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Devore Fidelity Orangutan O/96

My neighbor had to move some heavy furniture from one room to another so he asked me for help earlier today. Although, we've been neighbors for almost two years I had never been inside his house up until this afternoon. As I walked through the foyer and into his family room, I saw the speakers hooked up to some McIntosh separates. I have to admit that these were one of the most beautiful speakers I had ever seen. He offered to play some music and of course I was not going to say no. They sounded quite decent, although the sound was not as hefty or lush as I was expecting. Don't know if it was his equipment or room (wood floor, no rug, lots of windows), or maybe the Devore's are not quite going after those big, lush, and slightly warmer sound characteristics.

I'm actually saving up money to buy Harbeth SHL5+, or used 40.1, sometime next year. But boy did the Devore Orangutans caught my attention. And yes I know I shouldn't be basing my decision on looks alone, but if they're comparable to Harbeth in terms of sound quality, I'm definitely interested in exploring.

Just wondering if someone has had a chance to compare them directly to the Harbeth speakers I'm considering. Anyone moved from Harbeth to Devore O/6 or vice versa? This will be a system that I'll be building from scratch so I do have the luxury of building the system around my speakers -- total budget is around $15000. I usually buy used equipment whenever I can.

Please note that I'm not soliciting advice for other speakers at this time. Mostly interested in hearing about real world comparisons between the Devore Fidelity Orangutans and Harbeth SHL5+ or 40.1/2.
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Showing 4 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,010 posts
 
My O/96's sounded ok but not quite "right" when paired with a Pass XA30.8. However when I moved to a Line Magnetic 805ia 48W SET they simply came alive, especially when set a no negative feedback
As is stated in the article I linked from our website, any time the two technologies are mixed (power paradigm amp with a voltage paradigm speaker or vice versa) you are likely to get a tonal aberration. This is because the two camps take a different means to neutrality.


The voltage camp is based entirely on the idea of flat frequency response, the power camp is based on the idea that the distortion caused by the use of feedback (which is all higher ordered harmonics and IMD) is going to be more audible as brightness and harshness. No speaker is going to be flat regardless of the amplifier used. So keeping the distortion inaudible is regarded as more important.


The thing is, the output impedance of the amp affects where the crossover points are as well. For example if the output impedance of the amp is low, a choke in series with the woofer will cause the highs to roll out. But if the amplifier impedance is high, the roll out frequency will be moved up significantly, possibly a couple of octaves!

This is why many loudspeakers meant for amps with a high output impedance will have level controls for the mids and highs, since the voltage response of the amp is an unknown. Those controls are there to set the speaker to flat (and not to tune it to the room, like I used to think when I was a kid).



atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,010 posts
 
Regarding the o/96; I've seen this speaker work quite well but in every case its been paired to a tube amp with a fairly high output impedance (IOW no loop feedback).

Speakers that work with that sort of amplifier tend to operate on a slightly different principle as they are expecting something more like constant power out of the amp rather than constant voltage. Such a speaker likely won't sound right on a solid state amp, or a tube amp with enough feedback to behave as a voltage source. For more information see
http://www.atma-sphere.com/en/resources-paradigms-in-amplifier-design.html
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,010 posts
 
Dr. Floyd Toole showed that the total room energy of the speaker says a lot about how it will be perceived in many rooms- this moreso than on axis and off-axis response (both of which also have to be smooth...). It would be interesting to see how these compare in that regard. 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,010 posts
 
The one fly in the ointment with all these anecdotes is no-one is talking about the amplification and its a huge variable with both of these speakers.


One thing I've noticed at shows is when the room sounds good or bad, the speakers get the credit either way. But if it sounds good the electronics have to sound that good too and vice versa, not to mention that the room itself can have its own problems (standing waves, hard reflective surfaces). I think both speakers are excellent but like any other excellent speaker you can't leave the electronics or room out of the equation!
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