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OnSpeakers staff (OSS) interviewed John Devore (JD), founder of Devore speakers, about his thoughts on sound, business, and where he forsees music going in the next few years.

OSS: Where did you come up with the product name “Gibbon”?

JD: There are a couple of Anthropologists and Evolutionary Biologists in my family, so monkeys were sort of in the air. I was always a fan of the gibbon because of its graceful, effortless motion through the trees. It seemed like a perfect mascot for a compact but spirited range of speakers. Also, as a long, skinny kid I always related somewhat to gibbons.

OSS: What inspired you to become a loudspeaker manufacturer in such a saturated market?

JD: When I introduced the first production Gibbon speaker about five years ago, it seemed to me there was a hole in the speaker market. There were fewer speakers available that were truly hand-built, carefully finished and meticulously designed for music lovers. Many brands were either gone or moving away from elegance and towards a more techie, mass-produced look and sound.

OSS: What do you think is the most important thing that your products accomplish?

JD: The most important thing is still my initial goal of bringing to market a line of good-looking, well-behaved speakers that could be driven well by anything from entry-level solid-state to exotic single-ended amps. A big part of my mission is to get really transparent speakers and systems into more homes. Not everyone can handle the visual statement of a horn or Voight pipe in his or her living room, but some may still love the sound of a 300B amp. My speakers are smaller, easier to place and more full-range than many other SET-friendly options. I don’t think there should be such an enormous gulf between the tweaky, DIY guys and the average Hi-Fi guy who just wants a nice little remote-controlled integrated and a pair of speakers.

OSS: Your introductory product is $2,000.  Do you see DeVore Fidelity offering something under the $1,000 price point to appeal to a much larger audience?

JD: I consider everything we make high value. The speakers we make represent good value because you get sonic performance and hand-built cabinetry that easily competes with anything else in their price ranges. Most of us in the Hi-Fi industry are not getting rich on inflated pricing and fat mark-ups. We’re not getting rich at all. It’s expensive to properly build a product that performs at such a high level. There is a perception that High-End audio is a luxury industry, a hobby only for the very rich, even a fetish. If you look at what you’re getting when you buy a $2000 pair of Gibbons versus what you get when you buy a $2000 couture jacket, or a vintage bottle of wine, which looks like the better value? Which seems more fetishistic? A well put-together $8000 audio system will provide enjoyment for years, even decades. It will relieve stress, calm your mind and help you to focus, it might even inspire you to hear more live music and support the arts. What does an $8000 watch do? Our least expensive speaker, the little Gibbon 3, is the size it is because that’s the size it needs to be to work correctly. Because the cabinet is smaller and less complex to build, it costs less, but it is certainly competitive with other speakers in the $2000 price range, even much larger ones.

Producing a speaker at $1000/pair or less would mean significant compromise from what we do with the Gibbons. I’m not adverse to the idea as I think there have been some excellent sub-kilo-buck designs over the years (the Spica TC-50 being the most brilliant, in my opinion). We showed some prototypes of our cheaper line, the Koalas, in Vegas two years ago and got some very positive feedback. It’s definitely something I’d like to do. A cheaper line would mean they couldn’t be handmade to the same degree and materials cost would have to come down, but that kind of project is fun for me because I like designing around challenges. Producing a line below the Gibbons is not something my company is just going to jump into, the production volume required to hit the lower price point is much higher and the market is very different, but I think it will happen in time.

OSS: What percentage of your customers buys for audio?  For home theater?

JD: My customers tend to be focused on audio. We sell a good number of home theater packages, but many of those go to people who bought a DeVore Fidelity two-channel system first. I’m definitely not one of those guys who believe that a home theater and a two-channel music system need to be separate. First of all, listening to movies through a killer two-channel system is great, and if you have to have multi-channel, why not use those great elements of your audio system and simply expand it to include video and additional channels? If a system has no weaknesses for music, then, if it’s properly set-up, it’ll sound great for movies too.

OSS: Who is the typical DeVore Fidelity customer?

JD: They seem to run the gamut. I have noticed that my speakers seem to attract more women than some of the other bulky, high-tech-looking brands. Women, on average, are also more sensitive to upper frequencies than men, so clean treble and well-behaved ultra-sonic response helps here as well.

OSS: Does being a professional musician change your priorities in regard to what you listen for?

