Compact, two-way floorstanding loudspeaker
Made by: DeVore Fidelity, NY, USA
Supplied by: Absolute Sounds Ltd
Telephone: 0208 971 3909
Web: www.devorefidelity.com; www.absolutesounds.com
Price: £9998

LOUDSPEAKERDeVore Fidelity O/93
The smaller of DeVore’s ‘Orangutan’ loudspeakers still achieves that elusive goal ofoffering high sensitivity and an amp-friendly load, but without full-fledged horn-loading
Review: Ken Kessler Lab: Paul MillerH

ere’s a platitude which shouldadorn a t-shirt made mandatory
attire for all audiophiles: ‘It’s OK
To Like More Than One Thing’.
In my view, hi-fi is no more cut-and-dried
than wine, cars or shoes. Components
are not mutually exclusive. With speakers
in particular, there are more competing,different-sounding technologies than justabout any other part of the chain. And
what DeVore Fidelity has in its £9998-perpair Orangutan O/93 is a design which ticks
numerous boxes, all the better to alleviate
any guilt about loyalty to a single topology.
I admit to loving ribbons and ’statics andtwo-way mini-monitors. A pair of O/93s,
on the other hand, is a bouillabaisse thatallows you to profess multiple affinities in
one speaker, brand owner/designer John
DeVore unapologeticallyignoring slavish adherence
to the restrictions of a single
genre. So, the O/93 employsa paper-coned woofer, dualported enclosure, a simple
crossover and high-sensitivity
dome tweeter. The tweeter
plate has a short flare thatmanages both high frequency dispersion
and provides a hint of horn-loading, thelatter, along with the minimalist crossovernetwork, figuring into the O/93’s highsensitivity [see PM’s boxout, p65].

paper-cone woofer is a simplified version ofthat in the O/96. The O/93’s has a shorter
voice-coil and a smaller magnet, which
reduces the claimed sensitivity by around
2dB [see PM’s Lab Report, p67], while thetweeters remain at the same height
relative to the listener.
As for lowering the cost of theO/93 by some £3500, DeVore
attributes most of that to thesmaller cabinet and no need tosupply separate lacquered-woodstands. Yes, the cabinetry is thatlavish, and therefore a major partof the pricing, up with the finest
woodwork of Sonus faber and therecently reviewed Lowther Almira[HFN Nov ’22], and there’s a vast
selection of exotic woods on offer,
as well as custom
paint finishes.
It’s also worth
pointing out thatboth loudspeakers
deservedly boast
a rare longevity ina market obsessedwith fresh models:the O/93 was released in late 2012,
some 18 months after the O/96.
John DeVore told editor PM for our
review of the O/96 that his goal
was to create speakers which could
work with the burgeoning numberof low-power amplifiers and also
fit into space-deprived, urban flats.
This mission statement meant thatbuyers would not need to seek
vintage or current high-sensitivity
designs typically of massive
dimensions, while expanding theusability of low-power amps around10-20W. There is no escaping theirony of the diametrically opposed‘I discovered
the speakers
have an “eviltwin” nature’

no jacket required
Specifically, the crown of the O/93’s SEAS
28mm silk dome tweeter is recessed byabout 10mm into the faceplate, and as thespeakers are likely to be used sans grilles,that depth is also a boon to the naked
drivers’ survival. DeVore points out thateven its carefully designed, magneticallyattached grilles will affect the speaker’s
performance and recommends not using
them for ‘serious’ listening. So I didn’t...
Unlike the next model up, the O/96
[HFN Apr ’21], the 902x381x254mm (hwd)O/93 is a single-piece floorstander – thewider-baffle 902x457x254mm (hwd) O/96
comes with dedicated stands. Both employ
the same tweeter, but the O/93’s 250mm

RIGHT: The partially horn-loaded
28mm silk fabric dome tweeter ismarried to a long-throw 250mm papercone bass/mid driver with soft rubber
surround. The latter is a variation on theclassic Müller blue paper cone

Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution | www.hifinews.co.uk

profusions of the past 40 years of hungry
speakers and unsuitably low-powered
amplifiers, especially single-ended triodes,
some delivering as little as 5W/ch. Thatsaid, the O/93s can handle much more.

With the O/93’s manageable size andweight of 21kg per piece, one person canhandle the installation. Indeed, setup is abreeze due to single instead of bi-wiringand no fiddling with spikes thanks to thefitted hardwood feet. Even the positioningis hassle-free, with floorplans in the owner’s
manual providing a guide.

