While a traditional loudspeaker listening session was somewhat of a delicacy at CES this year, it appeared that for those who did attend the focus was intensified. Less vendors = more foot traffic. The threat of only a single floor of HiFi didn’t shake off John Devore of Devore Fidelity from exhibiting. After all, he had some biz-ness to attend to. A new evolution of his gibbon loudspeaker line called the Super Nine was still making its way out into the public consciousness unimpeded.
A starting price close to $10k lands the new S9 well under the $16k range of the original gibbon X, and a bit closer to the highly sensitive Orangutan series. A pair of wide bandwidth 7 inch paper cone drivers make up a majority of the sound, with the same .75 inch treated textile dome tweeter from the gibbon X adding the top end sparkle to the somewhat fancy-yet-living-room-acceptable tower design.
The back end support came courtesy of a Nouvelle Verdier turntable ($10k) or Totaldac D1 Tube Mk II ($11k). Amplification was a pair of VTL MB-185 series III monos ($20k/pair) to the VTL TL5.5 Series II Pre ($11k) with Auditorium supplying the cables.
When I entered the room John had some classical music on, projecting an expansive soundstage that was tonally balanced and sufficiently textured. Switching over to Jelly by Laural Halo, the low end intro really impressed across the board with a low end grip that just wouldn’t let go. The same rich tapestry rung through as with the previous track, but followed by control of the low-to-high dynamics that was equally impressive as it was focused. It was the toe tapping high fidelity experience that I was looking for, but rarely heard all week.
Tucked up next to the wall in case of emergency were a pair of the Orangutan O/96. This Devore series is intended for tube amplification and is rated at 12 ohms. The new super nine is designed to be a more all-arounder and comes in at 8 ohms and a 98dB sensitivity, making it moire suitable for tubes and solid stage alike.
John is currently taking preorders for the super nine with shipping about a month out.
