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Mission LX-3 MKII Speaker Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 13 6.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 75 35.5%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 113 53.6%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 10 4.7%

  • Total voters
    211

thewas

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I bought a pair of small and cheap 760 in early 90s for a secondary system which imaged better than my main system (still have it today in my vintage loudspeaker collection) and in the early 00s a pair of 783 3-way standmounters with Audax mid driver and small waveguides which were really good and neutral and I still regret for selling them.
 

Spkrdctr

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I don't understand the question. I bought them and they have nice bass compared to ATC SCM19v2 which are larger. Is that a bad thing?


I can tolerate them without DSP. Your listening experience is different, you found them intolerable. Ok, i guess.


EQ is free these days, i know there are free solutions for Linux, Windows, Android and other systems.



Which one is it, mediocre or poop? I understand you bought them and didn't like them, it happens.
But this speaker will by no means give the same bad experience to everyone. Amir didn't seem to have to bad of an experience, nor did i.

Have a cat and chill, no need to get mad at cheap speakers. :cool:
View attachment 286129
That cat has his eye on you! Make one wrong move and whack! a paw across the nose. He looks so serious in keeping everyone in line.
 

ROOSKIE

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This is a decent speaker for $250usd @the clearance/deep discount price.
The crossover has nice elements for the $250 price point and it looks like attention was paid to achieve some decent performance.
This is not a great $570 speaker.

From those LX-2 images, that stamped steel basket, assembly and cone are passable, though it does look like a heavily cost limited choice. Some other models around this price have much beefier motor structures and even cast baskets.
The often <$300usd JBL 530 uses a very robust cast basket 5" driver. It weighs 3lbs 9.3oz (1624g) (which is about the same as the 6.5" in the $2k Focal Aria 906 @ 3lbs 10oz (1645g). )
In any case, weight is one thing, the driver here might sound great.

The tweeter is a $1 soft dome button tweeter. What a cheap little thing. Probably could not get anything cheaper. Still one can do wonders with one, the JBL 305p and A130 that were mentioned also use similar designed tweets so a dirt cheap solution can work --- especially when a waveguide is used as it helps in several ways.

Enclosure looks fine for the price, I have seen much more expensive speakers that were not built better, and even with lower build quality.
If one wanted to lessen the 1khz port resonance, i think it would be a good idea to replace this dampening material with something heavier.
Does anyone have experience with that and can give a hint how to effectively do it?

The woofer is stamped metal, which is to be expected in this price range. The motor has two magnets.
Is this to get more magnetic flux out of it without using pricier rare earth magnetic materials?
It is a bucking magnet.
These used to be almost universally common as they were used to reduce magnetic disturbances around the speaker back in the cathode ray home theater/desktop days.

They can also be used to tweak driver parameters as it does change them. Possibly/probabily this is an off the shelf driver that Mission added that magnet to in order to get the specs they wanted for this design. Lots of speakers/drivers still use these for this reason.

With the fill, you can play around. 1-1.2khz is not impossibly hard to absorb. (lower gets hard fast in a small box) It is likely a much higher peak when the cab is unlined. Fiberglass is what is usually used when you want a no holds barred approach but then you deal with that material. Some DIY folks use Eco Core https://www.acoustimac.com/acoustic...tion/eco-core-acoustic-insulation/ecoinsul422 I haven't tried it yet but keep meaning to order.

Really the peak is narrow, on the backside and isn't causing a very large issue in the frequency response. I wouldn't bother with it.
 

pierre

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I tried to eq the speaker and that didn't go that well.
With 7 peqs and a max Q of 3, score goes from 4.6 to 5.4.
Just because it is doable, I increased the number of peqs to 10 and increased the max Q to 5. Of course we
get better result with a score of 6.0 but how good it is in practice in not obvious: the EQ now tracks well the
small/medium dips in the frequency response but the midrange does not really improve even if overall the
frequency response does. The eq also boost the bass a bit which helps to increase the score. Overall the
listening window is significantly flatter. Note: with low cost speaker last this one, the reproducibillity of the
measurement esp. on the high frequency is usually bad. Variation from speaker to speaker can be relatively
large and would mostly negate the value of the EQ. The speaker by default is well tune if a bit hot. I would
need to listen to it with and without EQ to be sure it works as intended.

