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Living Voice Avatar OBX Loudspeaker
Issue
14 - November 2001 |
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And here at last is Daddy Bear, biggest in price (if not in size) of Living Voice's three sensible speaker models. Don't even think about the non-sensible ones! Of course, sensible is a relative term and you'd be forgiven for asking why anyone in their right mind would part with UK£4000 when they could get something visually identical from the same company for a mere fifteen hundred. Which is also exactly what makes the Living Voice speakers so fascinating. Here we have a range of three models spread between these two price limits, each offering the same dimensions and basic paper performance, yet also each providing exceptional musical capabilities for the money at their individual price points. As such they provide something of a primer when it comes to prioritising both musical and design attributes. If you want to know what each part of the speaker pie contributes then the Auditorium/Avatar/OBX are a good place to look. |
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So for those who haven't been paying attention a quick recap is in order. The range started from the premise of the largest floorstanding cabinet that would be generally acceptable in a domestic environment. Given the company's history with high efficiency horn designs, it's not surprising that sensitivity was high on the agenda, and given a fixed cabinet volume it became a case of balancing that against bandwidth. Designer Kevin Scott finally settled on a d'Appolito arrangement using a pair of 6" paper coned drivers that yielded 94dB efficiency, a -3dB point at 35Hz and a benign 6 Ohm load. The end result offers a near perfect balance between practicality, bandwidth and the kind of drive requirements and sensitivity that make the use of small, high quality amps a real possibility. So much for the overview, what about the specifics. The Auditorium majors on delivering the scale and dynamic envelope of the musical performance. The sound is big and live, placing presence and dynamic discrimination ahead of tonal finesse. They excel at revealing the all important structure of the music, the relation-ship between the players and the various instruments. Occasionally they can get a little excitable but it's a small price to pay for convincing musical dynamics and energy. Next up the range comes the UK£2500 Avatar. This adds much bigger motors on the bass drivers, better components in the crossover and a far better tweeter, the Scanspeak D2905/95 (generally found in speakers at around twice this price). The results of these changes are far from subtle, and whilst the Avatar retains the Auditorium's sense of musical scale and enthusiasm, it adds considerable finesse at both frequency extremes along with greater overall clarity and a far broader tonal palette. Instruments are better separated and take on a more individual identity. It's not until you listen to the Avatar that you realise how fast and loose the Auditorium plays its hand, so skilfully does the cheaper speaker cover its tracks. |
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Which finally brings us to the OBX, a carefully considered exercise in extracting the absolute maximum from the basic concept. Out goes the D2905/95 to be replaced by Scan's top of the range D2905/99 Revelator, an impressive and impressively expensive unit. The bass drivers are specially selected, but it's the crossovers that receive the lion's share of the effort. Built into substantial, separate enclosures, these take the basic topology of the Avatar crossover and mount it on a large 10mm MDF board, backed with felt on which it free floats in the cabinet. The rigorously selected components are widely spaced and orientated for minimum crosstalk, whilst the cabinets themselves are stood on large (and very sharp) cones. Did I say rigorous? |
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The components employed in the OBX crossover include Hovland capacitors, hand trimmed and matched Clarostat non-inductive wire wound resistors and air cored inductors, hand wound on the premises. All components are hand matched at the same ambient temperature to ensure consistency in the matching process itself. |
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Which begs the question, can selecting components, putting the crossover in a separate box and a tweeter upgrade make UK£1500 worth of musical difference? Let's face it, you already know the answer, otherwise I wouldn't be bothering with this review. But before I get into that there are a couple of things regarding set-up that you need to know. The first is that the external crossovers necessitate an extra set of short biwired speaker cables. It is essential that these are exactly the same type of cable as your main speaker cables or you risk losing many of the gains made by separating the crossovers in the first place. In fact, experiments with four runs of identical cheap cable proved the point, sounding better than a mix and match pairing of far more expensive designs from a couple of different manufacturers. In the same way, you will have to be obsessive when it comes to speaker placement and levelling. The OBXs will tell you all too clearly exactly what the effects of even tiny positional shifts are. The good news is that once they're placed the serious spikes provided mean they stay well and truly put. Kevin favours a wider than average stance for the speakers, providing massive scale and relying on their excellent pair matching to avoid the hole in the middle syndrome. I wouldn't go so far as he does, my slightly narrower placement giving a tighter soundstage and more focussed images, but that possibly reflects the fact that he spends more time listening to horns than I do. Given that all the Living Voice speakers put bringing the performance home (or should that be into your home?) top of their agenda, what does the OBX add to the presentation? What do you get for your extra money? Well, let's start with the details and, in time honoured fashion, at the bottom end. Compared to the Avatar (by memory) the OBX's bass is faster and cleaner, a combination that also gives it more impact and presence. In fact, considering the fact that on paper it