JD: Yes, very much, but I think it’s even more important that I was around other musicians and lots of live music as a kid. Sprinkled among the science types in my family were musicians and artists. My mother was a concert pianist and her mother was a pianist as well. Her sister was a modern dancer and my sister is a cellist in Brooklyn. Mom played a lot of chamber music, and, as she was the pianist, the rehearsals were almost always in our house. The feel of live music made a deep impression on me and that has absolutely influenced the way I approach reproduced audio. My dissatisfaction with gear I heard in college (and my relative poverty) was what spurred me to start designing and building my own speakers 19 years ago.

OSS: Has your background as a drummer influenced the voicing of your products?

JD: Inevitably. Being a musician has given me an intimate understanding of how critical it is to communicate a musical message. And how difficult it is. An enormous amount of effort is expended by musicians to connect to the audience, so it seems obvious to me that this should be the most important aspect of an audio system--the ability to convey this message to the listener. Because of my involvement with live music, I am very conscious of that “emotional” communication in reproduced music. The difference between a system that effectively connects the listener to the musical message and one that doesn’t can be incredibly subtle. To me making that connection is essential, it’s what I’m here for, it influences every aspect of my design process.

OSS: Have you ever truly heard a $20,000 pair of speakers that were not just marketing hype and something truly deserving of the title “mind-blowing?”

JD: Absolutely, there have been plenty of excellent, cost-no-object speakers over the years. It’s these statement products, along with the exceptional entry-level models, that define the bounds of what we can expect from our systems. Where would cars be today if it weren’t for the outrageous examples set by Ferdinand Porsche, Enzo Ferrari and Ferruccio Lamborghini? Most high-end audio products are legitimate and fairly priced. Of course there have been (and still are) companies that think they can pull a fast one on customers, and they tend to get a lot of the press, but they represent the minority.

OSS: Okay, but some of the cost-no-object stuff seems like overkill from the consumer’s perspective.  What makes something like the Apogee Grand or Wilson X-1s that much better?

JD: One of the defining characteristics of any cost-no-object design is the way it illustrates the designers’ priorities and passions. When you listen to reference-level speakers (Stereophile points this out in its Class A recommended speakers introduction) they truly reflect the designers’ ideas of what’s important. Compare John Dunlavy’s Duntech Sovereigns with Arnie Nudell’s IRS Betas, or Jason Bloom’s Apogee Divas, with Joachim Gerhardt’s original Audio Physic Calderas, and it becomes clear that these designers had very different ideas about what was most essential in a reference speaker. There’s more variety in the very top-end of speaker design than in the mid-range or entry-level products. One might think that as speakers became better and better, more sophisticated and advanced, that they would begin to converge and become more alike. They are, after all, trying to do the same thing: present the recording with the highest possible fidelity. Also, no matter what one might think about the sound of these speakers, not one of them could be considered empty hype. These and many other products represent their designers’ legitimate assaults on speaker state-of-the-art.

OSS: Are high-end audio components of 2005 really that much better than those of 1995 or even 1975?

JD: If you look at all available gear today and compare it to what was available 10 years ago, you would find that today there are many more ways to get into great sound. That doesn’t mean that the best gear of today is a lot better than the best of 1995 (it’s somewhat better, and somewhat more interesting) but there’s a far greater variety of good sounding gear at every price point available now.

Going back 30 years gives you a very different Hi-Fi landscape, so it’s more difficult to compare. Solid-state was still new, and smaller speakers using acoustic suspension or bass-reflex were only just starting to become popular. There was clearly a lot to be learned in those areas (and we are learning still). Certainly solid-state gear has improved enormously, and a lot of modern vacuum tube equipment is more flexible and better sounding than designs from 30 years ago.

OSS: Do you think that the industry has shot itself in the head by promoting such expensive products, essentially to the same group of consumers for the past 30 years?

JD: There’s no question that this industry has been lazy for some time now. We have tried several times to reinvent ourselves and to spread high-end awareness to people outside our little clique. What we do is really cool (okay, I’m biased). It’s way better than watching TV, or chatting on the internet, or playing video games. I know if more people could experience a well set-up, mid-priced Hi-Fi then the word would get out, and audiophiles might even become hip. The question is how do we get more people in front of these systems?

