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To return to familiar electronics and retake the pulse after motors and voice coils had fully warmed and suspensions limbered up, I reverted to my customary Nagra Jazz plus Crayon Audio's CFA-1.2. As a super-lucid amp the latter would mercilessly expose dynamic contrast or response imbalances. Its bypassed passive volume put the Swiss valve preamp in charge, its voltage gain switch to zero down from 12dB. Source was AURALiC's Vega with Audirvana+ set to 352.8kHz upsampling. Modes were exact clock and integer 1. The very first gain of this hardware shuffle was low-SPL resolution. Now I had true whisper performance. The Austrian amp's sub 1st-watt performance was clearly superior to the massive Australian monos. To test what Germans call Strahlungskraft—In English a not precisely available combo word of radiance+force—I cued up Baroque Melchior Molter concerts performed on either pocket trumpet (Reinhold Friedrich) or high D clarinet (Thomas Friedli). Their upper register should combine penetration and jubilance enveloped in the cotton candy of recorded ambiance. On bandwidth they fall smack into the zone one worries over with widebanders. Another mean test was the top reach of Ulrich Herkenhoff's pan flute. Sans vibrato it cuts through air like a hot knife.


On a highly resolving system of proper speed one wants to release the full energy of such instruments yet not have them artificially edge pixilated or unnaturally glossy like a luxo invite card whose photo only sports key areas in lacquer. In my experience high-efficiency widebanders not only routinely exhibit a rising hot upper midrange. They can also express accelerated dynamic contrast in this critical band over their impact—or rather lack thereof—in the upper bass power zone. This too registers as selective brightness but needn't be an actual response lift (though it could combine with one). Whilst I intensely dislike their warbling vibrato and pushy artifice to never partake for pleasure, operatic sopranos are another litmus test. (Perhaps I have to be reborn Italian to transcend this flaw in my musical palette?)

Here the speedier 100dB Lowther types—AER, Rethm, Voxativ—seem to me more critical than the mellower 'second' tier of 93-94dB Enviée, Fostex and John Blue AudioArt drivers. Davis slotted itself securely into this tier not merely on actual sensitivity spec but sonic behavior. I'd peg it slightly more dialled for speed than tone mass compared to my soundkaos Wave 40 or the departed Tune Audio Prime. But even on very quick transistors it remained free from the potential bite or whizziness which top-speed widebanders tend to exhibit with such amps to get verboten or sub optimal. This also means somewhat lower overall resolution than my friend Dan gets from his field-coil Voxativ Ampeggio Dué with Acapella ion tweeters. In trade there's less exposure of mastering flaws like interference between massively overdubbed harmonizing voices, sibilant spittle and such. In short all of the concept's virtues of electrified immediacy, none of the key liabilities. Unlike the first cold showing and subsequent settling-in phase, fully cooked had arrived at admirable 40Hz - 10.000Hz balance with proper overall weight if a bit lighter in the low reaches when one's reference is an active sub of Zu Submission potency.
An oft under-appreciated strength of this type speaker is its complete satisfaction on ultra-simple material. I'm thinking the guitar/vocal "Yu Sew Yii" of El Hadj N'Diaye's XEL which becomes a magic unfolding of Senegalese vision riding on a passionate voice accompanied by plain guitar chords; or Al Gromer Khan's ultra-minimalist ambient Lexus with its drum grooves and occasional sitar snippet floating in inner space. Where with such fare speakers of lesser microdynamic depth easily turn you off into quick boredom, the MV One magnified its micro ripples of voltage shifts to be fulfilling.


I think of this quality as rainy afternoon magic. It's for when you're not in the mood for pomp and circumstance. You don't mean to drown out the rain but still want to embark on an immersive musical journey. This ability to speak to us very loudly whilst doing it in an unobtrusive fashion now is key. It doesn't dominate us into submission. It quietly opens doors which we can pass through without shutting them behind us. It makes for very socially acceptable hifi consumption which doesn't require a separate listening room bunker to be cohabitable.

Reader Strudwick Shepperd: "I read your final page on the Enigma Acoustics Sopranino review. I recently installed the following to my rather pedestrian Dutch transmission-line speakers. It's wired directly to the tweeter terminals and fixed between tweeter and mid/woofer. The effect on increased coherence and musicality is quite astonishing. The nice thing is how physically discrete and inexpensive these are. Even with French customs getting an outrageous chunk, my pair came to €65 direct from Japan. There of course is heated dispute on various web fora ranging from those who say it's impossible and against nature to those who have actually tried it and fallen in love. I am in the latter camp. You were quite right saying that the most beneficial effect from these super tweeters is on widebanders. There's a growing community of widebander aficionados here in France who are getting all orgasmic over these." I thought it nice to learn about a tribe of unfamiliar kin folk just across the border. À votre santé!

Since the MV One started life as proof of concept for the 20De8 driver, I fully appreciate why it runs solo. For proof that's the most telling presentation. For ultimate performance and similar to how soundkaos add a Raal ribbon, Tune Audio a Fostex, Ocellia two piezos and Zu a Radian compression tweeter (to their Enviée, Fostex, PHY and Eminence widebanders respectively), I'll predict however that eventually Olivier too will combine the 20De8 with a custom tweeter of his own design. By comparison to these competitors and also conventionally tweeter'd 2-ways, here the Davis still misses things. Make no mistake, it's perfectly respectable for a large-diameter widebander. But without assist they all roll off the top end. This tones down the brilliance region. And that dulls down tonal sheen whilst stealing from soundstage specificity and space. As a result things aren't as vivid as they could be. True, a super tweeter can bridge the gap. But I think a truly finished product shouldn't require or benefit from any bolt-ons. Considering how this is Davis' first go at the genre however, it's a mighty impressive ground-up debut to be warmly welcomed!

On criticisms the biggest one you could fairly level at the MV One are its ultra-boxy cosmetics. They're unpretentious but quite dated given what competitors are doing. That aspect is not where Olivier Visan's attention went. His focus was driver tech. The box concept in fact is so basic—its only nod at any tech are 5mm thick bitumen liners—that it should bug those plenty whose own complex rear horns make for no more (or less!) linear extended bass reach. The biggest bravo to be shouted at the MV One is for sonics which legitimize the widebander breed to the many who—having only heard inferior examples before—long ago wrote it off as suitable only for curmudgeons, old goats and assorted other hifi weirdoes. DIYers should take note too. At €1.100/ea. the French 20De8 is twice what the Norwegians at Seas get for their €584 papyrus-coned Exotic F8. Clearly driving Davis isn't for first projects, beginners or the faint of heart. But copying the MV One box will require only the most basic wood shop skills. That could make up for it some (or a lot).

Wrap. Starting off lean, thin and prickly, my time with the MV One shifted into very different gear over the course of less than two weeks. Extreme neither on sensitivity nor associated kid's glove fussiness, all this speaker needed was being run in properly and then finding itself spaced a bit closer together than my ultra-wide Audio Physiks layout started out with. The French box then even ran on ultra quick wide-bandwidth transistors without lacking for tone mass or betraying any annoying bite and whitishness. For ultimate vividness I preferred adding a 'super' tweeter and in the Engima Acoustics Sopranino happened to have one on hand which both sonically and cosmetically was ideal if not on price. On the perennial concern over coin, if the €15.700/pr soundkaos Wave 40 is unattainable and/or out of consideration for its unusual cosmetics; and the €6.600/pr Tune Audio Prime slightly too large... then the Davis Acoustics MV One becomes your first choice in this triptych of options I now consider my favorite widebanders for owners of solid-state amps.
Davis Acoustics website