Devores and Omegas - input please

Glad it was of use.

@jjss49


I love the Devore O series speakers, especially the O/96. Though the O/93 shares the essential traits. I auditioned both models extensively and did much commentary in my thread here:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/contemplating-devore-speakers-and-others-long-audition-report...

I also owned Harbeth Super HL5 plus, and I’m familiar with the rest of the Harbeth line-up. Also know Proac, been a long time since I heard Vandersteen, haven’t heard the Omega.

In a nutshell: the Devore O speakers share with Harbeth, and classic Spendor speakers, the characteristics of "richness" and a full sound, the type that fleshes out vocals and other instruments. But it sort of turbo-charges those characteristics, sounding even more rich and full through the entire audio spectrum. Some can see this as tipping past the point of neutrality. Others, like me, see it as actually getting nearer to real sounds, as, for me, one of the major way most hi-fis differ from real life is the way sounds are squeezed down subtractively. A real life sax sounds massively big and rich compared to the little compressed toy versions through many speakers. So I hear the richness and bigness in the Devore as more authentic, rather than simply coloration. YMMV of course.

The Harbeth tend to be very evenly balanced from top to bottom. The Devores are a bit wilder and more dynamic, bigger, richer, reach-out-punchy bass and "pop" on snare drums. Again, depending on your audio "journey" you can hear this as more speakerly coloration, OR you can hear it as sounding more "live" than most speakers. For me it tends to evoke the sense of "live" so I hear the dynamics of how a drummer or pianist is playing more than many other speakers. The energy flow seems effortless and grabs me. But I’ve never lived with the Devores so I don’t know yet if any of this would wear on me over time, or if I’d continue to appreciate it.

Finally, the Devores have a very special character that I have always loved in a speaker: they sound open and ’live’ in the upper mids and higher frequencies - not in a shove treble-in-your-face manner, but there is that texture of the real thing in the room, like someone clapping their hands and you can hear the skin texture, or fingers on the guitar strings, or the very papery/skin texture of hands playing a bongo, where it cuts through the air, rather than sounding glazed over and "canned" like a recording. And it does this in a way that sounds not only really clear and vivid, but warm and smooth too. So..."organic" is the word that comes to mind. I’ve heard many speakers that have incredible high frequency resolution, but through which organic instruments still have an electronic glaze, sounding canned and artificial. The Devores sound more like real life to me.

The Devores throw more of a "wall of sound" as some people describe it, vs a super huge, deep soundstage. They CAN throw a huge soundstage in terms of width and image size - their image size is bigger than the typical speaker.   And they DO make instruments come to 3D life in the room.   But they are a bit more about sounding live, hear and now, transporting you to the live event, rather than massive recorded soundstages

The Devores are in interesting combination of dynamic and laid back in that respect. They are very rich and punchy through most of the range, especially the bass. But the upper frequencies, while staying full sounding, are vivid yet relaxed. I think this is why you can read different takes on the Devore O series. Some people latch on to one aspect and find the Devores super dynamic, live and exciting. Others may latch on to the relaxed quality and think they sound a bit laid back and polite, and they want more bite and energy.
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That of course is why listening for yourself is always necessary. Someone may describe the sound accurately, but you won’t necessarily know your reaction to it until you hear it.

I ended up buying Joseph speakers that I dearly love, but my Devore obsession isn’t totally over and I’ll likely be auditioning the O/96 in my room some point this spring.

charles,

Yes, I think that people who hear something like the Devore O series as colored or too rich, departing from "neutral" are generally comparing them to the sound of more "neutral" speakers, not necessarily to real sounds. So they know what their music, say a voice or a sax track, sounds like through a more neutral speaker, and if a speaker departs it is colored.

Whereas clearly I’m talking about what things sound like in real life to me.

I have owned, and still own, plenty of quite accurate speakers - until recently I had Waveform monitors (very accurate) and I own Thiel and Joseph Audio, both of which are more in the accuracy camp. I love their sound! And there are some things each does that captures aspects of real life sounds. The Joseph speakers; a super grain-free unmechanical sound, but generally thinner than life. The Thiels, very even top to bottom, richer than the Josephs, a density and palpability that is life like more than most speakers. But beat by the Josephs for lack of grain and timbrel beauty. The Spendors I have (little S3/5s) recreate the organic roundness, softness and body - the "gestalt" - of human voices better than maybe anything I’ve owned (Harbeth being the competitor). But are softer than life for other things. The Devores aren’t as grain-free as the Josephs, nor as focused, punchy and palpable as the Thiels, but they reproduce the sense of size and richness that gets closer to the real thing in many instances, to my ear.

