DeVore Fidelity O/baby

“To be honest, it looks like you built them!” This was the rather disparaging comment from my partner when confronted with the DeVore Fidelity O/baby for the first time. This grossly overstates my ability to construct anything more lasting than a sandwich. It also demeans the structural integrity of the smallest freestanding member of the Orangutan series of speakers. Nevertheless, the O/baby looks sufficiently different from pretty much anything else at the price. That could confuse the less committed observer into wondering what the thinking is behind it.

The O/baby draws from the same philosophy as the larger O/96 and O/93 models. Despite what the name suggests, ‘compact’ is not the word that springs immediately to mind. Nevertheless, they are much smaller than the larger DeVore Orangutan models. The premise is a two-way design that leverages a wide but relatively shallow cabinet to help dispersion. It’s a simple enough concept. The closer you look, the more the specific details leap out of the notionally straightforward speaker.

New Money

The 19mm soft dome tweeter sits in a carved-out recess in the ply front fascia, acting as a shallow horn. Ideally, the DeVore Fidelity O/baby’s tweeter fires slightly below your seated ear height. The small horn helps the overall dispersion. Beanbag users need not apply. This handover to a 178m driver made of untreated paper. Both drivers are German in origin and from the same supplier as the larger models.

The crossover that ties the driver together is a fairly minimalist design. It hands over between the two drivers at around 2kHz. As befits something reasonably straightforward, the O/baby supports single wiring. It does this via a set of sturdy, if unremarkable, terminals at the base of the rear panel. A nearby small offset bass port vents the cabinet.

Different position

Its presence puts the O/baby in a position different from that of some similar-looking devices. The O/baby doesn’t take kindly to being placed close to walls or wedged into corners. To its credit, DeVore Fidelity provides genuinely excellent advice on positioning. If you can overcome the traditional male reticence to read instruction manuals.

The cabinet shape, driver choices, crossover, and port ensure that DeVore Fidelity O/baby presents benign impedance and high sensitivity. The smaller cabinet means it cannot match the O/96 and O/93 in absolute terms. DeVore Fidelity quotes 90dB/W/m, which is some way down on the bigger models. However, this combines with an impedance close to eight ohms across the frequency range. The result is a speaker that will not require much power to work in the room. This naturally means that the DeVore Fidelity will interest valve amp users. However – as we shall cover – it’s nowhere near as simple as saying it works best with them.

You raise me up!

The O/baby is closer in overall configuration to the O/96. The 59cm cabinet is not designed to be parked directly on the ground. However, this would simplify getting the tweeter below ear height. The documentation recommends using a stand to add roughly another 12 inches (300mm) to the overall height. DeVore Fidelity’s dedicated stand is available. This is a wood and marine ply structure that looks more like a stool frame than it does anything else. It is attractive and sturdy, but securing the required elevation at £1,398 for two is relatively pricey. Although relatively more cost-effective options are available if you can live without the comforting aesthetic match of the dedicated stand.

Returning to the appearance of the O/baby, I find myself more positively inclined towards them than my partner. Still, there are some limitations to how DeVore Fidelity is finished that need to be considered. The attractive veneer on the front panel is restricted to that side alone. The rest of the cabinet is finished in a black sheen. This has a slightly odd speckled finish that looks like I hadn’t dusted them properly.

Lavish?

I don’t have any issue with saying that you can buy more lavishly finished and spectacular-looking devices than the O/baby.

This doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Spend a little time with the O/baby, and the care and attention that has gone into its construction becomes more apparent. This is a fastidiously made speaker, and behind the deceptively simple premise of its design, a considerable amount of thought and experience has gone into its fabrication. When they’ve been here, I warmed to the O/baby more than I thought I might when I lifted them from the packaging.

Additional Detail

Of course, some of this softening in attitude can be attributed to the additional detail that I’ve been listening to the O/baby in the same period and – bluntly – falling for them in a big way. I have heard the O/96 twice, and the performance on offer has stuck with me, but living with the DeVore Fidelity O/baby has been deeply satisfying. This holds even though this speaker’s attributes do not naturally fit my listening. Both main test amps that reside here possess healthy hundred-watt-plus power outputs, and my musical taste, when left to my own devices in particular, has long leaned towards speakers that go like the clappers.

What the O/baby does with sublime ease is use its effortless sensitivity to demonstrate a speed and sheer immediacy that can leave many narrow baffle rivals sounding languid. The title track of John Grant’s Pale Green Ghosts [Bella Union] articulates the deep electronic underpinnings that would genuinely qualify as urgent if there wasn’t such an effortlessness to the way it happens. This is the antithesis of the idea of ‘grip’. It’s a driver being bludgeoned into starting and stopping with absolute precision, but such is the natural fluency, and the effect is no less engaging.

