DeVore Silverbacks

Charles1dad - Thank you. I feel very fortunate to have the Solovox. You are right, the SBs are held in very high regard by many (most?), and I count myself amongst those who find them to be extremely musical. The ONLY reasons I parted with them because I have multiple systems, one of which gives me about 90 percent of the overall musical satisfaction I experienced with the SBs, and of course I had nothing like the Solovox in any other system. I have yet to hear a sub-$30K pair of speakers that can do everything as well as the SBs. That said, for solo vocals, solo instrumental (especially acoustical instruments), small ensemble chamber, jazz, and blues, and even small scale orchestral music from the Baroque and Mannheim periods, I have not heard a more lifelike presentation of those musical genres than what I hear from the Solovox. Nothing else comes close IME. The Solovox completely disappear in the room, and I do mean completely. They obviously do not go as low or as high as the SBs, nor will they shine with large scale or complex music, but I now play those types of music on other systems. To sum it up wrt the Solovox, they are exceeding my expectations. On a side note, several friends who are not into music like we are have commented how remarkably live the music sounds when played through the Solovox. No argument here!
All The Best,

Thanks so much for sharing your Solovox impressions. It`s gratifying to know these speakers met or even exceeded your expectations. I`m going to the RMAF this year and hope I come across the Solovox or some other PHY driver speaker.

I wanted to post a follow up to this thread. I just recently, after much time spent listening to shindo gear, purchased a vac phi 200 amp and an Aesthetix calypso signature preamp. To be honest, I loved the shindo gear but to get the truly ridiculous sound with the silverbacks you needed to go monos, which at 17,000 (prior to buying a preamp) was a bit much. I searched...and searched. Eventually I came across the vac gear.

The vac phi 200 is amazing. It has as much soul as the shindo gear while costing about 7000 less. The dynamics and "punch" are probably better than the shindo gear...at least that I listened to. The Aesthetix is no slouch either.

If you own Devore speakers, check out vac as a true alternative to shindo. Really sings.

No wonder. VAC and Lamm are considered among the very best and seem to work well with many different speakers.

Dchattleton, thank you for your post. This is the exact issue that I have been struggling with recently. I own a VAC Avatar Super which works very well with my Devore Silverbacks; I have always been intrigued by Shindo and happened upon an Apetite integrated which I have had for about 3 weeks. The Shindo has an absolutely amazing noise floor, imaging, staging, and accuracy. The music comes together in a very special way and it is so much fun to listen to. This Shindo does not do bass very well because it is only 15W but it makes me really wonder what the higher powered Shindo mono blocks with a shindo pre would be like. What is also intriguing is how would say a Monbrison pre with a good VAC amp accomplish (for a lot less than the all shindo affair)?