Exotic is a strange word. In one sense it simply means foreign, or originating elsewhere. Thus Camellia bushes are exotic because they come from East Asia.

But it can also mean a sense of luxury, even hedonistic fulfilment.

To my mind, the loudspeaker range from Vivid Audio warrants the description ‘exotic’ in both those senses.

Of course, loudspeakers from outside Australia are far from unusual; and are indeed almost the norm. But how many brands do you know that come from South Africa? Based in Durban, Vivid Audio isn’t some simple box builder, but a full blown developer of full loudspeakers, including their drivers and their highly unusual enclosures.

And it is those drivers and enclosures that satisfy the other sense of the word exotic. T

hey look, well, different. But not in a way that anyone would ever mistake as anything but utterly luxurious. With the current speakers under review, the B1 pair, no one will ever mistake your $20,000 purchase for something cheap.

Before describing the actual loudspeakers, I should note their provenance. They emerged from the mind of one Laurence Dickie, who back in 1994 created for Bowers and Wilkins its most striking loudspeaker ever, the Nautilus. These massive four way loudspeakers, shaped like a giant mollusc, have long been acclaimed, and some of its technology has over the years fi ltered down to more accessible B&W speakers.

As it has into Vivid Audio.

DRIVERS

The B1 speakers are 3.5-way models. For high frequencies – above 4,000Hz – they use 26mm metal dome tweeters. The midrange, from 900 to 4,000Hz – is handled by a 50mm metal dome. This frequency range covers that section of the audible spectrum to which the human ear is the most sensitive, and perhaps also the most capable of anomaly detection, so by using a midrange driver and avoiding a crossover circuit in this area, a significant potential problem is neatly avoided.

Below 900Hz is handled by a 158mm metal coned driver. This is where the 0.5 of 3.5-way comes in, for at 100Hz a second 158mm driver kicks in. When you first glance at the accompanying photos you may not notice this second bass driver, but it’s there. It’s just that it is at the back of the enclosure, firing towards the back wall.

The two larger drivers are physically joined, and since they fire in opposite directions, any mechanical impulse they may otherwise provide to the cabinet at low frequencies is cancelled out.

The loudspeakers use a bass reflex design to manage deep bass. There are two bass reflex ports, which are below the bass drivers and once again horizontally opposed, one open to the front, the other to the back. You can look right through this hole in the speaker enclosure to the wall behind.

Internal wiring employs audiophile grade Van der Hul cables. These run down through the stand to the plinth, to the rear of which are four binding posts, providing for biwiring should you choose.

Vivid Audio says that the loudspeakers have a nominal impedance of 4O, power handling of up to 300W with music content, and a sensitivity of 89dB. It specifi es this last as being for 1W at one metre, but I suspect it means for a 2.83V input at one metre (this actually works out at a bit more than 1W into a 4O load.

LISTENING

I ran these loudspeakers for about three weeks as my main stereo pair, plus as the front pair for a full home theatre system (the rest of the system was pretty high quality as well, but of course you can get other models from Vivid Audio to fill your surround requirements, including horizontally orientated centre channel speakers).

The first word that jumps to mind in describing the sound produced by these loudspeakers was ‘smooth’. Although that may be understating the matter. They were Tefl on smooth, velvet smooth. In fact, they’re a bit hard to write about because of their near total absence of anomalies. And that’s why they were so smooth.

They sounded as though they imposed no character of their own on the audio. There were no subtle emphases on the highs or the lows or the mids, or anywhere else. Instead the sound was in perfect balance tonally.

These speakers were also perfectly capable of producing very high levels, although seemingly paradoxically, without seeming to. That’s a result of low distortion levels. The cleaner a loudspeaker is, the less loud it seems to be. Until, of course, you try to utter a word to someone else, and realise that you can’t be heard.

And that’s something I like a great deal: the ability to produce magnificently large volumes of sound, capable of fully encompassing you and engaging you, without tiring your ears.

As I write I am playing yet again the Chandos recording of Shchedrin’s reworking of Bizet’s Carmen for a highly percussive orchestra. The massed violins are tonally rich without the slightest element of harshness. The solo violin that works through the pieces from time to time is sweet, not steely. Yet when a percussive section blasts out unexpectedly, as often happens in this work, I nearly jump from its pressure and authority. There is no dynamic compression here imposed by these loudspeakers.

Even the bass drum has presence and power. Only by close familiarity with the music am I aware that at its very lowest reaches it’s a little attenuated. Presumably that’s why Vivid Audio has bigger, more expensive, models. These would extend deeper into the far bass reaches.

As for other stereo attributes: imaging and staging were first class. There was depth and height and precision of imaging, combined with a good sense of air and tangibility to the various instruments.

I’ve focused here on a classical piece, but whether with a movie soundtrack or with hard driving rock music, the results were of little difference: extreme satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

I am not about to recommend these loudspeakers to readers for the simple reason that when you’re spending twenty grand, you ought to make your own very careful decision.

But I would suggest that, if your client’s budget could possibly encompass this kind of expenditure, you call the distributor number listed here and find out where you can indeed listen for yourself.