Floorstanding loudspeakers — Living Voice R80

Living Voice, the British company whose models are designed by Kevin Scott, builds the R80 as a two-way reflex tower. Its cabinet construction evolved from about 30 years of work on the Auditorium series, and the design came out of a four-year empirical development programme completed in 2023, followed by a further 12 months of refinement to cabinet tuning and crossover. In the United States the OB-X version with outboard crossovers is priced at USD 54,250 per pair in Gloss Ebony.

Key specs that matter

The R80 uses a symmetrical MTM layout, with a Scanspeak Ellipticor 34 mm dome tweeter rated at 4 ohm placed between two Scanspeak Ellipticor 21 cm mid-woofers rated at 8 ohm each. Living Voice quotes 25 Hz to 20 kHz, 92 dB sensitivity at 2.83 V and 1 m, a 6 ohm nominal impedance with a 4.5 ohm minimum, and 100 W power handling. The cabinet is 310 mm wide, 423 mm deep and 1090 mm high. The version with an inboard crossover weighs 48.1 kg per cabinet, while the outboard version weighs 45.5 kg, plus 8 kg for each external crossover unit and 4.5 kg for the plinth.

Engineering and use context

Two ports open at the back of the cabinet, one on each side, trimmed with gold-coloured metal. The cabinet walls are 38 mm hardwood composite with a maple veneer inside and triple internal bracing, and the proportions follow the golden ratio. Crossover parts are largely proprietary, made by hand in-house or sourced from specialists, including Living Voice polypropylene capacitors and wire-wound resistors. In the OB-X version the crossover sits in a separate box finished in matching veneer, and the WBT terminals, internal wiring and selected parts receive deep cryogenic treatment. The speaker can be bi-wired but is not set up for bi-amping. The satin black plinth is 60 mm high, 490 mm wide at the front and tapers to 430 mm at the rear, and it locates the cabinet with 16 magnets. In the inboard version the network stays inside the main cabinet. Finishes include glossy or satin Ebony, glossy or satin Santos, Pippy Oak and custom RAL colours.

Pairing

Living Voice states that the impedance stays within a narrow band from 120 Hz to the top of the range, and that the efficiency allows amplifiers of only 7 to 10 W to be used, which makes low-power single-ended valve designs a practical match.

Alternatives

The Living Voice Auditorium R25A is a smaller MTM floorstander with two 17 cm bass-mid drivers and a 26 mm dome tweeter.