Does anyone know why, to the best of my knowledge, What Hi-Fi? has never mentioned Living Voice loudspeakers, wonderful British speakers made in Nottinghamshire, and they do not feature in the Buyers' Guide? Could it be because the makers don't advertise with What Hi-Fi?, or am I just being cynical? Yes, Living Voice are upmarket but the magazine often features other makers' very expensive speakers.
I have been using a pair of Living Voice Avatars for several years now, originally priced at £2,500 but I got a great deal on an ex-demo pair from Kevin at Definitive Audio. I think they are utterly fantastic. I bi-amp them with a Roksan Caspian integrated amp and a Caspian power amp (not the latest M-series but plenty of power) and I also have the Caspian CD player, the earlier one with the "drawbridge" but upgraded internally to M-series standard.
The rest of my system includes a Roksan Caspian tuner and a 23-year-old Michell Syncro turntable which still works like a dream, with the Musical Fidelity X-Can headphone amp, X-LP phono amp and X-PSU power supply, all wired together with van den Hul inter-connects and speaker cables and Russ Andrews power leads. A few years ago I had an ex-BBC engineer to lunch and he told me he hadn't heard better quality sound in any studio.
Seeing as What Hi-Fi? seems to be unfamiliar with Living Voice speakers, they probably won't respond to my query, but I'll ask it anyway. I am given to understand that these speakers are best suited to valve amplifiers, being of high sensitivity. One dealer even told me that bi-amping them with a pair of 70-watt Roksans was totally OTT! Would folks agree and if you would recommend a valve amp, which one might be appropriate?
R Stockdill, Hertfordshire