DeVore Fidelity at CES 2011

I've been a huge fan of John DeVore's speakers for quite some time. While I was at TONEAudio, I had the DeVore Fidelity Gibbon Super 8s on hand for six months and truly fell in love with their ability to project a gigantic soundstage. Then I had the Gibbon Nines for another six months, reviewed them, and then gave them back to John with a tear in my eye. When my parents visited me in Washington State a couple of years ago, I had the Nines in my system and my dad turned to me and said, "Now I know why you do what you do."

I've been hearing about DeVore's new Orangutan speaker for quite a few months now. John often has a bunch of his audio friends over to the DeVore factory in Brooklyn for a night of listening; these gatherings and the room itself are known as the Monkey Haus. For the last few months, John has been playing the Orangutans for his guests and they have been quite enthusiastic. Looking at these simple two-way boxes, you might be reminded of those Audio Note AN speakers...deceptively simple designs that produce a very high-quality sound. At CES, the Orangutans were nothing short of spectacular. As modest as they look, they will remind you of huge speaker systems that cost twice as much money (the Os will run $12K a pair).

These speakers may look simple, but the sound quality more than justifies the price.