Floorstanding loudspeakers — Scansonic HD L-14

The L-14 is a floorstanding speaker in the L series from Scansonic HD, a Danish brand that grew out of the Dantax company founded in 1971 and is closely linked to Raidho. The L series is Scansonic's accessible range, and the L-14 brings Raidho-derived design experience to a 2.5-way tower with two full-size mid/woofers and a soft dome tweeter. The series also includes smaller models.

Key specs that matter

This is a 2.5-way bass reflex design with a 25 mm silk soft dome tweeter and two 165 mm (6.5 in) paper sandwich mid/woofers. Crossover points are 1 kHz and 2.5 kHz, both second order. Frequency response is 38 Hz to 20 kHz and sensitivity is 90 dB. Impedance is 8 ohms nominal with a 4 ohm minimum, and Scansonic recommends 50 to 200 W of amplification. The cabinet measures 210 x 1000 x 295 mm in width, height and depth, and each tower weighs 19.6 kg.

Engineering and use context

Both mid/woofers work in the bass, while the midrange up to the tweeter is handled by the upper driver alone. The lower driver is rolled off at 1 kHz, which limits interference between the two drivers in the vertical plane while keeping the full cone area of both for low frequencies. Scansonic chose the paper sandwich cone for its balance of stiffness and internal damping at this driver size. The second-order slopes keep the crossover simple, with fewer components in the signal path and a gentler phase shift between the drivers. The enclosure has thicker walls and heavy internal bracing to control resonance. The bass reflex ports fire to the rear. Magnetic fabric grilles are supplied, and the finishes are black and walnut.

Pairing

The L-14 reaches high levels from modest power thanks to its sensitivity, though the low point in its impedance curve means the chosen amplifier must handle dips in load comfortably. Integrated amplifiers of 50 to 100 W per channel suit rooms of 20 to 30 m2.

Alternatives

Scansonic's L20 is the three-way tower of the same series, with three 165 mm bass drivers for larger rooms.