Not An Audiophile – The Podcast featuring John DeVore from DeVORE Fidelity. Iconic, innovative loudspeakers for 25 years, handcrafted in the USA.
Podcast transcripts below – Episode 038
TRANSCRIPT
S2 EP038 DeVORE Fidelity with designer, John DeVore. Extraordinarily, 100%, genuinely iconic.
Len Wallis Audio has been guiding hi fi enthusiasts on their audio journey
Andrew Hutchison: Must
Andrew Hutchison: Must be pretty pleased with yourself.
John DeVore: So I’m the. I, I understand that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. I am literally doing what I would be doing for free anyway.
Andrew Hutchison: And welcome back to not an Audiophile. This is episode 38, season two. And today we have an interview, a very interesting interview with a very interesting, loudspeaker design with a slightly different outlook on, on how things could or should be. And that is Mr. John DeVore.
Are you craving incredible sound? For over 47 years, Len Wallis Audio has been guiding hi fi enthusiasts on their audio journey. They’re not some corporate machine, just a tight knit crew of audiophiles and entertainment lovers obsessed with great sound. From precision turntables to immersive home theater systems, they handpick gear that delivers. Stop by the store in Lane Cove, Sydney, Australia, or visit lenwallisaudio.com Len Wallis Audio, where your passion finds its sound.
before I can go on with today’s show, I’ve received, an announcement from above, from management, you know, the people that run this show, not me.
Andrew Hutchison: to read out a very,
Andrew Hutchison: Important announcement from management in a serious voice. Here goes. Dear Andrew, please read the following out. on the next show, request all listeners, whether they’re enjoying the show or otherwise, to follow the show on Apple podcasts or Spotify or their podcast platform of choice, the app of choice. And also it reads, request that they subscribe on the YouTube channel for not an Audiophile podcast. Thank you. And on the show.
Andrew Hutchison: Hey, we’re very lucky at not an audiophile today to have, the gentleman of wide baffle. Hi fi loudspeakers, John DeVore. I’ll do another intro.
John DeVore: I like that one. That’s fun. You know, it’s, it’s true. The 096 is old and when they were introduced it was a weird concept that I got a lot of resistance.
Andrew Hutchison: I, I don’t want to go on and on about wide, loudspeaker front baffles, but it is an obvious feature immediately and made more so by the beautiful timber veneers which you have made. I mean, part of your signature I suppose. And So yeah, how did that kind of get started? It was something you theoretically or you know, from the science aspect of it, I mean.
John DeVore: Yeah, well it definitely came form, followed function with, with the wide speaker. So all the original dvor fidelity speakers were pretty typical narrow columns with
Andrew Hutchison: Yes, you actually started with a normal. What was fashionable at the time and I guess still.
John DeVore: Yeah, ah, yeah, the whole Gibbon series. so the first. Yeah, the first 10 years or more. First more than 10 years.
Andrew Hutchison: So that’s interesting.
John DeVore: Yeah. Gibbons and silverbacks, they were all the typical narrow stacked woofer.
John DeVore: Sty and the, the 096 project, really it was a side project. because in the US I shared especially early on I shared a lot of my dealer network with Shindo. Shindo Electronics.
John DeVore: And Shindo, Ken Shindo has zero. Ah, he had, he passed away. But he had absolutely no interest in modern speakers. All of his amplifiers were fully optimized for high impedance. It wasn’t, it wasn’t so much sensitivity. It was really impedance. It was like yeah. 16 ohm.
Andrew Hutchison: Even 24.
John DeVore: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: So you know, classic design reasons with his output transformers or something.
John DeVore: It was just what he listened to.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
John DeVore: So yeah, he designed everything to be, to be presented to that load. And so the dealers, you know they could do vintage Altecs, they could do Shindo’s own speakers. But it was a big limitation. You know doing a horn speaker is not going to be right for everyone’s room. So the idea was to make a speaker that was devore fidelity flavored but that was a much higher impedance and much higher sensitivity. Just really specifically to fill that gap in the dealer lineup. And so that project was the 096. And within six months it was our top selling model. And it has been every year since then. It’s really.
Andrew Hutchison: It feels like I, I feel like I wasn’t aware of the brand before the 096.
John DeVore: In a way I’m. It’s now. Yeah. So and is that how it was synonymous with that look?
Andrew Hutchison: Was it, did it step, did it ramp the business up? Another like in the sense that it didn’t affect so much the existing line as far as sales. And it was an adjunct to that. It was an extra business.
John DeVore: It was an additional one.
The 096 looks like a cartoon speaker. Yeah. Originally it was sort of
Andrew Hutchison: Because you were accessing kind of a demographic of listener or
00:05:00
Andrew Hutchison: audio enthusiast.
John DeVore: I guess originally they were. Yeah. Originally it didn’t seem like there was a lot of cross pollination. Originally it was sort of like I had dealers that were quite focused on the Gibbons.
John DeVore: And dealers who were quite focused on the orangutans.
Andrew Hutchison: The dealers would be a bit like that.
