Excerpt from Srajan Ebaen's 6moons.com review

Certain components and/or combinations of components stimulate intense emotional responses. Don't ask me why or how. In fact, some—like my reference rig—can't be listened to as background music at all. They always project this kind of get-involved-or-turn-me-off intensity. It's how I listen to music and what's important to me.

However (and to be perfectly honest) that's something that should properly be called charismatic. It's an enhancement of sorts, aural MSG. There's an extra dose of energy, shininess. A stronger-than-natural fragrance which, however compelling and gripping, still falls under the category of "doing". Benign doing, mind you, but still what Buddhists or Zen masters would call self-effort. Adding to the flow, paddle in the river.

By comparison, the Gibbon just gets truly and completely out of the way, to be replaced directly and fully by this very flow of the music. No intensifying additive enhancements, no otherwise altering subtractions.

One slice of the Gibbon's vanishing act could be termed transparency. But transparency is like a mountain. It requires a surrounding plain to be a mountain. There is no mountain per se. Nor is there speaker transparency per se. Saying that the Gibbon remains utterly transparent to the music rings true. Calling it a speaker of great transparency does not. Can you appreciate the fine yet distinct differentiation between either statement?

And therein lies the crux of describing what it does. Its true nature is more one of non-doing. Descriptors that point at it—but, by themselves, still fall short—include the following: Ease. Naturalness. Relaxation. An absence of anything mechanical, tense or charged. The tacit presence of an organically unfolding dialogue between you and the music.

Having listened to plenty of speakers over the years, this is a rare occurrence. Rather than puncturing it by insisting on "take notes, dissect this, your readers want to know", I'm convinced that John DeVore's creation benefits most by staying my course. Because if this vague hinting at what is a powerfully obvious and acute listening sensation gels with your expectations or hopes for your own system, I can do no better. This, plainly, is what the Gibbon does, and does better than any speaker I've had come through my house—or encountered at trade shows or dealer showrooms—over, say the last 8 to 10 years.

Read the full review here.

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