very upset about or pleasantly surprised by. If the Cambridge Audio Minx XL had cost ten times as much, it might have set off more cylinders of irritation, but the price is nothing to get super upset about.

 

[DanielT]

Serious lack of energy in the "presence" region. These speakers would sound pretty bad, I would guess, from looking at the curve.

Perhaps the lads at Cambridge ought to spend less time at the local and more time in the lab. Just sayin'.

As Amir wrote:
The Minx XL could have been a much nicer speaker if modicum of effort was put in analyzing its objective response and cleaning up what is very obvious issues.

Cambridge Audio, with their knowledge, presumably wouldn't have had to spend so much time and resources reducing this 2 kHz dip, but they obviously didn't care.

 

[beagleman]

Serious lack of energy in the "presence" region. These speakers would sound pretty bad, I would guess, from looking at the curve.

Perhaps the lads at Cambridge ought to spend less time at the local and more time in the lab. Just sayin'.

Not so sure. That is looking ONLY at "In Room" response, and assuming one has very reflective side walls.

Up close its a tiny dip, when looking at On axis response.

And a dip would be FAR less offensive than random peaks. Not saying it would sound great at all, but probably laid back and a bit recessed, far from horrible.

 

[taotone]

A lot of these are used as surround speakers with room correction, so probably not as bad in practice as they first seem.

I do prefer a BBC dip and generally won't correct for a modest dip, with a linear speaker I will often EQ down the 2-3k a bit, I think US folks don't understand how much smaller the average listening space is in the UK/EU, but this is too much and smacks more of laziness and poor engineering than intentional design.

At the price they should have done better.

 

[375HP2482]

Not so sure. That is looking ONLY at "In Room" response, and assuming one has very reflective side walls.

Up close its a tiny dip, when looking at On axis response.

And a dip would be FAR less offensive than random peaks. Not saying it would sound great at all, but probably laid back and a bit recessed, far from horrible.

Yes, if you think of these as desktop speakers -- which they seem to be -- they're not bad at all.