There’s something about our industry that makes it hard for us all to get along and work as a team. There have been several groups formed over the years that have tried to increase our visibility, but each has failed due to a lack of cooperation of its members. The most organized to date was the AAHEA (it reads like someone clearing their throat, but it stands for the Academy for the Advancement of High End Audio). It began in the late 80’s and lasted well into the 90’s. It started collecting dues from members and formed a board of directors. It even held annual awards banquets. Some of the primary goals were to present a unified face to the “outside” world and to pool resources in order to buy more prominent advertising aimed not at promoting the individual member companies, but at promoting the entire industry. Few high-end audio companies can afford to advertise outside of our own industry magazines and journals but by combining forces the hope was to lift up the entire industry. It ended because of petty squabbling over the power and prominence of individual companies within the group.

There’s a new organization called The A5 (The American Association for the Advancement of the Audio Arts) that seems like a more efficient, stripped-down version of the AAHEA. It certainly has the right idea, forgoing the awards dinners and focusing on communication and promotion. I hope it has more success than those previous attempts, it’s mission is important, and if it succeeds, all of us will benefit enormously.

I know there is broad support for something like this. In the months leading up to the Primedia show in New York last year, an email circle formed that included prominent manufacturers, retailers, reviewers and reps, and many good ideas were knocked back and forth. It’s now a matter of following through.

OSS: I’m still laughing about the “hip” remark.  Audiophiles will never be hip, no matter how hard we try. Our genetics (ours aside of course) don’t permit such a thing.  I do agree with you on the marketing difficulties so far.  One would think that the common goal of expanding the industry would encourage enough folks to put their egos aside, but I hope that the new A5 group meets with greater participation and success, as it has the right idea.

OSS: If you could design your dream product, what would it be?

JD: You’ve seen them. I have my dream job: I can design anything I want and bring it to market. Each speaker starts out as a concept (dream) and gradually becomes a reality. I’m designing my dream product all the time.

OSS: Will the iPod be the shot in the arm that inspires and creates a new generation of audiophiles, or will it be the last nail in the coffin?

JD: The iPod is the biggest and best shot in the arm our industry has seen in decades. Every other major consumer electronics success since the early 80’s has moved people away from their music collections, but the iPod has single-handedly made people obsessed with music again. More people than ever before are connected to their music collections for hours every day. And those collections are growing quickly. What could possibly be a better warm-up to an introduction to high-end audio than that? Our little industry ghetto is gradually getting its act together and hitching up to this iPod juggernaut. Arcam, Naim, Wavelength and others now offer elegant solutions to integrate iPod/iTunes into a high-end system. Rumor even has it that Apple is responding to audiophile pressure and will soon start offering “uncompressed” music files for download on iTunes.

Compression Equals Oppression! Educate the masses!

OSS: What do you think the industry could have done in the past 10 years that it didn’t do to attract a younger audience?

JD: Billions of dollars are spent trying to seduce the “younger audience” by industries far more influential than ours. The misses have been numerous and unmemorable, the hits have all been things that pulled kids away from Hi-Fi (the internet, video games, extreme sports, cell phones) until Apple came along.

OSS: Have any of your products been total clunkers that you wish you had left on the test bench?

JD: Hell no.

OSS: If you could be any musician, who would that be?

JD: I’m pretty happy right where I am. That’s certainly not to say I’m a great musician, but so many of the greatest musicians have had really hard lives. It’s not easy to be a full-time musician in this country, and that’s a tragedy.

OSS: What is your biggest pet peeve about audio publications?

JD: You know, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, and they’re all different. I don’t think there is a single peeve that they all share. Each one triggers its own.

OSS: Did any past or currently living designer/audio engineer inspire you?

JD: Of course, no one can design in a vacuum. There are far too many designers I admire to list them all, but here’s an incomplete list: John Bau, Joachim Gerhardt, James Lansing, Ed Meitner, Nelson Pass, Franco Serblin, Peter Snell, Bruce Thigpen, and Peter Walker.

OSS: If you could only have 5 recordings, what would they be?

JD: I have more than 4,000 records and I still don’t feel like I have very many, though my wife would disagree. I’m a voracious musical omnivore and I find it impossible to “play favorites.”

OSS: If you didn’t design your own products, whose products would you own?

JD: That’s a tough question. By the time I was 20 I was already dissatisfied with the speakers that were available and designing my own. If I hadn’t started building my own speakers I never would’ve gotten as deeply into Hi-Fi as I am now. There have been some beautiful products put out by the designers I mention above, so if I had to choose, it would be something by one of them.

OSS: Has the high-end industry caught on in time to the wave created by the iPod?

JD: Yes, it’s happening right now.

