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 1 response by vinci92

I've audition many Haberth in my life. Their presentation are generally more homogeneous. My o 96 are positioned close to the wall but silver power cables and silver interconnects as well as basstrap allows me to control the bass with ease. I use a soft tube DAC and tube preamplification because my solid state amp is particularly dynamic and puts too much emphasis on female voices, brass and electric guitars (1khz to 2khz). I'm used to the more controlled Focal Scalla tones and punches. By using the Sophia preamp tubes, the sound is sublime. Beware of speaker cables that are too round like the Wireworld Silver Eclipe. The Auditorium 23 are perfect but ultra dynamic and bring the full potential of o 96s. Still I ended up with more balanced Siltech speaker cables. Transparent would probably be very different but a good match for o 96s as well. And, yes absolutely, absorbent panels and a carpet were game changer in my case.