John DeVore: And I got a lot of pushback. So dealers when once the 96s started to get out there and and I realized that they were going to be much more universally applicable than I had originally planned. I would be like I would tell some of my big dealers who were resisting, look, they’re just like, oh, absolutely. No, we have no customers for that vintage sound. Nobody’s gonna want these. It’s not our kind of thing. And I’m like, look, get some demos on the floor. If they don’t work out for you, I’ll take them back. You can use that credit for any other model. It’s fine. There’s no risk. And so, without fail, every single one, they would get them on the floor. Suddenly every customer who walks in the door looks around and sees an 096 and like, what is that? I want to hear that. I’m going to bring my wife and she’s going to love these.
John DeVore: So, yeah, so it was, it was pretty quick.
Andrew Hutchison: So that’s actually. And that’s part of, is that. Yeah, I, I thought that was on mute, that phone.
John DeVore: And it is, that was mine. Mine.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, is that yours?
John DeVore: Mine is now on you.
Andrew Hutchison: Sounds like an uber bloody. It’s a. Yeah, it doesn’t matter. So, yeah. So wife acceptance. People go on about it. I mean it’s, it’s, it is important if the system is in the, in the main lounge of the home or something rather than off in a separate.
John DeVore: detachment, which is my target. I want them to be. I want everybody.
Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: And so there has been good acceptance for that sort of wider look.
John DeVore: Huge.
Andrew Hutchison: Do you think it’s partly the very attractive timbers. And of course you can kind of choose how obvious that figure, of that timber is to some degree.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Different, different veneers and what have you.
John DeVore: A big part of it is. I think it’s two things. One, there’s a. So the design aesthetic comes more from. I mean, so superficially the 096 looks like a cartoon speaker. Right. It’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a hard edged rectangle with two circles on it and some little legs. Right. You tell a six year old draw a speaker, that’s what they’re gonna draw.
Speaker D: Yes. Yeah.
John DeVore: But on the other side, like more subtly, it’s the, the design aesthetic is furniture. It’s not hi fi, you know, so you compare it to something that’s very high tech looking with all kinds of metal and color, you know, just all the stuff going on. This is a very busy visual presentation. I think there’s a refreshing simplicity to that style that attracts somebody who’s not a high end audio lover but will appreciate something great sounding in the living room. and I think that was sort of a compromise and for sure the veneers on the front have an impact. And the fact that I designed it originally to be very easily customizable. So we can put other veneers on that front face.
Speaker D: Yes.
John DeVore: For specific tastes.
Speaker D: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: With the manufacturer’s eye. I was just looking at the demonstration pair which are 096 are they?
John DeVore: Yeah, that’s a version of the standard pair.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: That you’ve got here at the show. We are recording this at the Melbourne 2025 Australian hi fi show. and yeah, I mean it sounds lovely in the room. They’re changing something with the system. I’m keen to go back and hear it again. Not changing it related to the speakers.
John DeVore: They’Re changing the streamer just to make it easier for our interface. It should sound the same.
Andrew Hutchison: So yeah, I’m going to go back and listen some familiar tracks of my own later on. but so far so good what I heard, even though I wasn’t familiar with the music.
But they, which brings me to my point which is that that kind of, that design, it feels, it does fit in mediocre room acoustics perhaps more effectively or easier than other loudspeakers. Is that, is that, is that a true, do you think? And then is that a function of the wider baffle? Because the wider baffle is obviously clearly how you get a little bit more sensitivity. and of course you’ve designed it to be a very even higher impedance. That’s obviously a design choice in the driver specification, what have you in the way you design the crossover. But is there another reason why you like the wide baffle? Is it something to do with like diffraction or something or what?
John DeVore: Absolutely, yeah. So, the wide baffle was not initially a specific design choice. It was dictated by the high sensitivity nature. So high sensitivity. Also I in, I had, I had found in all my experiments that for let’s, let’s just use the classic single ended 300B amplifier, you know, big, very high output impedance amplifier, no feedback. So it’s quite sensitive to the load it’s driving. The load it’s driving really does have an influence on the way that amp is going to sound. Yes, I found that by a huge margin a two way or even a one way speaker is a much better
00:10:00
John DeVore: sounding option on an amplifier like that than anything more complex than that because.
Andrew Hutchison: You end up with a more even curve. Do you think?
John DeVore: I think it’s you know, having the number of crossover points in There, I think is a big part of it.
John DeVore: I’m not sure. I mean I love the sound of two ways, objectively standalone anyway. Right. But I think because the ear is, the ear always can hear crossover regions, regardless of how perfectly they’re implemented. So as you reduce those, you know, you get a bit of an advantage. But I think it’s just keeping the, keeping a whole crossover point out is just better for the amplifier.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: And better for the amplifier.
John DeVore: It’s really, that’s what I was.
Andrew Hutchison: So you’re getting, so you’re getting. Yeah, you’re getting you’re getting a, more enjoyable sound partly because of the speaker. But the way the speaker reacts with the amplifier is helping the amplifier.
John DeVore: Assuming the amplifier is happy. In a high impedance, the amplifier absolutely sounds better.
Speaker D: Yes.
