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.
128x128arafiq

Showing 7 responses by three_easy_payments

As a point of comparison my O/96's sound substantially better paired with a LM805ia than a Pass XA30.8.  The SET circuit just allows the DeVore's to shine.  I do want to get them paired at some point with a Shindo 300B amp but very happy for now.
@atmasphere   Completely agree and well stated! 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.
I have a pair of O/96's and probably have an ideal room for them.  It's a fairly lively room but pretty well treated.  Listening position is 9 feet from the speakers and I have the DeVore's pulled out 3 1/2 feet from the rear wall.  I sold a pair of Spendor D7's befpre moving to the O/96's and it was just what I needed - a break from the hifi-ish sound with perhaps unrealistically tight bass and leaning a tad bright (D7's) to an easy-flowing, organic presentation with the the O/96's.  Have them paired with a Line Magnetic 805ia (48w SET) as a power amp and a VAC Renaissance MK5 preamp and I couldn't be happier.  I love the versatility of these speakers and will get a 300B amp at some point.  Agree with @jlarryk 's comments.
@arafiq   Out of curiosity what amp were the O/96's paired with?  It seems that most people who have shared their impressions of the O/96's aren't specifying the amp that was used which makes a huge difference with these speakers.
@prof 

FWIW...I heard the Devore O series speakers on about 4 different amps.2 that I can remember are the Leben (CS300 I believe) commonly paired with the O series.   And Nagra (classic integrated...I think). I believe one of the other tube amps was a WAVAC.

Those are all good amps to demo DeVore's although the Leben CS6000 sounds much better than the 3000.
This thread got me curious about comparing the Cary SLI-80HS (40w push/pull in triode mode) currently in my 2nd system against the LM805ia (48w SET) with my O/96 speakers.  I did this today and frankly the Cary sounds horrible in comparison with the Line Magnetic - 2 dimensional, lack of dynamic range, no textures, no nuance.  I was actually shocked.

And perhaps just as shocking is the fact that the Cary sounds much better paired with my Klipsch Forte III's than it does with the O/96's which cost $10K more.  With this said the LM/Devore combo is still substantially better than the Cary/Klipsch combo but the experience was really interesting.  Synergy is a funny thing. ;-)