R80 – It's the new Living Voice bridge between compact OBX models and Vox Elysian hornspeakers. In R&D since 2019, it scales up the symmetrical 2-way array of the OBX models to dual 8" mid/woofers flanking a ScanSpeak Elliptictor tweeter. As a fan of upscale valve electronics, Kevin Scott designed the rear-ported R80 [£52K w. outboard xovers] to be a benign load on sensitivity and impedance. It will make its official launch at the Audio Deluxe show of Whittlebury Park on March 25/26th. "We wanted to create a speaker that combined the lyricism, coherence and innate musicality of the OBX-RW with the scale, dynamic range and visceral thrill of the Vox Olympian. It is a complicated business making something simple and the past 12 months bear testament to this. We made painstaking incremental progress through iterative development on both cabinet tuning and crossover. Our unique cabinet construction is a development of what we evolved for the Auditorium Series over the past 30 years which translates beautifully to the R80. The substrate is stiff, light and diffusive benefitting tone and dynamics. The R80's form factor is clean and simple, relying on classic golden-ratio proportions and formal relationships making for what we hope is a timeless aesthetic."
