After a very enjoyable time spent with some Graham LS5/9s recently, my speaker search took me to Definitive Audio near Nottingham earlier this week to listen to some Living Voice speakers.
First just to say that the overall experience of listening to speakers at Definitive was fabulous. It's not often that you get a demo with the very person who designed them and Kevin is a great guy with an enthusiasm for hifi and music in general that is really very intoxicating (not to mention he makes great coffee!!).
For anyone who followed my thread about the Grahams, they would know that I've done some fettling in my living room which has allowed me to start considering floor-standing speakers again, after previously believing that anything that went too low was going to be an issue. And thusly, Living Voice made their way onto my shortlist. And I'm glad they did.
I took my Chord DAVE and Pass Aleph 3 with me to try and replicate things as best as possible from my home set-up, but the plan initially was just a demo at Definitive, with a view to possibly bringing a pair home for a bit if I liked them.
We started with a pair of current production 'entry level' Auditorium R25A speakers. I actually spent most of my relatively limited time listening to these and I'm afraid to say that if they were the only speakers we had listened to that day, Living Voice would have been removed from the list without hesitation.
Now they are far from a bad speaker, but the level of insight and realism when compared to the Grahams I felt was quite some margin behind. I also felt the bass response, albeit extending below the Grahams, was not particularly well-defined. This gave the whole presentation a bit of a woolly and unrefined sound and perhaps even impacted on the mid/treble which was not as 'agile' as my personal taste prefers.
What I did note with them however was the general feeling of incredible spaciousness and scale, which as we moved on to models further up the range, appears to be a running theme of the LV sound.
Next we listened to an older used pair of speakers with some upgraded components which even Kevin admitted he wasn't sure exactly what spec they were (he had been using them at home himself for a while apparently). Whatever spec they were, the jump was notable.
Now we were getting the same sense of scale, but with a much more agile and responsive presentation, which made everything a lot more natural and real. But there was a still just a bit of sluggishness in the bottom end I thought.
As time was running out, we then moved fairly quickly over to a pair of the current production IBX-R4.
Finally, I started to hear what all the fuss with LV speakers is about. They really did have the whole package. Well-defined and articulate bass, fabulous natural midrange/treble and an ease with music that felt so unrestrained and under control. Everything was also pushed right back, where the other two models were much more forward. The depth and scale of the music was really quite something and the comparison with the earlier two models was really quite stark. One of the truest 'speakers disappearing' tricks I've ever heard I have to say.
The cohesion right through the frequency range was also very impressive and there was little to no hint of a crossover at all.
Was really very impressed indeed.
On a practical level, given my largish living room and the appeal of high sensitivity speakers (the IBXs are 94dB efficient) this opens up the options for amplification considerably and means I could have a play with valves at some point.
The other appeal of the LVs is their incredible wide dispersion, which for an 8m long living room with the speakers positioned along the long edge, is an added appeal when considered against the pretty sharply-focused Grahams i.e. if we have visitors, at least everyone gets to enjoy the music.
But then there is the price. For me, the only models worth thinking about with LV are the IBX-R4 and upwards and their RRP is roughly 2.5x the Grahams at £8.5k (albeit Kevin seemed willing to discuss the price!). And there are still certain things the Grahams did in terms of realism and natural tonality on vocals and across the midrange that even the £8.5k LVs didn't quite seem to do (but I concede, I do need to spend more time with the LVs before coming to that conclusion confidently).
So while I contemplate going for the home demo (before which I think I will need to convince myself that the Grahams are out of the picture first), I have some QLN Prestige Ones potentially coming for a home demo on Sunday so the fun continues...
First just to say that the overall experience of listening to speakers at Definitive was fabulous. It's not often that you get a demo with the very person who designed them and Kevin is a great guy with an enthusiasm for hifi and music in general that is really very intoxicating (not to mention he makes great coffee!!).
For anyone who followed my thread about the Grahams, they would know that I've done some fettling in my living room which has allowed me to start considering floor-standing speakers again, after previously believing that anything that went too low was going to be an issue. And thusly, Living Voice made their way onto my shortlist. And I'm glad they did.
I took my Chord DAVE and Pass Aleph 3 with me to try and replicate things as best as possible from my home set-up, but the plan initially was just a demo at Definitive, with a view to possibly bringing a pair home for a bit if I liked them.
We started with a pair of current production 'entry level' Auditorium R25A speakers. I actually spent most of my relatively limited time listening to these and I'm afraid to say that if they were the only speakers we had listened to that day, Living Voice would have been removed from the list without hesitation.
Now they are far from a bad speaker, but the level of insight and realism when compared to the Grahams I felt was quite some margin behind. I also felt the bass response, albeit extending below the Grahams, was not particularly well-defined. This gave the whole presentation a bit of a woolly and unrefined sound and perhaps even impacted on the mid/treble which was not as 'agile' as my personal taste prefers.
What I did note with them however was the general feeling of incredible spaciousness and scale, which as we moved on to models further up the range, appears to be a running theme of the LV sound.
Next we listened to an older used pair of speakers with some upgraded components which even Kevin admitted he wasn't sure exactly what spec they were (he had been using them at home himself for a while apparently). Whatever spec they were, the jump was notable.
Now we were getting the same sense of scale, but with a much more agile and responsive presentation, which made everything a lot more natural and real. But there was a still just a bit of sluggishness in the bottom end I thought.
As time was running out, we then moved fairly quickly over to a pair of the current production IBX-R4.
Finally, I started to hear what all the fuss with LV speakers is about. They really did have the whole package. Well-defined and articulate bass, fabulous natural midrange/treble and an ease with music that felt so unrestrained and under control. Everything was also pushed right back, where the other two models were much more forward. The depth and scale of the music was really quite something and the comparison with the earlier two models was really quite stark. One of the truest 'speakers disappearing' tricks I've ever heard I have to say.
The cohesion right through the frequency range was also very impressive and there was little to no hint of a crossover at all.
Was really very impressed indeed.
On a practical level, given my largish living room and the appeal of high sensitivity speakers (the IBXs are 94dB efficient) this opens up the options for amplification considerably and means I could have a play with valves at some point.
The other appeal of the LVs is their incredible wide dispersion, which for an 8m long living room with the speakers positioned along the long edge, is an added appeal when considered against the pretty sharply-focused Grahams i.e. if we have visitors, at least everyone gets to enjoy the music.
But then there is the price. For me, the only models worth thinking about with LV are the IBX-R4 and upwards and their RRP is roughly 2.5x the Grahams at £8.5k (albeit Kevin seemed willing to discuss the price!). And there are still certain things the Grahams did in terms of realism and natural tonality on vocals and across the midrange that even the £8.5k LVs didn't quite seem to do (but I concede, I do need to spend more time with the LVs before coming to that conclusion confidently).
So while I contemplate going for the home demo (before which I think I will need to convince myself that the Grahams are out of the picture first), I have some QLN Prestige Ones potentially coming for a home demo on Sunday so the fun continues...
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