About 3 years ago at the first Capital AudioFest, I got my first chance at see and hear BorderPatrol gear. Last year, I got to spend some “quality time” with them and Living Voice loudspeakers. And over the last year, I’ve had a couple more opportunities to visit with BorderPatrol‘s Gary Dews and his amplifiers.
I suppose this qualifies as a rather long sales cycle.
Anyway, you might remember that I’ve been looking for a new system for a while now. Not a replacement. A supplement. For lack of a better phrase, I’ve been calling it System Two. And I thought that, for this one, something different would be just the ticket. Something … single-ended.
Of course, that all depended on the system, more specifically, it would entirely depend on finding a loudspeaker that would actually play well with a tube amp — much less a single-ended tube amp. That’s harder than it sounds, and it’s been something I’ve been wrestling with for a long while. It wasn’t until I got a chance to spend some time with DeVore Fidelity’s Orangutan O/96 loudspeakers that I discovered sensitivity, tone, imaging and deep bass all wrapped up in a very attractive package.
With speaker selection done, it was time to add an amp and pre — and given all my recent experience with Gary and his product line, selecting BorderPatrol was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
I took delivery of the S10 EXD stereo amplifier and a “matching” Control Unit EXT-1 on Monday. Together with a Silver Circle Tchaik 6 power conditioner, power cords from Triode Wire Labs, and speaker cables and interconnects from MG Audio Designs, I have a second system. Boy-howdy, do I.
Hee hee!
More soon.
Scot, here is another rabbit hole you may not have heard of:
€36K a pair for the 5.3. The f3 with the Manger transducer must be utterly unaffordable!
http://www.foersteraudiotechnik.de/fa53_en.htm
What a lousy way to spend a long weekend. You must be miserable. You have my deepest sympathy.
Yeah. It rough.
Congratulations on your new system. I listen to those exact speakers but shied away at the last moment, like a steeplechase horse at the barrier. Now I may have a case of non-buyers remorse! I hope you’ll update us on living with the system long-term: what are its strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Gary’s BP kit is both beautiful to look at and listen to. I also fell for the MG cables, great sounding. I’ve never heard the 0/96s, maybe at CAF? Congrats on a killer “System 2”.
I think you did very well !
What are your input sources going to be?
Good question. Need to work on that.
Dont like the looks of the O96 at all. I would have gone for the JoSound Cartouche c30 seen here:
http://app.audiogon.com/listings/full-range-josound-jo-c30-latest-in-the-josound-range-of-bamboo-full-range-speakers-2013-02-25-speakers-france
I heard them myself and was looking for the subwoofer at the Zurich show. Incredible!
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of JoSound ….
I demoed them at the last Zurich Show. Puny 4inch Jordan Alu driver and I brought in my standards, ie Chris Jones Cricket test, No Sanctuary, All of me (xylophone from the vintage Vinyl sampler), Mussorsky from the UltraCD, etc and it passed them all with aplomb! I was hunting for the subwoofer. The hi freq. xylophone was was bouncing allover the small hotel room and I heard the crickets live and direct! The LF organ on the Mussorsky cut was well handled …amazing form a 4.5inch single driver speaker.
Joe Jouhal, the very nice guy designer who I met (lives in Jersey, Channel islands) has a background in fluid dynamics and is Green conscious. Hence he uses specially grown super hard bamboo that worked into a laminated cabinet that is as dead as a doorknow and the labyrinth inside workes some airflow magic to cover a full frequency spectrum. High quality Chord speaker cables (UK) are built in as there is no crossover.
Pricey at $10, but beautiful looking and sounding. Colour me impressed. No way should 4inch drivers handle No Sanctuary Here and Mussorsky organ, no freaking way…but here is the kicker…IT DOES! I now have a bald spot from all the head scratching. loL
If you are interested, I can try to hook you up with Jo for a US review. He could probably arrange that around his US audioshow debut which I think he said would happen in 2013…
Norman — I’m always happy to try out something new!
The Jo sound spkrs, the “cousin It” (the Addams family ) of spkrs systems! Ugh! In comparison to the Orangatans as far as looks? No contest!
I agree, not exactly pretty are they.
What’s not? I’m losing track of the pronouns.