Audio Note AN/E vs. DeVore O/96

And I still find myself wishing I’d been able to hear the Devore O/96 in my room! You still like the O/93s it seems?

I do. I think. I am going on five months of having the Spendors in my system. In a month I will put the Devores back in and see what I think. I know you found the D7’s bright. My 7.2’s are not in my room with my system. I think I have a handle on them-they are airy and taut at the same time, a combination that the Devores lack. But they lack the oomph that the Devores have.
Last night I played a reissue of Stevie’s "Innervisions". I wish you could have heard "Living for the City". The snarl in Stevie’s voice was spine tingling. The back-up singers came in at the far sides. I am fairly certain the same track would not raise the hairs on the back of my neck with the Devores.
I have two turntables in my system, a TD124 and a 301. Some records sound better with one, others with the other. So it is with my two sets of loudspeakers.

fsonicsmith,


Please let me know how it goes when you put the Devores back in the system.  I wonder if you will welcome them with open arms, or perhaps be less forgiving of their lack of soundstaging prowess.



One of the things I like about the Joseph Perspective speakers that I ultimately bought is that they do the soundstaging/imaging/disappearing thing with world class, tonally beauty,  but also have the rich, punchy fun factor in the mid to lower bass that makes music grab you, more like the Devore speakers.


My Thiel 2.7s sometimes seem like an in-between of the Joseph and the Devore speakers:  killer soundstaging and imaging like the Josephs, but bigger and richer and "organic" like the Devores.   Naturally this means sometimes they sound like the perfect speaker to me, combining the best of all the things I like, and other times more like a neither here nor there between what the Josephs and Devores do well.   I'd say that for the vast majority of the time the Thiels split that difference beautifully.Who'd ever thought Thiels would be described as rich and lush?  But they did make a break-through in their final design, and the richness is no doubt helped along by my CJ tube amps :)



Anyway, regarding Audio Note, I hope to hear them again some time, (pandemic allowing...)

If you ever get a chance, do try and hear the Spendor Classic 100.  This is what Spendor now calls what would otherwise be the SP100 Mk3.  I heard this in the same system with D7's, and the admittedly more expensive Classics significantly outperformed them.  Particularly in the treble, but really over the full spectrum; fuller, more meat on the bone, more characterful, a bigger sound.  They came very, very close to my all-time favs, the Harbeth 40.2.

BTW, as I said above, I found the Audio Notes perhaps the purest speaker, timbrally, that I've ever heard.  But again, I didn't go for the tight corner placement.

Heard the 0/93s, but never the chance at 0/96, which I suspect are significantly better, or Joseph.

I would LOVE to hear the latest Spendor Classic 100!

I own the Spendor S3/5s, the little guys, and they make me swoon over how beautiful they sound, so I was curious about a bigger classic version.  (I used to hear the BC1 regularly, but it's been a while).

I searched around for some Spendor 1/2s and 2/3s, which are about as big as I'd go for that kind of thing, but unfortunately even Spendor dealers never had them in for audition.   You just had to order them.

I had the Harbeth SuperHL5Plus which I really liked, but sold them because my Thiels were close enough to them in good ways, and other ways better.   But my Spendor 3/5s are magical - for their size rich, with a fullness and roundness and organic quality to voices that rival the Harbeths.

I owned a set of Spendor SP1/2Es and really enjoyed them. Their ability to reproduce naturally recorded voice and acoustic instruments was incredible. Their imaging was the best I've heard, but that came at the price of a very small sweet spot. (I haven't heard the SP 1/2 r2s, the latest incarnation, but have read that the current generation of classic Spendors have lost a bit of their magic by trying to keep up with the modern fad of a more analytic sound. That's sad if true, but I have no idea if it is.) 

Sadly, my wife finally had enough of their 1970s big-box-in-the-room appearance and I had to sell them. I don't have a dedicated room for the stereo so it needs to share the space with other uses. 

I've got a pair of Ohm 1000s now that I really enjoy. The Ohm's also have a very natural balance, plus a much, much bigger sweet spot. In the latter sense, they are easier to enjoy than the Spendors.