A tale of two rooms
To ensure that we got the measure of thisremarkable speaker, as per the manual,
I undertook two completely different
listening sessions. At PM’s larger and lesscluttered space, I heard the O/93 set up
as an isosceles triangle, powered by theWestern Electric Type 91E tube amp

SENSE AND SENSITIVITY
Loudspeaker efficiency is notoriously low, typically <1%, but measuring efficiency
as ‘electrical power in/acoustic power out’ is complex, involving integrating theoutput over a full 360o in both vertical and horizontal planes. As a result, this is
more typically expressed by speaker sensitivity – the SPL realised at 1m distancefrom an input of 2.83V (equivalent to 1W/8ohm). Of course, applying 2.83V
across a ‘4ohm’ speaker is equivalent to 2W, so one brand’s 1W/1m spec. is not
equivalent to another’s at 2.83V/1m. Frequency, too, is vital. Measured at just
1kHz, ‘sensitivity’ is at the mercy of a peak or dip, which is why we also publish
an RMS value across 500Hz-8kHz. How loud your speaker sounds will depend on
both response and level, as defined by the ISO 226 ‘equal loudness contours’. PM[HFN Feb ’23], and with the recommended
toe-in. Thus I was able to experience boththe speaker’s room-filling capabilities
and its ability to sing with the limited
14W/ch power available.
Then, in my smaller listeningroom, I was able to try themwith the layout of an equilateraltriangle (2.5m per side), but withhigher power on tap. I know:
maybe the amps should havebeen swapped, using a behemothin PM’s room and a small amp
in mine, but those in my arsenal
under 30W are not in current
production. Instead, I drove theO/93s with an Audio Research REF
75SE and D’Agostino Momentum
Stereo MxV S250 (rated at 75W
and 250W, respectively).
Suffice it to say, the O/93s
delighted in the extra power,
even though they worked
beautifully with Western Electric’s
Type 91E. There’s no escaping
the seeming contradiction thatthese loudspeakers will satisfy
most listeners with sub-20W
amplification, but offer them
triple that power – let alone 10x– and it’s like taking the limiter
off a car, or more accurately,unleashing a beast. As refined,
delicate and charming as theO/93s were with WesternElectric’s magnificent 300B
triodes providing the power, theyknow how to rock with more.
To put this split personality
into perspective, it’s like handinga Gibson Les Paul guitar to its
creator, whose playing was fastand precise, but always supersmooth. Like that combination,
LEFT: Seen in standard Fiddleback
Mahogany veneer, custom finishes
include walnut, maple, oak, cherry, fig,
and customer-requested paint colours

the DeVore O/93s, via the Type 91E amp,
delivered fluidity which I haven’t heard
since the Apogee Scintilla ribbon speakers[HFN Sep ’85]. It’s this flowing sound that
rendered the pedal steel on Confederate
Railroad’s ‘Trashy Women’ from Greatest
Hits [Atlantic 82911-2] – just when you
reach the lyric ‘heart of gold’ – as sinuousand liquid as ever I have heard it.

Scaling new heights
Grab the axe from Les Paul himself andhand it to Jimmy Page and you’d swear it
wasn’t the same instrument. That’s what
happens when the O/93s are fed either
raucous music or truckloads of power – orboth. The textures and tones segue as if
from Jekyll to Hyde, exactly the manner inwhich the O/93s made the transition when
I turned to bigger amps and Mountain’s
Climbing! [CBS Sony Japan 25AP-1277 LP],
just to hear the wail of ‘Mississippi Queen’at full bellow. What I did not expect was asensation of (sonic) time travel.
Conversations with a seasoned listenerof longevity similar to mine highlighted
a quality I hadn’t expected, especiallyas a number of recent reissues of classic
speakers, eg, revived JBLs, haven’t quite
recaptured that magical sound of yore.
Perhaps they’re not supposed to mimic
their ancestors. The DeVore O/93, however,does reference past values. Maybe it is thecharacter of paper cones which predate
Bextrene and polypropylene, or the highsensitivity. Whatever the reason, I washearing a freshness, a rawness, a lack ofpretence – in other words, the sound ofmusic rather than the sound of hi-fi.
Arguably the most perplexing aspect
was the extraordinarily huge soundstage,accompanied by a vanishing act I normallyassociate only with panel-type speakers.
The soundstage was vast, yet with animage specificity denied to the classics
of which the DeVore O/93s reminded
me despite obvious, modern differences.
As much as I miss my vintage Acoustic
Research 2AXs, they were hard to drivewww.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution

Labreport
DeVore ‘Orangutan’ O/93
Left: The O/93’s simple crossover
does not support bi-wiring/amping,so a single set of 4mm copper
binding posts suffice. Note that thelower cabinet, below the two ports,
is sealed off, limiting internal volume

no, I am not attributing thisconsistency to both albums
being Sony Japan releases.)Ported the O/93s may be, butthere was no woofly sounddown below. The bass simply
covers the floor and creates animpeccable foundation.

Way out west

and could sound amorphous. But
they were always inviting, and that isthe overriding quality of the O/93s,
irrespective of amplifiers, sourcecomponents or material. They
suck you in completely, so forget
truncated listening sessions.

