At first I thought the spaciousness I heard from recordings of Steely Dan—the most frequently played rock group at the show—and Diana Krall was a mite artificial, but when I listened to my CD of Sarah Vaughan singing "Send in the Clowns," I realized…
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Without question, some of the best sound at Florida Audio Expo came from the Danish trio of Aavik, Ansuz, and Børresen. This combination of electronics, speakers and cabling, expertly set up by industry pro Lars Kristensen, managed to overcome room-related problems and deliver some of the most spacious sound heard over my three days in Tampa.
With this year's Consumer Electronics Show behind us, readers of our on-line show reports know the sad truth: that the largest industry-only technology show in North America attracted even fewer "high-performance" audio exhibits in 2019 than it did in 2018. The phrase "CES is dead" is now a mantra, and no one should be surprised if this year's poor showing proves to be the final nail in CES's coffin as far as high-end audio is concerned.
Last year also saw the number of exhibits decline at two regional audio events: the California Audio Show (to be held July 26–28, 2019, Oakland Airport…
In 2008, a pair of DeVore Fidelity's Gibbon Nine loudspeakers arrived at my home for a Follow-Up review. Within weeks, I wrote a check for them. That put me in good company: Several other reviewers who reviewed the Nines also bought their review pairs.
Ten years later, the Gibbon Nines are still my main speakers. That's the longest I've ever kept a pair of speakers in my main system, not counting the Polk Audio 7Bs I bought in 1980, when I was 16.
In 2012—four years after buying the Nines and 32 years after buying the 7Bs—I caught wind of an apparent successor, the Gibbon X (X as…
After extensive experimentation—aided by John DeVore, who visited twice to help me set them up—the Xes ended up 9' 7" apart, center to center, and 7–9' from the front wall (footnote 2). Firing directly down the length of the room, the left speaker had abundant space, but the right was only a couple of feet from a record shelf. I could hear that asymmetry in the soundstaging, but the soundstages of appropriately spacious recordings still manifested not just beyond the speakers but past the sidewall.
I tend to move my listening seat around—it's a lightweight IKEA chair—but did most of my…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way, ported, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive units: 0.75" ultra-low-mass textile dome tweeter suspended in inert chamber, 7" midrange driver with phase plug and inverted natural-rubber surround, two long-throw 9" woofers. Frequency range: 23Hz–40kHz. Sensitivity: 91.5dB/W/m. Impedance: 8.5 ohms nominal, 16 ohms maximum, 7.3 ohms minimum at 26Hz.
Dimensions: 44" (1120mm) H by 9" (230mm) W by 17.5" (445mm) D (not including feet). Weight: 85 lb (38.5kg).
Finishes: Cherry Bamboo, Mahogany Bamboo, Mink Bamboo.
Serial numbers of units…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Thorens TD 124 turntable (reconditioned by Schopper AG); Ortofon RMG-212 (rebuilt), Thomas Schick 12" tonearms; Ortofon 90th Anniversary SPU & Xpression cartridges.
Digital Sources: MacBook Pro computer (early 2015); Intel NUC computer with SSD drive running Roon Optimized Core Kit; PS Audio DirectStream DAC. Ayre CX-7eMP CD player.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 Standard step-up transformer, EAR 834P phono stage, PS Audio BHK Signature preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Pass Laboratories XA60.8, PS Audio BHK Signature 300…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
A couple of years ago, DeVore Fidelity's John DeVore gave me a ride from Brooklyn, where we both live, to Michael Lavorgna's place, in New Jersey. John was delivering a preproduction pair of his Gibbon X loudspeakers for Michael to set up in his then-new listening room, and I'd tagged along to give them a listen (footnote 1). Michael's room and system sounded superb, and I made a mental note that when the Gibbon X went into production, we should review it. But, like all things that are important but not urgent, that idea remained on the back burner; instead, we…
Manufacturer's Comment
Editor: Thanks to both of Stereophile's JAs for a thorough review of our big Gibbons. As Jim Austin explains, the Gibbon X is the successor to our Silverback Reference. Their shared objective is to be a full-range speaker capable of putting a listener right in the recorded space, removing as many colorations, distortions, and distractions as possible.
Jim notes that "The X's dynamics could literally startle" and that "The X also demonstrated startling realism . . . at certain moments with very good recordings, beyond what I'd previously experienced in my…
The apotheosis—some would say the nadir—of country music suffering was reached in the Western Electric Sound System room put together by Déjà Vu Audio South. There, Vu Hoang (above) took the perilous step beyond Steely Dan's "Black Cow" (as in black sheep?) to Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Please Release Me" and The Carpenter's "This Masquerade." The superb sound got me through a succession of despair-laden tracks from Western Electric Sound's The Perfect Vocals CD that were titled—I kid you not—"These Days I Barely Get By" (Daryle Singletary), the aforementioned "This Masquerade," "The Man That…
Vanatoo's two diminutive, bargain-priced self-powered speaker models were among the many excellent-sounding exhibits I encountered on the fifth floor of the Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore, during my second day at the Florida Audio Expo. Nor was I the only attendee to realize how good Vanatoo's speakers sounded: The Seattle-based company's Gary Gesellchen was DJing to a standing-room-only crowd when I arrived.
I spent most of my time revisiting the larger Vanatoo Transparent One Encore ($599/pair, on the right in the photo above, next to the $499/pair Transparent One),…