John DeVore: So it’s a little bit of a cheat. It’s a cheat for me as a speaker designer. So that was dictated by that. And the high sensitivity demands a much larger woofer. So that, that is what pushed the baffle size much wider. and then as I sort of experimented with that and more on after it had been finished and out in the world, and I heard it in a lot of different areas. so the sensitivity thing is absolutely right. So it increases sensitivity by basically pushing down the step response of where that happens. Right. So you push down the Steppersons and you literally get more mid range energy out into the room.
Andrew Hutchison: So March Audio, fantastic amplifiers. Alan March has been on the show a couple of times. He’s a great guy, very, very smart cookie. And he manufactures a range of amplifiers and loudspeakers using purify components in most cases, which we all know are extremely high quality. So check out March Audio. Great sound, brilliant build quality and design. And in fact I believe there is a new preamp which is a ground up design of their coming out, from literally a clean sheet of paper.
John DeVore: Marchaudio.com so anechoic sensitivity doesn’t change, but definitely room sensitivity to the listener, increases.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, I suppose anechoically it measures.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh well, it still measured different.
John DeVore: It’ll measure different and you’ll see a step response. But yeah, but really in the room that if you have half space. Yeah, if you have that half space launch gives you that energy forward versus where it starts to become omni. You, you know, you start to, you lose that, that dissipates, you around.
Andrew Hutchison: The back of the box, I suppose.
John DeVore: Effectively.
John DeVore: So that’s, that’s a part of the sensitivity thing. But in terms of room re interaction. Because I’ve pushed that step response. Because I’ve pushed that, that wrap frequency lower.
John DeVore: there is less mid range stuff spraying out into sidewalls and everything like that. Yeah. It directs more of the energy forward.
John DeVore: So you can go closer to a sidewall with an.096 than you can with like a Gibbon Super 9 where it’s going to be much more omnidirectional at a higher frequency.
Andrew Hutchison: I feel like I have a list of things in my phone somewhere, infamous phone that made that noise earlier that Things that, things that some manufacturers are doing that really, that everyone was doing in the 70s because we went away from wider boxes, we went away from bigger boxes, we went away from bigger drive units, we went down into small skinny little boxes.
Speaker D: And then there’s this.
John DeVore: It’s the curse of the 80s.
Speaker D: Yeah.
John DeVore: And that was, that was purely fashion. So in the 80s it kind of was, wasn’t. It was. So when I was I started in the industry, I’ve been making speakers for myself since the mid-80s when I was in school. But I, I started working in a hi Fi shop in 88 in New York City.
Speaker D: Okay.
John DeVore: And one of the brands that we sold that I did quite well with was Boston Acoustics. And they were a great affordable level but, but really great, great designs.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes, they were.
John DeVore: And they were primarily at that point, sealed, large woofer, designs.
Andrew Hutchison: Fairly wide.
John DeVore: Yeah. And they were quite wide with like 2 inch drivers. Yeah, some tens, 8 inch drivers, very wide baffles. And they were they were beautiful sounding and they were very consistent room to room, quite easy to drive.
Speaker D: Yes.
John DeVore: And then 89, maybe it was 90, something like that, they changed and you could see the world was you know, with Teal, and Wilson and the world, the world was squeezing into this narrower look. and BMW went from the 801 to the 802 which was clearly a much, much bigger seller than the 801 was. So it was just. This was the trend. And Boston Acoustics, they changed from that. That old brand was the A series, A120, A150. They went to a T series
00:15:00
John DeVore: which was a tower narrow. They went from a single eight inch to a pair of six and a half. So, so they followed that trend and there was a sales training and the guy from Boston Acoustics was there and I was already very deep into the speaker design.
Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
John DeVore: But I was a salesman, and in my experience, the T series speakers were absolutely not as good as the A series speakers. And so I asked him as politely as I could for, you know, in being in New York, so. Not particularly, politely. And he agreed. He agreed 100%. Yes. He liked the A series as well. But he said that the market demanded the T series, you know, because there was this whole idea that, a speaker cannot image if it’s. If it’s not narrow. Yeah, that’s right. And these are all false. They’re not. None of them are true. Right. A 96 can image. Right. It images. It’s fine. It doesn’t. It doesn’t image any worse. you know, I was just listening to. Generates the sound of a room in a different way. But.
John DeVore: they’re certainly capable of imaging. But it was, it was just. It was a style thing that has absolutely. It’s now taken over.
John DeVore: And then since the. The 96 came out. So that’s 2012. I’m not gonna remember the. The date, but since the 96 came out. Before the 96, there were definitely some brands. You know, Harveth is a classic example, you know, using big woofers. Nice, nice big wide presentation, big box. Audio note. But there weren’t many. Yeah, Audio Note. Basically just carrying on the tradition of the Snells that they’re based on.
Andrew Hutchison: was something that you were aware of back then that you listened to.
John DeVore: We also sold Snell. I sold a ton of E’s, the old snow yeast J’s. Yeah. All of those, the original Peter.
Andrew Hutchison: Snell designs, I suppose before that, in that period of the 80s, there were. It was even in the 80s that the narrower box was coming in.
John DeVore: Well, that’s when it was happening.
