Напольная акустика — Mission LX-5 MKII

The LX-5 MKII is a two-way floorstanding loudspeaker in the LX MKII series from Mission, the British company founded in 1977. The original LX line appeared in 2016, and the MKII generation followed four years later with parts evolved from the higher QX range and the ZX series, including revised DiaDrive bass units, a new tweeter and re-engineered internal bracing. It is one of three towers in the LX MKII catalogue, next to the LX-4 MKII and the three-way LX-6 MKII.

Key specs that matter

Two 165 mm composite fibre bass/midrange cones flank a 25 mm microfibre dome tweeter, which takes over above 2.3 kHz, all in a ported enclosure. Mission quotes 42 Hz to 20 kHz within 3 dB and bass extension to 38 Hz at -6 dB. Sensitivity is 90 dB with 2.83 V at 1 m, maximum SPL is 106 dB, and the nominal 8 ohm impedance reaches a lowest value of 4.2 ohm. The internal volume is 42 litres. Height is 975 mm plus 20 mm for the plinth, width is 226 mm and depth is 300 mm plus 8 mm for the binding posts, with a net weight of 19.1 kg per cabinet. Cabinets are wrapped in walnut or in black or white Lux surfaces.

Engineering and use context

In the floorstanders Mission extends its Inverted Driver Geometry idea into a D'Appolito array, so the tweeter is placed between the two woofers and the path lengths from all three drivers are balanced for the listener. The DiaDrive cone is a one-piece curvilinear diaphragm with no separate dust cap and a dual-layer fibre build, which Mission says transfers energy from the voice coil to the cone surface more directly. The tweeter uses a neodymium magnet, picked for strong magnetic force in a small space. Comb-tooth serrations in the driver surrounds scatter interfering reflections. Every LX MKII model gets its own fourth order Linkwitz-Riley network with 24 dB per octave acoustic slopes, tuned by computer modelling and listening to trade off-axis behaviour against a flatter on-axis response. The enclosure was developed with CAD, finite element analysis and laser interferometry, and the placement of internal damping was chosen to lower midrange cabinet output and sharpen bass transients.

Pairing

With its high sensitivity and a recommended range of 30 to 150 W, this tower runs comfortably from mid-priced integrated amplifiers and stereo receivers. The moderate impedance dip makes it an easy load for most transistor designs and for a home cinema receiver that drives it as the front pair.

Alternatives

Another tower in the range is the LX-6 MKII, a three-way with a 5 inch midrange driver and rated at 91 dB and 30 to 200 W.