Floorstanding loudspeakers — Living Voice Vox Olympian

The Vox Olympian is a four-way exponential horn loudspeaker from the British maker Living Voice, and the company states that it spent seven years in development. Each cabinet carries four horn-loaded drivers, and the design can be extended downward with a separate bass unit. A pair in the standard finish starts at GBP 270,000, and exotic finishes push the figure beyond GBP 375,000.

Key specs that matter

Living Voice rates the Olympian at 105 dB sensitivity with an 8 ohm impedance and a range of 70 Hz to 45 kHz. The band is split four ways - mid-bass from 70 Hz to 450 Hz, midrange from 450 Hz to 5 kHz, high-mid from 5 kHz to 18 kHz and a super high frequency section from 18 kHz to 45 kHz. Power handling is 100 W. Every cabinet is 680 mm wide, 620 mm deep and 1600 mm tall, and weighs 210 kg.

Engineering and use context

At the bottom of each cabinet, the mid-bass driver is a Vitavox 151 of 15 inches with a paper cone, a pleated paper surround and an alnico magnet, loaded by a folded horn of laminated beech with nonparallel sides. Above it a Vitavox S2 compression driver with a proprietary alloy diaphragm feeds a 300 Hz exponential horn, also of laminated beech and evolved from the original Vitavox geometry. A modified TAD 2002 with a beryllium diaphragm and alnico motor fires into a trumpet cast in LG2 bronze, whose length is tuned for acoustic attenuation, and a TAD ET703 compression driver with a beryllium diaphragm handles the top octaves. The crossover can sit in external housings or be mounted inside on isolated mountings, and each of its parts is either built in-house or made to a Living Voice design. Cabinet finishing is carried out by the Dutch furniture maker Struik and Hammerslag. Standard veneers are wenge with beech or walnut with lacewood under an open-grain satin lacquer with oxidised silver and gunmetal parts, while custom orders can add sunburst motifs, high-gloss lacquer or 24ct gold-plated hardware.

Pairing

With such high efficiency the Olympian needs very little amplifier output, and a low-power triode amplifier is a practical partner. Living Voice itself advises choosing amplification for human expression rather than for power output and load tolerance. Below the Olympian's lower limit the maker offers the Vox Elysian bass unit, which front-loads two 12 inch drivers with a 4.6 m folded exponential horn to cover 25 Hz to 70 Hz, or the Vox Basso, a 250 litre reflex box with a single 18 inch driver reaching 20 Hz.

Alternatives

The Living Voice Vox Palladian is a simplified four-way horn system sharing the Olympian's midrange horn and bronze trumpet in a taller 1800 mm cabinet.