Scale and weight
However much the first impressionof the O/93s is one of finesse, as
if they’re begging for some late1950s Nat ‘King’ Cole recordings on
Capitol, all satiny and warm, they
showed me that the move from theWestern Electric Type 91E to thesurplus wattage of the D’Agostino
Momentum could be taken in
their stride. By way of comparison,
although I used the same recordings
heard with the Western Electric/
DeVore combination in PM’s room,
the discovery of the speakers’‘evil twin’ nature demanded some
additional torture testing.
Back to Mountain. I cranked
up the volume and noted that themass, airiness, scale and weight ofCorky Laing’s percussion enjoyed thesame tactility and presence as thatof Kodō’s Warabe [Sony SRCL4671],
if not the tonal nature because thetypes of drums differ wildly. (And,In direct contrast to the slick
pedal steel of Confederate
Railroad, the scream of LeslieWest’s guitar and the rasp of his
vocals through the O/93s took
me back to the year Mountain’sLP was released – 1970. Thesound was as welcoming andinvolving as hi-fi playback used
to be, before we got wrapped
up in the tweaky minutiae that
distracted us from the music.
What really overwhelmedme, however, was an open-reeltape of big band lushness. The BB
King track ‘Don’t Get Around Much
Anymore’ was included on HFN’s
All Time Greats cover CD in 1994;
now I can play it closer to its source,
on Maxwell Davis’ Compositions
Of Duke Ellington & Others [CrownST110]. It took but seconds toseduce me, especially King’s rich
vocals. The O/93s filled the room,wrapping the sound around thesystem such that it vanished. All thatwas left was the music – and me
wishing I had £9998.

HI-FI NEWS VERDICTSharing the same 28mm silk dome tweeter and similar 250mm
pulp-coned bass/mid driver with the O/96 [HFN Apr ’21] means
there are parallels between this latter model and the lower
sensitivity O/93. ‘Lower’ is not ‘low’, however, for DeVore still
rates the O/93 at a high 93dB/1W/1m. With a nominal impedanceof 10ohm (actually 17ohm/1kHz), this brings sensitivity closer to92dB at the standard 2.83V/1m [see boxout, p65], a figure that’s
still higher than the 90.3dB/1kHz measured here. The slightly
downtilted presence/lower treble [see Graph 1] drops sensitivity
to 89.7dB from 500Hz-8kHz but, in practice, the O/93 only
loses 1.8dB to the 96dB-rated O/96. Again, this fine sensitivity
is not achieved at the expense of a punishing load as the O/93
only momentarily drops below 7ohm (155-185Hz) and, withswings in phase angle of +54o/–60o through the bass, presents
the partnering amplifier with a worse-case 3.1ohm/99Hz EPDR,
putting it in the top few percent of ‘easy-to-drive’ loudspeakers.
The 90cm-tall O/93 has been engineered to be heard on
an above-cabinet axis where its response errors amount to amere ±1.9dB (200Hz-19kHz) and pair matching a fine ±0.6dB.
However, (port/cabinet) resonances are visible on the impedance/
phase spectra at 190-550Hz while a driver mode at 1.9kHz, andharmonics, are visible on both the forward response and CSD
waterfall [see Graph 2]. While this may contribute some ‘colour’,conventional distortion remains a low ~0.5% (re. 90dB SPL)
through the bass and midrange, the former augmented by the35Hz tuning of its two rear-firing ports to yield a steeply rolledoff but deep bass extension of 36Hz (–6dB re. 200Hz). PM

ABOVE: Response inc. nearfield summed driver/ports[green], freefield corrected to 1m at 2.83V [yellow],
ultrasonic [pink]. Left speaker, black; right, red

0 dB-70.0-14
1.3-21
2.7-28-35
200

500

1k

2k

5k
10k
Frequency in Hz >>20k

4.0msec
60kHz

I’ve heard it said, and concur,that DeVore’s O/93 sounds like ‘astate-of-the-art 1968 speaker, butwith 21st century transparency
and soundstage recreation’.
This compact floorstander mademe recall the bliss of 1970s
AR-3As and large Advents, yetwith dynamics, detail and scale
unimaginable back then. Yet
the O/93 isn’t about nostalgia.
Rather, it merits the description‘timeless’. I so badly want a pair...

Sensitivity (SPL/1m/2.83V – 1kHz/Mean/IEC)

90.3dB / 89.7dB / 87.8dB

Impedance modulus: minimum& maximum (20Hz–20kHz)

6.9ohm @ 163Hz
61ohm @ 82Hz

Impedance phase: minimum& maximum (20Hz–20kHz)–60o @ 72Hz
+54 o @ 54HzSound Quality: 89%

THD 100Hz/1kHz/10kHz (for 90dB SPL/1m)

0.35% / 0.3% / 0.55%

Dimensions (HWD) / Weight (each)902x381x254mm / 21kg

0-------- 100

ABOVE: Modes associated with the bass/mid cone arepresent at 1.9kHz and 3.9kHz but treble is very clean

HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONSHI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONSPair matching/Resp. error (200Hz–19kHz)

0.6dB/ ±1.9dB/±1.6dB

LF/HF extension (–6dB ref 200Hz/10kHz)

36Hz / 20.4kHz/20.2kHz

www.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution