Pre/Power Amplifiers

Founded by president and chief designer John DeVore (the self-styled 'Top Banana') in 2000, DeVore Fidelity began life – in the fashion of so many boutique brands – thanks to the passion and vision of an individual. 'With interest growing in low power 845 and 300B-based tube amplifiers in the 1990s, supplied by the likes of Cary Audio, Audio Note and Octave Audio, enthusiasts were forced towards legacy high sensitivity (horn) speakers from Klipsch, etc, to find a match' says John. 'There were no modern alternatives and the speaker landscape needed shaking up from the trend of skinny towers with lowish sensitivity.'

John was inspired to design a speaker that offered contemporary styling, high sensitivity and an easy-going 8ohm+ impedance. Aimed initially at a very local market it also 'had to work in the average New York apartment'. The form factor suggested itself – 'three-ways are so much trickier for a single-ended tube amp to drive', observed John – while the increased baffle width maintained a decent cabinet volume despite its relatively shallow depth.

And what of future projects? Most likely to see the light of day this year is a new Orangutan model, pitched above the O/96 and incorporating ideas from the flagship O/Reference, including a version of the cast bronze woofer basket and horn for the tweeter and super tweeter. 'It will look like a prettier O/96', says John, but with 'new stuff going on inside the cabinet'. Its working title is the O/Bronze. PM