Floorstanding loudspeakers — Living Voice Auditorium R25A 25th Anniversary

Living Voice, the UK firm behind Definitive Audio, builds the Auditorium R25A as a two-way reflex tower designed by Kevin Scott. Living Voice presented it at High End 2019 in Munich to mark the 25th anniversary of Living Voice, and the design is a revision of the older Auditorium R3R. The UK price at the time of its launch was GBP 5,000 per pair.

Key specs that matter

The driver layout is a symmetrical MTM arrangement, with a Scanspeak 26 mm fabric dome tweeter on a double ferrite magnet placed between two 17 cm Scanspeak bass-mid drivers. The bass-mid units have doped paper cones and are made specifically for Living Voice, and they are wired in parallel. The crossover point is 2,850 Hz. Living Voice quotes 35 Hz to 22.5 kHz, 94 dB sensitivity and a 6 ohm nominal impedance. The cabinet measures 215 x 270 x 1030 mm and weighs 19 kg.

Engineering and use context

Its enclosure uses a 750-density hardwood composite and is reflex loaded through a small port placed about a third of the way up the rear panel. The second-order crossover is mechanically isolated from the cabinet on its own board. It uses hand-wound air-core inductors, proprietary non-inductive wire-wound resistors and Living Voice metallised polypropylene capacitors, while copper conductors in a non-twisted pair layout carry the signal inside the cabinet. Terminals allow bi-wiring. Each cabinet sits on a separate plinth of the same footprint, 140 mm high with a black textured finish, fitted with spikes, which brings the total height to 1170 mm. Veneer choices are Cherry, Walnut, Maple, Rosenut, Black Ash and Flat White, all in book-matched furniture-grade natural veneers. Other Auditorium models such as the Avatar R4, IBX-R4, IBX-RW4 and OBX-RW4 use 28 to 29 mm tweeters, and the upper versions add cryogenic treatment of parts. The slim 215 mm front makes the speaker easy to fit in a living room of around 20 m2.

Pairing

Power handling is rated at 100 W. The high efficiency and moderate impedance make the R25A a good fit for small tube amplifiers of single-ended or push-pull type, as well as solid-state amplifiers of moderate power, while the bi-wire terminals take separate cable runs to the two crossover sections.

Alternatives

The Living Voice R80 is a larger MTM floorstander with two 21 cm Scanspeak Ellipticor mid-woofers and a 34 mm dome tweeter.