goes no deeper, the extra sense of power is actually remarkable. With that power comes precision and with that, transparency. The OBX can speak with surprising authority when it comes to large scale orchestral crescendos or the sort of subterranean bass burps that litter modern electronic music. Work on their positioning and you'll get satisfying weight and depth, even if they don't really plumb the lower reaches of big organs. But it's at the other end of the scale that things get really interesting. Listen to Ray Brown's upright on This One's For Blanton (the Analogue Productions gold CD, replayed this time on the fabulous Wadia 861) and not only will you hear the marvellously lucid flow of his fingering, but you'll hear each note as a complex composite of the string, the sounding post, the body of the instrument; you'll ear the odd ghost note as his fingers brush the open string next door, the physical difficulty of the contortions in his left hand. Well you won't actually hear the contortions but you can clearly hear the slight hesitation in the flow, the touch of clumsiness in the steps as he plays a particularly difficult figure. It's the depth of this texture that makes the OBX special. |
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And it's not just in the bass. The unusual low end transparency (especially for a compact box like this one reaps ample dividends in the mid-band. There's no clogging or congestion. When the Duke hits his keys the energy transfer is immediate and direct. Right from those insistent, repeated opening notes the quality is clear. Again, each note is a complex, vital, vibrant thing: again you hear the structure of the mechanism that plays it. This isn't just a hammer, it's a whole collection of wood and metal parts, all contributing to the whole. So it should be no surprise that instrumental colour is high on the list of OBX attributes. In fact, I'm tempted to take it a stage further and describe it as instrumental character. Playing the Fone disc I Violini di Cremona, the separate tone and nature of the different instruments is incredibly clear. From the astringence of the Amati through the nutty, rounded warmth of the Guarneri to the vibrant vivacity of the Stradivari, each is immediately identifiable. But each is also equally valid, bringing the instrument's particular beauty to the playing. This even handedness is central to the OBX's performance, the way in which it fails to favour one aspect of performance over another, voice over instrumentation, bass over mid-band. It is, as far as I can tell, as near devoid of editorial tendencies as any speaker I've ever used, being genuinely at home with whatever you throw at it. Indeed, the low level resolution is such, the preservation and presentation of those tiny amounts of vibrational energy, that you might be forgiven for ascribing the speaker musical enthusiasm. Play music and it almost seems to come to life. |
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The high frequencies continue the theme, and you only need to look at the way in which the OBX presents the shimmer and spray of cymbals to appreciate how much detail and texture is present without any of the normal hype and exaggeration that comes from so many speakers engineered for an impressive high frequency response. Brush work is never detached from or overlaid on the music. Instead it is always locked in place, temporally and spatially, nailing the beat, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. |
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Which brings us back to what I was saying about speaker positioning. The OBX's special trick, what they bring to the party over and above the Avatar, is their spatial resolution. All the Living Voice speakers are spatially coherent, it's a key element in the scale and presence of a performance. What the OBX adds is a healthy dose of transparency, focus and stability to the overall picture. That and subtlety, which whilst it's the less obvious aspect is actually the most important of all. Think about Ray Brown's bass again. When I replay it in my mind I can picture the whole instrument. I can hear its height and volume; I can place its position. I'm not talking about the kind of pin-point holography that comes from small cabinets and creative frequency responses. What I'm referring to is the creation of a believable whole, the presence of all its essential elements. |
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The depths of this subtlety actually creep up on you somewhat unawares. The scale of the presentation, the dynamics and overall dynamic range are what grab your attention. But it's the low-level details that actually put the flesh on the structural bones of the music, filling out the shape and texture of the notes, the energy and intent of the players. It makes no difference whether we are talking about Salvatore Accardo sawing away at his Amati or Greg Safarty sticking it to his blond Telecaster, the import of the message is just as crucial to understanding the performance. The Living Voice speakers concentrate on delivering the musical performance to your front room. The OBX simply delivers more of it. More in fact and more in effect. The result is a level of musical insight and involvement that belies the outward simplicity of the speakers. Listen and you'll know it makes sense - both the music and the design approach. Easy to accommodate, easier to drive, the OBX might not be that easy to afford, but with its near perfect balance of virtues and the money you save on not having to buy several hundred Watts of high quality power, it's well worth saving for. For me it represents a benchmark in hi-fi achievement. |
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Beautifully balanced and beautifully engineered, it delivers a more complete musical performance for your money than anything else I've heard at even close to this price. It also stands as a monument to the value of obsessive attention to detail and a healthy scepticism when it comes to measurements. Like I said, other manufacturers could learn a thing or two from the OBX. |
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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Living Voice Avatar OBX Loudspeaker Manufacturer:
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