If someone is in to pure accuracy and specs, that can make life a bit easier in a way - the goal isn’t "sounding real" per se but simply accurately reproducing an input signal, where you can look at the linearity of measurements for confidence, and then the chips just fall where they may in terms of how each track will sound. Quite a number of people get along happily that way.

But if you go the route of seeking some comparison to live sounds, while it can be very rewarding, it’s also of course always going to be about compromise. No speaker I’ve heard gets every aspect right, and depending on where one is in terms of experience, what one speaker gets right will turn your crank. Some people may have started with the boxless transparency and realism of quads and later realized they were missing the density and dynamics of real life sounds and then went on a trajectory that led them to horn speakers. Others may have started with horn speakers, and then maybe felt they could hear mechanical colorations that they later found absent in panel speakers, and went in the opposite direction. So two people may hear a speaker and seize on it’s different qualities. I may hear a horn speaker and immediately think it sounds more live; someone dedicated to electrostatics may immediately hear it as more boxy and artificial.

bjesien
That was a very interesting post, thank you.

I’ve seen a number of people say they think something is a bit amiss in the crossover region in the Devore O speakers, though it seems to be more particular to the O/93 from what I can tell.


I’m sure you’ve seen the Stereophile measurements for the O93 added years after the reviews:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/devore-fidelity-orangutan-o93-loudspeaker-measurements

Note this part:

• last September, I received an e-mail from Herb Reichert: "I am listening to the DeVore O/93s, and every time I listen I feel there is something amiss in the presence region, like a narrow-band suckout."

The first thing that struck me about that was: WHY didn’t Herb ever mention that in his two pieces about listening to the 093? You’d think that would be worth mentioning!

Anyway, JA didn’t find the smoking gun in terms of detecting that phenomenon.


As for me, what I found is that both the O93 and O96 required at least an 8 foot listening distance to cohere. When I tried to listen closer, like I do at home, I could start to hear the sound sort of split apart a bit, presumably around the crossover region. And when I read the Stereophile comment above I wondered if this was in play given Herb has a notoriously teeny listening room. If Herb’s situation puts him too close to the O93s his observation wouldn’t be surprise me. And this is one reason I wish every speaker review would mention the set up distance from speaker to reviewer. That would help a lot in terms of understanding a speaker’s behavior in nearer-field vs farther.

But what’s interesting about your remarks is that you aren’t referencing a discontinuity or suck out, but rather an addition of an artifact. I’m presuming you mean some sort of texture, or roughness, or brightness that becomes unpleasant?

Does it only APPEAR once you reach 80db? (Hence maybe some break up mode?) Or is it always present in the sound and simply becomes unbearable once you get that loud?

I can’t say I detected this in any of my auditions of the O93 or O96, and I’m pretty sensitive to that stuff. On the other hand for most of the audition I was probably playing them at 75 db or so, which is about as loud as I’m comfortable with for longer sessions. I did crank them louder for some funk and rock to walk around the room and listen how they sound (I tend to crank my speakers louder when I’m out of the room, listening doing other things). But didn’t note a problem.

twoleftears

Understandable.   The O series is very finicky to set up in particular for soundstaging.  I've heard them sound shallow, but also quite spacious and deep (the 96s, never got tons of depth from the 93s).

As for Audio Note:  I auditioned their speakers in the usual corner-loaded configuration.  They also had wonderful tone, sort of like the Devores.  My only issue is that I found myself a bit too aware of the "trick," that is the corner-loaded bass.  It sounded to me like I was hearing a sort of bass augmentation via room effects rather than "the real thing."

Also, I've found the purest timbre to come when being able to control some room reflections, and the audio notes tend to use the room for their sound.


That said, I HAVE heard the smaller audio notes at a show, pulled out from the room corners more in a normal set up and they blew me awaywith some vocal and jazz tracks.