Back in May of 2008, I reviewed my first pair of Teresonic speakers. Since that time I have always had a pair of their speakers in my house. I ended up purchasing the Ingenium XR speakers with Lowther DX4 drivers with silver-wound voice coils for my reference system. They were the speakers in my reference system for almost 11 years.
Teresonic, Beautiful and Musical
The people at Teresonic knew how to build beautiful and musical cabinets for Lowther drivers. The Teresonic engineers believe that speaker cabinets should be built like musical instruments. They do not believe that speaker cabinets should be built as dead and damped as possible. They feel that a dead cabinet does not produce a natural and alive sound. Their speakers, right down to the varnish, look more like musical instruments than high-end audio speakers. The late Mike Zivkovic said that the shape, woods and even the varnishes are part of the reason the speakers sound so musical and look so much like musical instruments.
The Ingenium XRs are tall thin, and shapely examples of the cabinetmaker’s art. They are just breathtaking to look at and listen to. They are 73” tall, 10” wide by 20” deep at the bass but 8” wide by 4” deep at the top. Their shape is a very gentle and feline S. The Lowther drivers of your choice can be mounted in the opening a little over half way up the speaker’s front in this S curve. The transmission line opening is a 2” by 9” opening in the front at the base of the speaker.
The Ingenium XRs are also 103dB efficient. They can easily be played with flea-powered amps, such as the LTA MZ3, which I reviewed here.
Human hearing is quite sensitive to phase accuracy and coherency. The lack of coherency is most easily heard in the reproduction of musical instruments and vocals. The Ingenium XRs are great single-driver speakers that are both phase-accurate and coherent, and they sound more realistic and emotionally involving. The 103dB efficiency of the speakers gives the dynamics and micro-dynamics that make them sound so alive.
Head-to-Head Comparisons
Over the years that I owned the Teresonic Ingenium speakers, I made a special effort to hear certain speakers that might sound as good or better. These included speakers at $80,000 and a pair of horn speakers at $60,000. The only speakers to tempt me over the years were the DeVore Orangutan O/96 speakers.
When I like a speaker, or any other component for that matter, the way I decide which one I would rather keep is simple but time consuming. I listen to the contender for a few days, and then I go back to what I was listening to for a few days. I keep doing this until I decide which one has traits that I can’t do without. When trying to make this decision between the Pass Labs XA30.8 and the WAVAC EC300B I concluded, “What I’m saying is the Pass Labs XA30.8 is transparent enough that never once when listening to it did I wish it was as transparent as the WAVAC, but when listening to the WAVAC I missed the sound of the XA30.8.”
So, I did this comparison with the DeVore Orangutans and the Teresonic Ingenium speakers. In the end, I missed the Teresonic speakers more than the Orangutan speakers, so it wasn’t time to make a change.
The Decision
Then along came RMAF in October of 2017. That’s where I heard the DeVore gibbon Super Nines. I could not believe how good they sounded. I immediately asked for a pair to review, and I was told they weren’t quite ready for review. I eagerly but patiently waited. I never dreamed that they would be a rival for my Teresonics or for the DeVore Orangutan O/96s. I was wrong, very wrong.
The Super Nines were more refined, and in my system with the Pass Labs XA30.8, they had better bass in quality, depth and quantity. The upper midrange and the top end were refined, alive and simply beautiful. The most seductive thing about the Super Nines though was the way recorded music bloomed into life. It was simply enthralling.
So, I put the Teresonics back in, and again the immediacy of the midrange was better, but I really missed everything else about the Super Nines. I went through the changing them in and out that I described above. I still love the sound of the Teresonic Ingenium speakers, but it was an easy decision this time. I couldn’t resist that bloom and life that the DeVore gibbon Super Nines brought into my listening. So for the first time in almost 11 years, I have a new reference speaker. I know it’s not the most expensive, or even the most expensive in the DeVore line, but I have my doubts that I will find a speaker that makes music in my system and room sound better anytime soon.