Andrew Hutchison: But then by the.
John DeVore: By the 90s, it had.
Andrew Hutchison: It was a no.
Andrew Hutchison: There’s no way you were having a 12 inch, three way in the 1990s.
John DeVore: I mean, after Peter Snell passed away and Kevin Vex became the designer there, that was what was happening. So. So Kevin did. He sort of updated those classic ones a little bit. So Snell E3s are a classic Kevin Vex design.
John DeVore: But they are very much that Peter Snell.
John DeVore: Design. But everything after that, Snell C’s and D’s and everything, those were all became the narrow thing that, you know, Kevin went on to do in Revel and all of his success since then. and that was in the 90s. So that’s when it happened.
When you started the company in 2000, your experience with wide baffles was vintage
Andrew Hutchison: So, you were somewhat. Ultimately though, even though you were resistant at the start mentioning to the to the sales rep of Boston, that you know, you weren’t too sure about the improvement that there might be coming from the narrow baffle, you obviously became somewhat indoctrinated because when you started your manufacturing company, you did of course follow suit. And is that, is that because it felt insane to build a wide baffle box at that point? Because, because really no one was doing it and yours is of course the widest. So when you did decide to do it, you thought you’d do it properly. But is that because you made different width baffles and you just found that that was what worked?
John DeVore: Two things.
John DeVore: so first. So I started the company in 2000, and at that point my experience with wide baffles was just vintage. All of the ones that I was selling, I was working sort of part time selling hi fi all through the 90s and there were no speakers left like that.
John DeVore: so maybe it was maybe it was subliminally in the back of my mind. I certainly had some favorite vintage speakers that were still that looked like that. But for me the impetus to start the company in 2020was to make 100% regular looking speakers that behaved 100% regular in people’s listening rooms and sounded like a good modern regular speaker. But that were very sympathetic to low power. And that had. At this point it was just. I was. My target was really even 8 ohm impedance because the trend along with those narrower baffles was lower sensitivity. Sensitivity and much lower impedance. So I loved a lot of vintage integrated like little Scott and Sherwood.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
John DeVore: Fisher. Those little tube integrated amps and those need 8 ohms or higher. Yes, they absolutely.
Andrew Hutchison: And a bit of sensitivity I guess as well.
John DeVore: It’s a little push pull el 30, 84. Yeah. So low power in the teens or something. Yeah. So that, so that was, that was my design brief was to make normal speakers. And in that case that was a narrow tower.
John DeVore: But that had that high impedance and easy drivability. So
00:20:00
John DeVore: it was sort of, it was in the DNA early on. But it wasn’t so audacious as to make a big wide two way.
Andrew Hutchison: Well I guess you introducing a new brand to the market, you, you probably, you don’t want to be too sort of audacious or too, I mean, I don’t know. I mean it’s, I Feel like in my own experiences with this that you want to actually just make a product that is accepted, that is of it, you know, an acceptable quality. People can’t go, that’s ah, a piece of crap. You know, you really want to make something that’s I guess what people are used to buying. Was that partly your thought process, with the caveats of what you just mentioned that you wanted the extra sensitivity and easy to drive.
John DeVore: The things that were different about my design designs were intentionally hidden. They were inside.
Andrew Hutchison: You didn’t talk.
John DeVore: I wanted them to be normal looking.
John DeVore: I wanted them m. To. I wanted them sitting in a store, someone going around listening. I wanted them to be chosen for the sound. I wanted them to be chosen maybe for a nice small size.
John DeVore: That these will work in my room.
John DeVore: and I wanted them to, you know, somebody had a, a little carry amplifier or even a you know an entry level VTL audio research, something with tubes. I thought, you know, I thought these speakers again, going back to having a sympathetic load on your speaker, making the amplifier sound better. I thought that that would also give me an advantage in a hi Fi showroom situation. So that was, that’s absolute. That was my thinking, at that point. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t. I didn’t. I’d never considered revisiting that sort of wide baffle thing until it sort of came organically with that design of the 096 and the wider.
Andrew Hutchison: With the experiments that you conducted and.
Andrew Hutchison: With bigger drive.
John DeVore: And immediately I was just like, oh yeah, yeah. It’s like I remember my lesson from 15 years ago.
Andrew Hutchison: Ah, it’s it’s kind of, I mean it’s, it’s just fashion.
Andrew Hutchison: In a way it’s awful’s an exaggeration but I mean it’s kind of. It’s such a shame that fashion gets in the way of good audio or acoustic design really.
John DeVore: But I guess it doesn’t necessarily. I think, you know, you go all the way back in the history of hi Fi and you have wide baffled speakers that were great, beautifully engineered, awesome sounding and you had them that were terrible sounding.
John DeVore: They were just thrown together and marketing.
Andrew Hutchison: Or whatever the bangers as we call call them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John DeVore: Listen to that. You know the demo in a room is in a hi Fi stores. Listen to how great our tweeter is.
John DeVore: You know, it’s like so that existed with the wide, with the narrow, with Planar. You know that’s, that’s you know it’s like, it’s like oh well great music only you know ended in the end of the seventies. Right. That’s, that’s. We all know that the great music existed all the way back to cavemen banging rocks against rocks and some of them had the rhythm and some of them didn’t.
