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The informal photos on this page show the first production pair undergoing finishing work in preparation for the Monaco Yacht Show 2010. Because the loudspeaker drive units weren't installed, we'll see certain details the fully assembled speaker would deliberately conceal.
The logo descends in concentric steps to read "Made in England" at the bottom.
The Living Voice Vox Olympian inset floats above.
In keeping with the nautical scheme, wood and bronze are a leit motif.
Once the midrange horn is installed, this lovely fixture won't be visible.
Here is the 7-section cast bronze trumpet or bugle which loads the compression treble unit.
"Each section contains recesses for microscopic gaskets that compress upon assembly to avoid a pronounced resonance.
The gaskets are made from an elastomer, which we encountered when designing our G8 equipment isolation stand.
It’s really meticulous work but a handsome thing."
The amplitude of the concentric threading inside the bugle increases towards the exit and diffuses reflections.

The rheostat attenuators for the top three drive units.
The binding post bay.
Here is the exposed worm drive assembly for the ultra tweeter module.
The bronze end cap for the tweeter which in-house is referred to as Boadicea's bra cup.
The threaded bronze receiver plate for the bugle.
The bronze coupler for the Vitavox S2 midrange driver. The underside of the horn structure
is lined with Alcantara to prevent scratching the bass bin during installation.
The short vanes in the throat of the midrange horn.


The logo at the proper angle to show the country of origin engravure.
One production area of the Living Voice/Definitive Audio facilities showing, from the back,
Peter Fulsord, Kevin's product development partner and left-hand man.
The super tweeter unit with the back removed.
"Nylon thrust grub screws affix the HF unit to keep it square within its sliding assembly which is coupled to a worm drive for ultra-fine path length adjustability against the tweeter and midrange units. This super tweeter works up to 40.000Hz. It is a very prestigious TAD ET703 unit from Japan with 0.07g of moving mass and a 20.000 Gauss cobalt magnet. We encapsulate it in a bronze pod and even remade its rear chamber from bronze. That benefits not only appearance but sonics."
The midrange unit.
The midbass unit.

"The two lips on the front of the bass cabinet are the substrate of the horn. Bolted to the lower panel and pointing up at the ceiling at 45° is the above 15-inch midbass driver with Alnico motor. That fires into a compression chamber venting up at 45 degrees in the opposite direction away from the listener. Then it turns down to the floor, follows a 180° turn up and exits out through the mouth slot. It’s a sort of Z-shaped horn which works up to 500Hz. There's a controlled degree of openness for the back of the driver which vents through the front via the two curved triangles at the lower edges of the 'smile'. The woofer's 7.5-ohm impedance of course increases with our loading.


"There aren't many surviving makers of superior hifi compression drivers and high-efficiency bass units. Most know of Ale, Goto, TAD and Cogent. Our choice is Vitavox. Their drive units are manufactured right here in the UK by Octave Audio who also craft our Vox Olympian enclosures. As far as I know, nobody except Living Voice employs Vitavox transducers in a commercial hifi product. I've worked with these drivers since 1988. For me the Vitavox S2 is the most serious drive unit I've encountered yet. But I'm not at all precious about it. Should I some day encounter something better, I'd use that. I once did try to develop a scaled-down model at a lower price point with other drivers which simply served to emphasize the fabulous quality of the Vitavox units."

At right we see one cabinet in mid process of final finishing. Missing of course are the super tweeter module, the bronze HF horn and the midrange horn.


Any discussion of the Vox Olympian project spanning a 5-year gestation period but beyond that incorporating and refining prior R&D from the firm's Air Scout and Air Partner horn-loaded models—refer to my prior article on this history—would be sorely incomplete without covering the unusual context of Definitive Audio.


That's because Lynn & Kevin Scott operate both a manufacturing shop and by-appointment retail atelier out of an industrial space in Harrington Mill which they've occupied for the last twelve years. As the UK importer for the legendary Kondo brand of top-level Japanese valve audio, this husband and wife team travels all over Europe to install and voice audio systems. This provides them with very unusual insight into the on-site performance variability of their own speakers and electronics - and very solid experience on getting the best from their gear in any environment. By routinely accepting trade-in components, they also own quite the arsenal of equipment for comprehensive familiarity with competing products.



Why that would be an asset for any hifi manufacturer should be obvious. To appreciate the environmental milieu and contextual culture in which the Vox Olympian was conceived and crafted, we'll next look at the Harrington Mill complex and the Living Voice/Definitive Audio facilities within it.