Pre/Power Amplifiers

For its Orangutan O/96 DeVore has achieved the 'holy grail' for what is otherwise a relatively conventional (ie, not horn-loaded) two-way moving-coil loudspeaker – high sensitivity with a relatively easy-going amplifier load. The O/96's impedance [red trace, inset Graph] is toughest through the bass, but the broad 20Hz-200Hz band usefully coincides with the Jadis SE300B's lowest 0.40-1.52ohm output impedance [cyan trace].

The SE300B's source impedance rises to 1.9ohm from 400Hz-10kHz exactly where the O/96's impedance trend is >8ohm and within +19/–28° [green trace]. Otherwise the O/96's minimum impedance is still a safe 7.15ohm/190Hz coupled with a negligible –9° phase angle. And where the angles do swing to a maximum +52°/53Hz and –63°/73Hz, the impedance remains at a super-easy 31ohm and 22ohm, respectively. So the SE300Bs with their limited 2.3A maximum current and ~11W output are not especially troubled, achieving a predicted 99dBA SPL from a pair of O/96s, without boundary reinforcement, auditioned at 3m in an average listening room. In practice, the SE300B's 'shaped' source impedance [cyan trace] and unloaded response [grey trace] combine with the O/96's variable load and frequency response to deliver the overall system response measured here [black trace, inset Graph]. PM