John DeVore: And it’s the same as today. So
John DeVore: There are plenty of good narrow speakers out there
John DeVore: So. So and, and the fact that I started Divor Fidelity with narrow models that obviously I liked and I approved of to put them out for sale means that I certainly, I didn’t think that it was impossible to make a good sounding narrow speaker. And there are plenty out there, great examples.
Andrew Hutchison: Not impossible, no, but there are some, there’s some, some lovely advantages to to a semi infinite baffle sort of arrangement which is kind of what it is.
John DeVore: And it’s come into fashion quite a bit since. Since that original 96 came out.
Andrew Hutchison: Is there? Look, I, I must admit off the top of my head I can’t. I mean there’s all the, there’s all the ones that we. You mentioned harbourth before. I mean they’re clearly still seemingly be powering on and doing largely the same thing they’ve probably always done and they steadfastly do not do a narrow floor stander. but other, other UK brands have done. They do a bit of both.
Andrew Hutchison: And I was involved with the brand for years that did do both and I mean I much preferred the classic ones so you know to couple of other things not related to a couple acoustic design. Although we’ll take a two second break and we’ll be right back with John DeVore.
Andrew Hutchison: Hey now hi Fi wowed music lovers at the recent Stereonet hi Fi and AV show. The Fisher and Fisher loudspeakers, the dome and turntable, the beautiful sounding airtight tube amplifiers from Japan. Now all of this gear along with Jeff’s other rooms that he had fantastic equipment in is all back at the store ready for you to listen in store or talk to Jeff about an in home demo. Jeff, hey now hi Fi. Ring him today or email, sms, maybe smoke signals, pigeons.
Andrew Hutchison: And we’re back with John DeVore at by happenstance he’s visited Australia for the 2025 Melbourne hi fi show. Very generously donating some of his time to us at not an audiophile. We just had a great chat about how the various models happened and got underway. Particularly
00:25:00
Andrew Hutchison: the wide baffle 096 and its derivatives. there is a pattern with your model naming. I can’t find any reference to your love or otherwise of apes. Is there something there we should be talking about that you’d like to mention?
John DeVore: There are, there’s two stories. There’s two stories. the first one story. and they’re both equally accurate. so.
John DeVore: In the. So I’ve been, I’ve been making speakers for almost 20 years before I started the company.
John DeVore: And it was a mix of me just experimenting for my own curiosity and you know, tearing up a bottle to reuse stuff for the next experiment or selling them to friends to fund the next experiment. So I had, I did a commission pair of speakers for a good friend of mine in the 90s. And it was a beautiful little two way stand mount. and I built it around a driver that I had always loved and I had absolutely admired in some of my very, very favorite mini monitors. And it was the, the SEOs 11 FGX. A legendary paper 4 ah, inch, you know, 11. 11 mil centimeter.
Andrew Hutchison: 11 centimeters.
John DeVore: and so it was a little two way based on that. And I had, as I mostly did, but I had incorporated everything I had learned up to that point and I had a bunch of ideas that were really sort of new that I was really curious to try out. And that speaker really, it came together beautifully. I was really happy with that, that speaker. And I spray painted them, just a simple black and they were kind of, they were kind of cute, kind of funky looking. And I just, I named them Gibbons.
John DeVore: just to be fun. Like they were playful sounding and whimsical.
.
John DeVore: And so it was, it was that pair of speakers that really got me thinking more seriously that I could have a company. Because the things that I was doing in that speaker really did open up some sonic stuff that I wasn’t hearing in the speakers that I was selling in the stores.
John DeVore: And so that sort of, that, that, that fed that idea. And so naturally I named the first two models Gibbons because they were really descendants of that original Gibbon speaker. So given three, given eight were the first two.
Andrew Hutchison: Because that’s where you’d first thought maybe.
John DeVore: It was really. I evolved what I did in that speaker into these speakers.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
John DeVore: the other reason is, it is pretty blatantly poking fun at the seriousness of the industry. Right. I mean we’re here to hang out and listen to music and be absorbed in music.
John DeVore: And these people who are just like, these are the XKR reference ultimate signature blaster. Yeah. Ultra Super Max. I, mean, I’m like, come on, guys. Like, let’s, you know, let’s. Let’s appeal to people’s, You know, I, I don’t know. For me, it was just. It was so. It got absurd. and so it was a direct, thumb, on the nose, to that sort of naming tradition. I think it’s.
Andrew Hutchison: I mean, it is quite enjoyable. I mean, the, And I mean, you know, they’re likable animals, right? I mean, absolutely.
John DeVore: They’re fascinating.
Andrew Hutchison: And the orangutan, I guess, is a,
John DeVore: Well, the orangutan came about because it was wider. It was a wider. Like the orangutan’s big, wide face.
John DeVore: I was like, I looked at it and I was like, well, there’s an orangutan for you.
John DeVore: And I had the silverback. So they’re all. It is all apes. You know, I keep it all up in the. In our little family here.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. And you’ve got.