OSS: Which of the various formats (MP3, AAC, AIFF, etc…) do you prefer and why?

JD: LP. It sounds like the real thing.

OSS: Do you find it ironic that the LP will probably end up as the last physical medium in regard to music, possibly even video?

JD: If you mean that it will be the last storage medium that you can hold in your hand then yes, I do find it ironic. And wonderful. It makes perfect sense. Analog encoding processes are the only ones that can’t be stored virtually; they must have a physical form (tape, vinyl, etc.). The various digital formats on the other hand will thrive without a “hard copy.” To a large extent, it’s the converting to and from discs that has been responsible for digital’s mediocre sound quality.

OSS: How far are the Rangers going this year?

JD: The what?

OSS: The Rangers…Jagr and Co.  Very funny John.  Take off that Islanders jersey and stop laughing.

OSS: Do you see the high-end as an exclusionary group?

JD: Not intentionally. Granted, there are audiophiles who lack some of the finer skills of social interaction, but you know what? You can find those kinds of guys everywhere. We have to be careful not to make non-audiophiles feel inadequate about their systems, and to help them realize that a great, well-balanced system is within easy reach. The more people understand about what we do, the more people will join up and start enjoying music on their own systems.

OSS: Almost all of your speakers are designed to work well with low-powered amplifiers…why?

JD: I just don’t think there should be such an unbridgeable gulf between the “watts are cheap” folks and the “more than one output device per channel = death” folks. I own amps that fit squarely into each camp (as well as a few that blur the lines).

OSS: Has the quality of the speaker driver really improved that much in the past 30 years?

JD: The biggest improvements have been in consistency and value. I’m generalizing here, but 30 years ago the only drivers that were built to really exacting tolerances were pro-audio JBLs and Altecs, or hand-made boutique drivers like Lowthers (well, maybe not exacting…). These were all expensive drivers designed for really big cabinets. The cheaper drivers intended for the newer, smaller acoustic-suspension and bass-reflex boxes were wildly variant. The widespread use of Thiele-Small parameters was still new, and measurement and production techniques still had a long way to go. The small-box drivers available now are far closer to spec and more consistent than the equivalent drivers available 30 years ago, and the results have been much better compact speakers. As we learned more about driver/enclosure/crossover interactions, speaker systems became more compact, wider bandwidth, more consistent, more linear and easier to drive (in some cases). Box, driver and crossover modeling software has made it easier to home in on what you want as well. If used properly, these programs can save many months if not years in the design process. When I started out almost 20 years ago, I spent an enormous amount of time calculating equations on paper. I don’t miss those days one bit.

OSS: What do you think is the most important aspect of loudspeaker design?  Basically, what can’t you screw up if want to have a great sounding product?

JD: Balance. Most speaker designs that fail do so because of a lack of balance. This doesn’t mean response issues or tonal balance, it means looking at the big picture. All the elements of a design must be in balance. Often a designer will obsess over one particular design parameter (frequency response, phase linearity, dispersion, cabinet resonance, output capability) and ignore the others. This, more than anything else, is why there are so few really stunning speakers on the market.

OSS: Any plans for in-wall or on-wall speakers?

JD: The Koala line will definitely include some of those.

OSS: What do you think is the biggest mistake that consumers make when looking for a pair of speakers to buy?  Aside from reading too many audio reviews…

JD: It’s not really the customers’ fault. There has been an advertiser-driven obsession with newer, more power, more “advanced” and exotic materials for decades now. It started with the giant companies like Sony, marketing cheap, high-powered, high-margin solid-state receivers as better than “old,” lower-powered, hand-built tube amps. Our sales strategy (all consumer audio, in general) became based around offering newer features, more power, more bells-and-whistles, lower price, and moved away from offering real value, craftsmanship, musicality (not “warmth” but real musicality), system matching, etc. This was the commoditization of home audio, and it led to the sales dominance of retailers like Circuit City and manufacturers like Bose.

Customers need to remember to trust their ears, and not automatically buy into the hype. Metal drivers are not necessarily better than paper ones. Four drivers per speaker is not necessarily better than two.

OSS: Where do you see the loudspeaker evolving?

JD: I think the loudspeaker is going to continue evolving along the path it has been on for a while now. Better performance out of smaller packages, more consistency. Also I think more and more speakers will be offered with built-in amps as the new crop of “digital” amps improve and drop in size and price. Hi-Fi systems will soon include your computer.