Agility footnote

This agility is, if anything, a footnote to a selection of other talents that make for a sublime listening experience. I place speakers relatively wide apart. The DeVore Fidelity O/baby needed some toe-in to dial in. Once this is done, the image they create is utterly spellbinding. How they give the required space to the orchestra in Public Service Broadcasting’s This New Noise [Test Card Recordings] feels so intrinsically ‘right’ that going back to even very accomplished resident speakers feels a little like donning headphones. This is not the same type of ‘immersive audio’ as the one that requires umpteen speakers splattered across your walls and ceiling, but the effect it has on your perception of the music is uncannily similar.

Interestingly, the requirement for you to be above the tweeter is genuinely and consistently repeatable. Slouch below the required height and the airiness of the presentation begins to fall away. The impression becomes more directional. I listened to the unplugged version of Fink’s ‘Maker’, an audiophile catnip that effectively demonstrates this. Sink beneath the tweeter level, the absolute perception of the space Finn Greenall is performing starts to fray. Things quickly become a little congested. Agree to the O/baby’s terms of use, though, and he’s right there occupying the space between the two cabinets, as tangible as I can remember experiencing.

Tonal Balance

The tonal balance of the DeVore Fidelity is also hugely appealing. The O/baby is soft at the frequency extremes by metal dome standards. However, it is hugely refined across the upper registers. The caveat is that the DeVore Fidelity might be the most adept speaker at handling less-than-stellar recordings I’ve tested this year. There’s also no lack of clarity and detail in the material either. The Punch Brothers’ haunting cover of ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ on Hell on Church Street [Nonesuch] is packed with the nuances that bring the performance to life. The O/baby handles the build in scale with effortless ease.

The upper registers feed seamlessly into a midrange that balances being full-bodied and tangible. It has you reaching for all recordings you know will luxuriate in the performance on offer while avoiding the feeling that the rest of the response is an afterthought.

Hand it over!

The handover between the two drivers is seamless. Having picked up the baton from the tweeter, the midbass can take the material down to around 40Hz. It does this with a usefully flat response and, in this room at least, gracefully tails off from there.

Beyond this slightly dry description of what the DeVore Fidelity O/baby does is the intangible desire to keep listening to it. This speaker seems purpose-built for those listening sessions that cover a good half a day. The ones that take you through random corners of your collection without sounding a bum note with any of them. One vinyl-based session uncovered a copy of the Fine Young Cannibals The Raw and the Cooked [London Records] that I don’t recall buying. I have a tentative theory that collections begin to manifest records of their own accord beyond a certain point. Beyond any salient technical detail, the way that the O/baby conjures up ‘I’m Not The Man I Used To Be’ is a heady mix. It’s a combination of time travel and holographic manifestation that significantly more expensive speakers have failed to match.

Impressively transparent

There’s one final party piece, too, and it’s a potentially very useful one. The DeVore Fidelity O/baby is impressively transparent about kit changes in a system. There’s also enough stretch in its capability to front significantly more expensive systems if you wish. It also demonstrates a sort of ‘minimum level of capability’ that is absurdly high. On a whim, I connected them to a re-released Musical Fidelity A1 and Chord Electronics Qutest. However lopsided a pricing balance that might look on paper, the result was a joy to listen to.

Equipment that need not cost the Earth can unlock the core virtues of the O/baby. You can hear what it brings to the party when you use the DeVore Fidelity with more expensive gear. However, when you listen in isolation, what remains is so compelling that you don’t miss it.

In fact, ‘compelling’ is a neat one-word summary of what DeVore Fidelity has built here. The DeVore Fidelity O/baby is a concentrated dose of what makes larger Orangutan speakers such an addictive listening experience. That combination of remarkable docility and user-friendliness is hard to beat. Even if you aren’t looking for a wide baffle, high-sensitivity speaker, it might be just the ticket for any system. The O/baby is everything that genuinely great hi-fi should be. It represents one of the very best speakers available under ten grand.

Technical specifications

• Type Two-way stand-mount loudspeaker.
• Drivers Horn-loaded 19mm textile dome tweeter, 178mm uncoated paper mid-bass unit
• Frequency Response 38Hz-25kHz
• Sensitivity 90 dB/W/M
• Impedance 8 ohms
• Dimensions (W×H×D) 37.5 × 89 × 24.8cm including optional stands
• Weight 12.7kg ea
• Price £6,298, stands £1,398

Manufacturer

DeVore Fidelity

www.devorefidelity.com

UK distributor

Absolute Sounds

www.absolutesounds.com

+44(0)208 971 3909

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