Andrew Hutchison: Ah, I’ll let that cough out. And the second one. Yeah, and silverbacks as well.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
So if you were ever to, No, we don’t go down that path. I’m just imagining other models that may involve different, I mean, the favorite or the least favorite. we don’t have monkeys in Australia. Right. but, our near neighbors. if you visit Thailand or something, you’ve got the macaques, which are a troublesome.
John DeVore: Apes.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, that work as. They’re monkeys. Is that.
Andrew Hutchison: So that’s a very. That’s a defining thing, is it’s got to be apes, not monkeys.
John DeVore: I mean, you know, we’ll see.
Andrew Hutchison: should we talk about how many other apes there are? But I mean, at this stage, I mean, you clearly bring new models out very carefully in over a decade or or so.
Divorce Fidelity’s speakers are all manufactured in Brooklyn, New York
But that does bring us to another thing that I’m interested to ask you about. So these speakers, these loudspeakers are all manufactured in Brooklyn. is that. That’s New York State or is that next.
John DeVore: New York City? It’s part of New York City.
Andrew Hutchison: Excuse my m. Lack of understanding. of the east coast of America because we live in Australia. We only really know the west coast because it’s very convenient to get to. I can tell you all about the Southwest, but not much about the East Coast. Very embarrassing. Like, you’d think for someone my age, I would have, been there more than once. so that’s where you grew up. That’s where
00:30:00
Andrew Hutchison: where you were selling. Hi Fi. Is this right? Or are you.
John DeVore: I didn’t grow up there, but I moved there right after university.
Andrew Hutchison: okay.
John DeVore: Yeah, I’ve always lived there.
Andrew Hutchison: So you’ve lived there a long time. It was a natural progression to want to make products there.
John DeVore: I mean.
Andrew Hutchison: I mean, because it’s. It’s more convenient initially, I guess. And you had been, with your home designs, clearly making them there.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: In your.
John DeVore: The first production in your dining room. Saw it in my living room. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they really were, And it was just me. I mean, I didn’t have employees or anything. So, Yeah, so it did. It just started out very organically and gradually.
Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
John DeVore: and then we essentially expanded space as we needed.
Speaker D: Yes, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: And so now, I mean, I have no idea how many people you have. I imagine you have a dozen people working for you. I have no idea. Less most quite famous boutique sort of loudspeaker companies have a surprisingly small facility and a surprisingly normal, only necessary amount of, workers. And that’s exactly what you’ve got, obviously. You’ve got some very talented people working for you, obviously, who do a very nice job of piecing these things together. Has that been hard to get that team together, or has it happened organically as well?
John DeVore: It has sort of happened organically. So, the company. The company remains very small. and we started. Our growth from the beginning was extremely slow. so it started. It’s mostly. It was mostly me. You know, I was just sort of. Because it was only me. I didn’t have a sales rep. I didn’t have, you know, so it was just me wearing all the hats. M. So for a long period of time, it was me. Not. Not for a long period of time, but for a long period of time, it was me and one other employee. And then it might have been two, but it was most. For most of the history. The first half of Divorce Fidelity, it was me and probably one person.
John DeVore: And then it was. So there’s two sort of two halves. There’s a cabinet half as well.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
John DeVore: So our cabinets, they’re all made in the same facilities. All one lease, one space. But the cabinet shop is run by, this guy, Anthony Abate, who has Box Furniture Company, and they make beautiful equipment racks.
John DeVore: yeah, and 100% of my cabinets. So he has had himself for a lot of it or himself plus one.
John DeVore: So for a very long time, there was really just four people making every divorce fidelity thing. and that grew to maybe double this. Not even double the size. And we sort of hit a. We hit a ceiling because where our factory is, it’s in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is a. It was a navy yard. We made battleships for World Wars I and 2. and it was decommissioned in the 1970s, 70s, and sort of handed over to the city of New York as an industrial park.
John DeVore: and so our space is. Is in there. And it’s wonderful.
John DeVore: It’s vaguely subsidized by the city, so our rent is not as high as it would be if you were just outside.
John DeVore: so it has allowed us to really sort of grow and develop in there. And we.
You. We utilize a lot of the other companies around us. If we have extra excess, this need for more cnc, there’s a couple of shops around. So we. A lot of it is.
Andrew Hutchison: So there’s a lot of. It’s a great infrastructure industry happening in this X name.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s a great place to be located, of course.
John DeVore: It’s wonderful.
John DeVore: And it’s. I walk from my house to. I mean, it’s just. It’s perfect.
Andrew Hutchison: That is fantastic.
John DeVore: but we hit, pretty, you know, at some point, we hit a. A ceiling as to how many we could make in our footprint.
Andrew Hutchison: Of course.
John DeVore: And it was very difficult to get more space in the navy yard. and it wasn’t until about two years ago. So we, you know, our growth plateaued for a number of years. and we didn’t. We. About two years ago, a big company moved out on the floor that we’re in.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
John DeVore: And we were able to essentially double our footprint all of a sudden. And so now we are back to being able to continue that growth.