filters_eq.jpg
 
Last edited:

TheBatsEar

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Last edited:

Penelinfi

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You are talking of a very specific era, where many manufacturers went for this trend that proved to be a mistake. But that’s like 15 years ago fella,. Process evolves, don’t worry,chemists are smart folks and knows exactly what went wrong with all thes products that where litterally melting in a goo. I would not be worried one bit of purchasing something with soft touch finish in 23, and yes, the trend is coming back in full force and to me that was lovely looking then, and is lovely looking now. But there is way too much money in consumer electronics to make the same mistake twice. I don’t have the smallest doubt that it has been studied and reengineered to death.
About 10 years ago there are still products with that issue. Newer, and it hasn't had enough time to show its full durability.
It is nice when new though
 

pseudoid

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TheBatsEar

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TheBatsEar

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I tried to eq the speaker and that didn't go that well.
With 7 peqs and a max Q of 3, score goes from 4.6 to 5.4.
I guess it's true, you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
1684088544037556.jpg


But thanks for trying :cool:
 

Doenerkunde

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By the way 15 years ago Mission sold remaining stock of their drivers to a big german DIY store. Some models seemed close to the ones used in the LX3.

Here is a german test of the Mission CP168 driver from that era, that seems similar (couldn´t find measurements of the 4 ohm version) and also produces somewhat similar distortion paterns: https://www.hifi-selbstbau.de/index.php/hsb-datenblaetter/tief-mittelt/mission-cp168m3

I think the last time I saw them in stock they cost around 25€/pc.
 

Matsuo Mayu

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Turning it upside down is another option to enjoy it as far as I know,,,said by an local agent.
Not much differences I guess though
 

crappypanther

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Not bad for this price.
this reminds me PSB Alpha B1. not the smoothest RF, but good inexpensive speakers
 

raindance

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Turning it upside down is another option to enjoy it as far as I know,,,said by an local agent.
Not much differences I guess though
No, it is designed to be used with the listening axis being the center of the woofer. PSB uses a similar design.
 

raindance

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These and the LX-2 model have good bass extension in room for bookshelf speakers, although it gets a bit much if placed near the wall.

The tweeter is the shortfall, being a bit dull in my opinion. I compared the LX-2 to my old M-70's and M-71's and the M-7x are just a whole lot clearer up top.
 

HappyMetalGuy

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Thanks @amirm for the review.
Luckily i have a MiniDSP Flex to tune the speakers a bit to my room. A small waveguide should be on the developers mind for MKIII, and maybe white grilles for an even better WAF.
I paid 190€ for the pair due to a price error at Amazon, so i can't really complain. I'm sure deals in Europe will pop up eventually.
Voted fine.

These and the LX-2 model have good bass extension in room for bookshelf speakers, although it gets a bit much if placed near the wall.
The tweeter is the shortfall, being a bit dull in my opinion. I compared the LX-2 to my old M-70's and M-71's and the M-7x are just a whole lot clearer up top.
I bought mine LX2 MKII new for 200€ for the price I think they're really good. I'm pairing with a Topping DX3 Pro+ and Topping PA3s. I thought I would need a subwoffer but I'm not missing it.
Voted fine.
 

Head_Unit

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a luxurious rubberized paint
Is that like the stuff on some Boston Acoustics towers I got for $20/pair because the stuff becomes sticky? And then you try to clean it but it doesn't really work completely, and eventually it is sticky again?
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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Is that like the stuff on some Boston Acoustics towers I got for $20/pair because the stuff becomes sticky? And then you try to clean it but it doesn't really work completely, and eventually it is sticky again?
Let me clarify that this may not be paint but some soft touch material. But yes, those paints were horrible in the way they got sticky.
 
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