Напольная акустика — Devore Fidelity O/BRONZE

The O/Bronze is a floorstanding loudspeaker belonging to the Orangutan family by DeVore Fidelity, a company based in Brooklyn, New York. The maker places it between its O/96 and the O/Reference that tops the series, and it borrows components from the upper model while keeping the smaller cabinet. The price quoted at launch was USD 30,000 per pair.

Key specs that matter

DeVore fits a 10 inch paper cone woofer developed new for the model and a 1 inch silk dome tweeter taken from the O/Reference. The maker rates the response from 26 Hz to 23 kHz. Sensitivity is 96 dB at 1 W and 1 m, and the nominal impedance is 12 ohm, a high value for a passive speaker. The cabinet is 457 mm wide, 305 mm deep and 902 mm tall once the supplied stand is included. Finish options are American black walnut and lace walnut, with custom veneers available on request.

Engineering and use context

Both drive units sit in cast and machined bronze chassis of the kind first used on the O/Reference, whereas the O/96 woofer uses a zinc casting. The tweeter also gains a revised motor and magnet compared with the one in the O/96. In the woofer motor, two Faraday rings are fitted, and a copper heat sink ring surrounds a bronze phase plug. The reflex port tubes are cast in bronze as well and are mounted so that they stay isolated from the cabinet walls, which DeVore says limits the transfer of vibration into the enclosure. The enclosure is built to the exact outside size of the O/96, so the O/Bronze keeps the same wide, shallow footprint that the Orangutan line is known for. Cardas binding posts handle the speaker cable connection. In the series lineup, the O/Bronze was created to fill the step between the O/96 and the O/Reference, so it takes the bronze driver hardware of the O/Reference into the mid sized box.

Pairing

The high impedance asks for less current than a usual speaker, and together with the high sensitivity this lets modest amplifiers such as single ended triode units rated at a handful of watts drive the pair to useful levels. High output transistor amplifiers are not required, and an owner can pick amplification based on features and build rather than on raw power reserves. The pair suits rooms of about 20 m2 and larger.

Alternatives

The DeVore Fidelity O/96 uses the same cabinet size with a zinc woofer chassis and the lower sensitivity tweeter motor of the earlier design.