John DeVore: So part of the reason is the. Part of the reason we are. The size we are now is because we sort of stopped growing for a time. Yes, we did grow, but it was. It was very slow and it was tough. It was like we were just trying to figure out how to be more efficient within our space. Really cramped space.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Well, that would have been a pleasure when I can imagine the, almost glee at someone else’s expense, I guess, unless they were moving to bigger premises or what have you. But the fact that someone was moving out and you thought, we can.
John DeVore: And of Course, there’s the scramble for all of the. The tenants. Everyone wants the space. But we had been there longest and we have been asking long.
John DeVore: And so we got it.
Andrew Hutchison: That’s fantastic.
John DeVore: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: So that. So, so it’s. It has been.
Andrew Hutchison: Organic growth over many years or 25 years. You’re not really celebrating the 25 years to, you know, there’s not signs up everywhere. It’s quite a.
After 25 years in the loudspeaker business, it’s an achievement
John DeVore: It’s quite an anniversary. Well, we did 10 and we did 20.
John DeVore: So our 20th anniversary, we
00:35:00
John DeVore: made a special speaker. So, it was essentially. It’s what became the o. Bronze. we made. It was called the 20. And we made 20 pairs.
John DeVore: Each one had a beautiful little bronze, individually numbered badge on the. On the front. and they were 100 custom. So anyone who bought one of those 20 pairs chose all the veneers that. Whatever they wanted, and they were really beautiful. So that was our 20th anniversary. The Gibbon 10 was technically. That was our 10th anniversary speaker. It came out a little late because I design very slowly, but that was technically our 10th anniversary speaker. So we do. We have been. We’ve been noting those little. it’s still quite a.
Speaker D: It’s, it’s. It’s.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s quite an achievement. I m mean, 25 years in the loudspeaker business, it’s an achievement to actually sell them and make money. But then to do it for 25 years, you must be pretty pleased with yourself.
John DeVore: So I’m the. I understand that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. I am literally doing what I would be doing for free anyway. yeah, 100%. I love, love, love what I do. And, yeah, it’s remarkable. I am not a good businessman, but I have managed to sort of, I think, tuck it in and manage it through.
Andrew Hutchison: Disagree with that statement. I mean, you’ve done what many people try to do and you’ve pulled it off. But I mean, I guess the first 10 years was slow and probably tough. Required a bit of grit. you say you design slowly. is that because you sort of let, I don’t know, ideas just creep up on you? Or are you.
Speaker D: What’s.
Andrew Hutchison: What’s.
John DeVore: No. so my design process, it’s slow intentionally. so the design process. So, let’s use an example. So there’s a speaker model that maybe needs, an update. So let’s say I went from, the old Gibbon Super 8 to the newer Gibbon, 88.
Speaker D: Right.
John DeVore: So it’s really just sort of the same idea, but a bit of refresh. So once so that in that situation the concept already existed. it was a two way, ah, small compact floor standing, two way speaker. my process is, it’s sort of a circular process. So there’s prototyping. So the, so we design all of our drivers as well. So there was the first thing is makes for the most part SEOs makes all of the drivers. So there’s this sort of collaboration with the engineers at SEOs. And since I’ve been working with them since the beginning, they really do. They have a really clear idea of what I’m looking for, what I need. so we get in some various prototype drivers. maybe in some situations I’ll get a couple of off the shelf ones to at least get our cabinets started or whatever it is. But usually we wait until we get the first round of prototypes and then it becomes this sort of circle of listening, measuring, listening, tweaking, experimenting, in the real world with crossover adjustments, tuning adjustments, cabinet adjustments, at some point, driver adjustments. So there’s a sort of real world happening in my office, in the listening room, and then more measuring. And in addition to this sort of measuring you get, you sort of model the speaker in the computer and you can do sort of simulation and stuff like that. So then that feeds back into the next session. So yeah, in the real world.
Andrew Hutchison: So you’re taking measures, measurements of your.
John DeVore: Functioning prototype all the way through the.
Andrew Hutchison: Process and then doing computer further modeling with that and then, and that helps lead you to the next version of the prototype.
John DeVore: We get a handful of, let’s say we get a handful of the prototype woofers. Each one of those gets modeled, put in the computer.
John DeVore: so then we can figure out, you know, our first round of cabinets like that. Yeah, it’s a starting point. And so that, yeah, so that is, is a circle. And then you know we, we get a certain amount of knowledge from that measuring and simulation, process. And then we get an additional amount of knowledge from those first builds and all those experiments. And then you know, and so that goes around and around and around many, many, many times. and all throughout that process, some, you know, sometimes, we realize that we need to abandon one of the prototype drivers. That’s not the one, you know, stop chasing that idea. We need to fold some of these ideas into a next round of prototype drivers, you know, so that, you know, because they’re in Norway, you know, that’s. That’s a slow.
John DeVore: So each, each generation of prototype drivers adds months to any. Just Jason.
Part of designing speakers involves refining elements three or four months before delivery
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, so therefore, that’s part of your.
John DeVore: So that’s part of.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, part of the delaying, part of the, making it a lengthy process is the simple fact that you might request some modifications and it’s three or four months before you receive.
