Walrus Stopp press 17.March.2001

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Wow! Another Stop Press update within a month  of the last one. What's going on?

Duevel

We were recently privileged to audition at our shop, not one, but two  brilliant products. The Pluto turntable (in the centre, below) was expected  to be very good, and it didn't disappoint. We had been waiting to see it for  about six months, and Eddie finally found time to come from Holland to see  us. It is definitely one of the very best turntables around, and gave our  resident Verdier a good run for the money. All being well, it should be  taking up permanent residence here soon.

What wasn't expected, though, were the Duevel loudspeakers, from Germany.  Mannfred (from Duevel) and Eddie are old friends, and so, more by luck, we  got to hear the speakers. Customers who know me well, will know I'm very  cynical nowadays about radical designs. In my 20+ years in the industry I  must have seen, and heard, just about every whacky speaker design going, and  the Duevel looked like just another of these. I was expecting to make the  usual polite appreciative noises whilst itching to get up and go and do more  important things.

But, both myself and Les were almost instantly won over by these  beautiful speakers. What the designer has achieved, is the almost perfect  omni-directional speaker. The bass/mid unit fires upwards, and the tweeter  downwards, and both get reflected outwards by the complex wood reflector  assembly.

The result is some of the most natural and  un-hifi like sounds we've ever heard from a speaker. The high frequencies, in  particular, seem to hang in space in a quite uncanny way, giving incredible realism  to percussion. Imaging appears to be uncompromised by the absence of direct  radiators, and you have greater freedom to move off-centre whilst retaining  soundstage depth and detail. I'm a bit of a fanatic for low colouration, and  expected to criticise the speakers in this area, as my experience of  non-direct radiator designs is they all sound coloured. Not so with the  Duevels - colouration is low, no more than many conventional designs, whilst  the benefits make them stand out from the crowd. As a further plus, they are  also pretty sensitive, at 91dB.

We purchased them on the spot, and are able to offer them in Britain  at the same price as the Germans would expect to pay for them. We strongly urge you to come and audition them - it might change  your preconceptions of loudspeakers for ever.