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The Transparence is a quite remarkable speaker by designer Thorsten Loesch. It uses a heavily modified full range Supravox driver mounted on a Acrylic baffle. As it does away with a crossover your amplifier is connected directly to the high quality drive unit which makes it very efficient at 96dB and very easy to drive. When placed near walls or corners the bass response is surprisingly extended considering there’s no box to prevent bass cancellation, and it its this lack of enclosure that gives it one of its main strengths as the colorations inherent in most cabinets are absent. Imaging is naturally precise as is to be expected from a point source and is has a sense of attack and decay that is almost horn like - a very high accolade in my book.

Much smaller than the massive 2nd Rethm’s that we also stock, the Rethm 4 is a relatively compact horn speaker with a claimed response of 65 Hz and upwards (although it sounds like they extend down a touch further to us) which will be sufficient for many people although some listeners but may find it beneficial to add a sub woofer if their musical tastes includes larger works.
The version we have uses a Supravox drive unit which has a very good tonal balance whilst still retaining a sense of great speed and lack of interia.

The Avatar is a development of the Auditorium (featured above) and adds higher quality crossover components, larger magnets on the bass/mid drivers and the Scanspeak D950000 tweeter. This gives the sound more definition and openness without losing the inherent musical strengths of the design.

The D28 is the latest model in the Response range from ProAc. It is an evolved version of its predecessor the D25 and features refinements throughout the design, including a re-proportioned cabinet, gold plated crossover circuit board, and improved porting which exits onto the integral plinth (like the larger models in the range) rather than straight onto the floor.
We heard a sample of these speakers and they sound quite exceptional, just like a smaller more affordable version of the wonderful D38 in fact. They won’t be in full production until February 2007 but we are due to get one of the very first pairs on demonstration as soon as they’re available.
They will be available in Black Ash, Mahogany, Cherry, Maple for £3,250 and in Ebony and Birds Eye Maple for £3,900.

The OBX-R2 whilst outwardly looking very similar to the other models in the Living Voice range features several large advances. Firstly it uses an external crossover (pictured below) to distance the hi end crossover components from the vibration and magnetism inherent in the loudspeaker enclosure. Secondly it uses the renowned Scanspeak Revelator tweeter and lastly the cabinets are triple braced to further reduce vibration.

News: New IBX-R2 version now available. This speaker is to the same basic specification as the OBX-R2 but with the crossovers housed internally, this model is designed for those that cannot accommodate the separate boxes of the standard version, with a slight loss in outright performance. This model costs approximately £400 less than the OBX-R2 (depending on finish).

The D38 is an exceptional speaker as it manages to excel in so many areas. They get the sense of scale and presence of the recording across beautifully yet still have good speed and timing. They also extend superbly in the bass yet are still easy to drive.
For such a substantial speaker they are surprisingly easy to locate in most rooms due to a novel bass port which exits onto the plinth which means they can be used fairly close to walls without any ill effects.
Their 90dB sensitivity means that amplifiers of 8 watts and above are perfectly suited for most applications and even a good parallel single ended 300B valve amplifier with 18 watts will be sufficient for most larger rooms.
A variety of finishes are available, pictured above is the Ebony finish which along with Birds Eye Maple is a £925 optional extra.

The details of the new top model of the reflex range of Living voice speakers have just been confirmed. Cosmetically they are almost identical to the OBX-R2 detailed elsewhere, albeit with larger external crossovers. This model has been the result of even further refinement of the design. It features a Living voice internal wiring harness, superior in house wound inductors and capacitors, with resistors specially made for Living Voice to their specification. The attention to detail extends to the level where some (but purposefully not all) components are cryogenically treated (including the WBT Platinum plated binding posts), the result of hundreds of hours of listening and experimentation.

Lowther fans know all about a speakers subjective speed. There’s nothing quite like the ultra low moving mass of paper cones combined with huge magnets for really capturing dynamic events with attack and involving the listener completely. The Second Rethm’s use a corner horn designed to rear load the back of the Lowther DX4 driver to extend its bass response, and the drive unit itself is heavily modified with a unique phase plug and whizzer cone which removes the ’shout’ that Lowthers can typically display - making it in our opinion one of the most accessible Lowther based designs on the market. They are also extremely efficient at 100dB meaning most users will need no more no than 2 or 3 watts in normal use.

The D80 is from the same series as the D38 featured elsewhere here, and is basically an evolution of the same theme. It uses the same porting onto the plinth arrangement that we find works so well, and adds even higher quality drive units including a pair of dome midrange units. When listening its clearly very closely related to its smaller brother, it adds increased resolution particularly in the mid and treble with much greater bass extension. Naturally they weigh an not insubstantial 55kg each. All standard finishes are £9,265, with Ebony and Birds Eye Maple costing £10,265.

The Avantgarde Duo’s are a very striking speaker, both in their appearance and their stunning abilities.
They use a pair of horns to cover the mid range and high frequencies which provides the system with a sensitivity of 104dB, meaning that amplifier of very low power (from a couple of watts and upwards) can be used.

Low frequencies (below 170Hz) are dealt with by the bass module which actively drives a pair of 10” paper coned drivers in sealed cabinets. This can be fully adjusted to suit the room that they’re placed in, so despite their extended performance they are still surprisingly easy to accommodate even in fairly small rooms.

Like any hi end speaker these require care in matching and partnering of equipment and cabling, but spend the time to get it right and you’ll be rewarded with sound that is beyond what most people think is possible in the home. The speed and dynamics of the horns are as you’d expect, simply staggering, but this isn’t at the expense of refinement, and those that think that all horns are coloured really need to spend time with a pair of these (or their bigger brothers) in a well setup and complimentary system. These speakers really do have the most astonishing mid band performance.

Ultimately with the Duo what you get is an exceptionally easy speaker to listen to, they sound completely unstrained and effortless, yet their dynamic capabilities mean that they have all the life and excitement you could wish for to keep you enraptured for disc after disc.

A variety of standard finishes are available, including pearlescent white, silver metallic (as pictured above), blue metallic and red metallic. Others finishes can be made to order for a premium.

The Omega version of the Duo is the model up from the standard Duo featured above. Cosmetically the same, the Omega specification means that (amongst other things) the horn drive units use Alnico magnets instead of ceramic ones and they are also even easier to drive as they have a nominal impedance of 18 ohms instead of 8 for the standard model.
The crossover is also further evolved and uses their CPC technology, short for Capacitor Polarisation Circuit this design uses a 100volt charge to pre bias the capacitor in the very simple crossover.

The CN191 is a substantial corner horn which has its roots in 1949 when it was first designed, yet it can still offer a musical performance that is practically unmatched for speed, scale and resolution.
These speakers are two way horns, using massively built Alnico mid range compression drivers coupled to mid horns. Frequencies below 500Hz are dealt with by a 15 inch driver in a corner bass horn enclosure that uses the rooms walls to extend the bass response. The sensitivity of the system is an immense 105dB meaning amplifiers from 1 to 5 watts and upward will suffice in most circumstances, which results in ultra low distortion, maximum energy retrieval and practically complete dynamic contrast.
Each pair is hand made to the owners specification, with various finish, driver and wiring options available. Because of this each pair is unique and prices start in the region of £25,000 per pair and can also be specified with a tweeter to extend the response past 20kHz.

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