John DeVore: And then that process, in that time frame,
00:40:00
John DeVore: I’m still working, so I’m still developing ideas, sort of refining other elements. Maybe the tweeter is getting refined while they’re working on the woofer. That’s off my plate. Maybe I’m dialing in, some changes to the overall size, listening axis, whatever it is. So that’s all still happening. And then once things settle. So let’s say, production drivers have gotten to the. We’ve gotten to the point in the prototypes where, I’m not going to need any more. So I know that’s going to be my production driver. then the focus shifts a bit. And as a, as somebody who’s designed speakers, you know, at some point you get to the point where the big elements aren’t going to change so much or at all. You know that you’ve got the overall sort of geometric footprint. You know what the listening axis you’re aiming for, the general performance envelope. And then it’s refinement. and that happens over a long period of time over a huge amount of different music, different, you know, different places. Different places. I hump the speakers to different, you know, friends with very, very different rooms. My personal, I bring them home, I bring them to friends with big lofts. I bring them to people with, you know, rooms with big, comfy, overstuffed furniture. You know, so they make that circuit quite a bit. I bring them to some of the stores that I have great relationships with as well. I get to hear him on other gear. and then I also have people over. So one of the things that I’ve found is that I’ll sort of be down. I’ll sort of be going down. Excuse me. I’ll sort of go down a little design rabbit hole. Maybe I’m chasing something really particular.
Speaker D: Right. Yeah, yeah.
John DeVore: and I’ll sort of be. I’ll get lost. I’ll be at a point where I’ve got three versions and they sound different, but I don’t know which one’s right.
Andrew Hutchison: And you can’t.
Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
John DeVore: And so, ah, the simplest solution for me is I call Anthony over from the cabinet shop. He comes and sits down, and I’m sitting way off axis, and I play him the three versions, and before he can point out the obvious and say version two, obviously I’ve been sitting over here, my mind has sort of been cleared, and I’m now listening vicariously through him, and I’m like, oh, sorry, yeah. Two.
Speaker D: Yeah.
John DeVore: And he’s like, yeah, right. So sometimes, you know, sometimes it’s just that you need to sort of do a reset because you’ve. You’ve chased. And I. And I. Yeah. You Honestly, you get really this narrow.
Speaker D: Stuck.
John DeVore: Yes.
Speaker D: Yeah.
John DeVore: And you are stuck.
Speaker D: Yeah. And I.
John DeVore: To be honest, I see this in other designs out there, not even necessarily speakers, but you see these people who have very clearly gone down a rabbit hole and released a product without maybe stepping. Stepping back from looking at the big picture. Right.
Speaker D: You know. Yeah.
John DeVore: And so that’s one of my safety checks, for sure.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, that’s one. That’s one. I think it’s. In fact, I mean, I’ve noticed, I mean, it’s human nature, I guess.
Speaker D: You.
Andrew Hutchison: You do. I guess you may agree or disagree on this, but you do tend to. What’s your favorite speaker? Well, it’s the one I’m working on at the. The moment. And. And then you. And that’s part of that. That human nature of just being excited about something that you’ve. Yet another thing that you’ve made work, I think, or got it to a point where it’s kind of enjoyable to listen to. And, Or whether whatever else it is, you design a car, bike, what boat, what have you. Yeah, but. Yeah, I think. I know. I don’t. I can’t think of who those people are.
John DeVore: You’re living and breathing. You’re living and breathing in a little.
Andrew Hutchison: Bit of a circle.
Andrew Hutchison: And you need to just go, well, I’ll just sit that over there and think about that for a while. Come back to that. I’ll go and build some production speakers or something.
John DeVore: Friends with good ears. Or, you know, you release them into.
Andrew Hutchison: The wild for a bit and then.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, bring them back and go, oh, yeah, still. Yeah, I get that.
John DeVore: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: I think it’s working or something like that.
John DeVore: Or I think I was right, you know, two steps ago. And I need to retune, you know, I just need to retune the bass port, you know, whatever. It could be something small like that.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, hey, thank you for all of those insights. It’s an it’s an absolute pleasure, John.
Hi Fi show seems to be filling up
there’s many things we could talk about, but you’re at a busy hi Fi show. I hope it’s busy.
John DeVore: It seemed like it was filling up.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it’s. It’s the first hour or so of the first day and it takes a little while to heat up. it is cold outside though, so that people will come inside.
John DeVore: It’ll bring them out.
Andrew Hutchison: Hi Fi show. So thank you again. Thank you so much. I would love to speak to you sometime in the future, when we don’t have the music in the background.
Andrew Hutchison: And, and ask you a whole set of other interesting questions if that’s all right.
John DeVore: I. I would look forward to it.
The hi Fi Shop is the home of quality hi Fi experience
Andrew Hutchison: The hi Fi Shop is the home of quality hi Fi experience. The best of everything from affordable turntables to not so affordable high end loudspeakers. Let Alex cur complete system for you or have him, using his technical background assist with your next
00:45:00
Andrew Hutchison: upgrade. Visit in person or check the website hifi shop.com for easy information on all of your favorite brands. Go straight to the top. Speak to Alex at hifi Shop.
00:45:10