JOHN DEVORE debuts long-awaited GIBBON X Production loudspeaker

From PartTime Audiophile:

http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2015/...long-awaited-gibbon-x-production-loudspeaker/

 

Rafe is killing it with his great reviews

 

Reminiscent of my Rega RS3.

 

Nice - thanks for posting. I have been waiting on this speaker for what seems like forever. Can't wait to meet it in person

 

beautiful finish and build quality, reminds me a little of the joseph audio perspectives. love the seas tweeter, one of my favorites.
no published specs yet. it will be interesting to see what the low pass crossover frequency is for the side firing drivers.
i haven't yet heard a truly good side firing design in a narrow cabinet.

 

They remind me of a classier version of my Coincidents. I'd like to hear them.

 

Won't be long before I hear a pair of those. Very much looking forward to it.

 

Sorry to say this but they are not that impressive sounding. I have been at RMAF for the past two days. I visited the DeVore room both yesterday and today. For that kind of scratch the new Harbeth 40.2's blew the Gibbons away. The Vinni Rossi/Harbeth room with Vinni's new ILO and VR120 amp was stunning. I would not put DeVore room in the top 10 out of the 60+ rooms I visited the past two days. The hands down best room of the show was the Lamizator/Vapor Audio room. Lukas brought his Golden Gate DAC and his big tube mono amps to the show. I visited that room three times this weekend. That room was in a league of its own.

 

Sorry but I'm very skeptical of a speaker manufacturer who's speakers consistently cost so much and consistently measure so ****ty.
A speaker that drops 5db from 1k to 10k and then really tanks?
C'mon. It makes white van speakers look good.
I fully realize that DeVore has a dedicated following otherwise he wouldn't be in business.
But the way his speakers measure or more accurately don't measure up is astounding.
I understand that people really like his designs but please don't try to describe them as accurate.

I read his quotes in the RMAF blurb and was like wha?
Fighting against 1980's speaker designs that require powerful amps to drive.
WTF difference does it make if your speakers require a 300 wpc amp to drive them that costs $2k or a 2 wpc mono tube SET that costs $5k each?
Speaker design has come a long way since the 80's but defined speaker measurement methodology has been codified for a long time.
I've looked at the Stereophile reviews of DeVore speakers and like other products they review you clearly see who champions certain products.
To anyone familiar with the mag Art Dudley would be that champion and I don't need to go beyond that.

 

They've got a ways to go to beat the Orangutans in my book; but to be fair, the O's are more my style anyway. Gibbons a different 'school' (as John says, more for the fans of soundstaging, etc.)

Can't wait to hear 'em, though!

 

I read that quote too and found it hilarious.
"modern transparency, imaging and sound-staging".
Holy Crap, what a design coup!
What do his older designs do?
Veil, smear and collapse?
I'm sold.

 

I would expect these to be magnificent. Got to hear them.

 

I don't understand your point?

 

My point is what is the advantage to designing uber efficient speakers when "normal" speakers can be driven with a ton of great amps that cost far less?
He specifically referred to "80's speaker designs".
You can take that a couple of ways, either he's an arrogant prick who thinks that everyone else in the speaker universe hasn't evolved since the 1980's.
Or he's offering speaker designs that take on a 1980's speaker design ethic.
Aside from the the design posted in this thread, he sells speakers that look and measure like they were designed in the 70's or 50's by a furniture maker.

 

Wow, so I guess you are saving up for a set as I type?! Do tell us how you really feel.
-Bill

 

JA is the only person who decides where a product is placed in the magazine's listing...no matter what Art says.

Personally, I don't like any Devore speakers except the wide baffle O series. And I've never been a fan of speakers using side firing woofers. Snell'S B-Minor was well regarded by Stereophile but man did it sound lousy.

But it's not just Art at Stereophile that champions tubes/Sets or odd measuring loudspeakers. And because they do...doesn't make them wrong and the likes of JA right. Indeed, JA is taken as gospel by the measurements nuts but forgot to note that JA has hearing problems at 65 and can no longer hear above 10khz.

He has admitted this himself on audioasylum.

 

I would not call a loudspeaker with a sensitivity of 92 dB/w/m "uber efficient" but they do have reasonable sensitivity and a very benign impedance - suited to the many owners of lowish power valve amplifiers. I don't think they would be a good match for a 2w SET, no matter what it costs.

 

http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2015/...long-awaited-gibbon-x-production-loudspeaker/

 

Um yeah, Lee, that was already posted in the first post.

 

I've always found the Shindo/Valve amp/Devore combinations dull sounding in spite of these benign impedances in the speaker design. Impedance is not the only consideration for a proper match. Things were improved in this relationship with the O/96 design.

 

Interesting. I have never found this when listening to Devore Shindo combos. I have heard the O'96 and the Devore super 8's. Both sounded full of life, lots of emotional tone and texture.

It also may have to do with the source and front end that you were using. I have heard various digital setups, a garrard, 301 with an Emt and a denon 103' as well as a fantastic thorens with an ortofon spu. All have sounded exceptional.

All this being said people look for different things in music reproduction. I have never been let down by Devore paired with Shindo.

 

Every engineer has different design goals and priorities that force certain compromises. If measurements could really predict how a speaker sounds to a human ear in a real world listening environment, then there wouldn't be so many crappy sounding speakers out there that measure relatively flat.

 

I don't think it had anything to do with the sources used. Different tastes probably. Heard such a combo with Shindo Garrard, btw. The stiff, large paper cones of the Orangutan line are more suited to low power valve amps. Maybe he has brought some of this concept to this speaker although he did speak about these differences. I've owned Devore speakers, btw.

I've leaned back towards equipment like Naim (which has its own issues) and valve amps like Berning. My point was more that the Devore speakers are marketed towards low power valve amps and for my tastes, I would put different equipment in front of them. Those speakers can take all kinds of amplification and do very well for different tastes.

 

Argh, my bad. How did I miss that? I got up at 3am to return from the Rocky Mountain show.

 

While Im not wild about Devore speakers (heard the Gibbon 8s, and the 0/93s) they have always sounded thick and dark to me (even with fantastic front ends), I dont see any need to be so vitriolic in these threads. Im willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume hes not an "arrogant prick."

Regardless, I do find his statement about these new speakers odd, and dont quite 'get' the different goals for the speakers. I would also point out that my Dahlquist DQM 9 speakers from 1981 kick total butt, are rated 95db efficient (closer to 90 it seems like) and have held their own for me against many very expensive speakers, including the devore O/93, where i preferred rhe DQMs by a fair margin.