Wednesday, June 10, 2015

XTZ Divine 100.49 Tower Loudspeaker Review

XTZ is a Swedish hi-fi company

that has in recent years set up in North America, and the Divine 100.49 Tower

is their magnum opus. Priced at $7200 a pair, these loudspeakers pull very few

punches when it comes to delivering a uniquely high-end boutique experience -

except they're an internet direct offering. When Gene first told me about the

new XTZ Divine tower, my immediate reaction was along the lines of "Hey, sweet,

I recognize that mid-range driver; this will be fun". So I obliged and got

myself into checking out these extremely high-end beauties, and yes, reviewing

them was a pretty fun experience.

The XTZ Divine speakers have a calming presence.



When

the Divine towers first arrived, my initial reaction was "Oh boy, what have I

gotten myself into?" As a somewhat pricy speaker, I knew these were going to be

pretty big and heavy, but I underestimated just how high XTZ was aiming.

Shipped via freight in boxes that closely resemble an elevator in size, simply

carrying these to my listening room was an exercise in, well, getting exercise.

The next step was getting the towers out of their boxes, and that too, was

quite the task with my ten foot ceilings requiring all sorts of contortion and

angling precision to slide the boxes out. But with some much-needed help, I

pulled it off and got things set up. An array of floor and carpet spikes were

included to adjust the angle, intended for the end-user aim the tweeter at the

listening position.

The Divine  towers have a show room finish befitting a pair of $20-30k speakers.

If

you saw the Divine Towers on the showroom floor of a typical audio store, you

would not be remiss to assume that they retail in the 20 to 30 thousand dollar

range. That's because they hit every box on the checklist when it comes to a

visually high-end design, from elegant curves, a rock-solid cabinet, fine

European drivers, a quality finish, to an ambitious smorgasbord of rear panel

options for fine tuning adjustment, tri-wiring, active tri-amping, and port tuning.

If you're looking for a stop-gap speaker, this is not it - you could spend a

year playing with this toy and still not have tried "everything" it has to

offer.

XTZPortFlare001.jpg

XTZ

Divine Port 

XTZDivinemidrange001.jpgUndoubtedly

the centerpiece of the Divine tower is the Accuton C173-T6-90 mid-range driver.

A highly efficient ceramic cone unit with a double roll surround and an elite

vented neodymium motor design, it is very much among the end-all be-alls of

pure mid-ranges. This is a driver alone that retails for 25 percent of the cost

of the entire speaker. The tradeoff is that the tweeter and woofers are more

reasonably priced units that strive to complement rather than try to compensate

for the mid-range unit. In theory, this is clever design and the question then

becomes whether XTZ put it all together well enough. Even if they didn't, a

dedicated and knowledgeable individual could attempt an active crossover, for

instance a DEQX by accessing the drivers directly - XTZ makes that option

available too.

Upon

finally hearing the Divine towers, my immediate reaction was that the speakers

were strident in their default setting. However - I decided to try out the fine

tuning adjustments and took a look at the instruction manual, which I felt

could have been easier to follow. I discovered that the default setting (the

way the speaker arrived) apparently has the tweeter level elevated by a whole

+3 dB, and after some preliminary listening I removed the tweeter jumper, which

was ultimately the setting I found to be most comfortable to listen to in my

environment although I might have preferred if these adjustments had been a

little more fine. The final setting I arrived at had the midrange and woofer

jumpers

 XTZBindingposts001.jpg

Rear

Panel with tweeter jumper removed

 

 

fuzz092888 posts on June 06, 2015 01:13

If my understanding is correct, sibilance is merely the sounds associated with the pronunciation of certain letters, most commonly s, t, and z. A poor speaker/recording can overemphasize these sounds causing the tonal harshness that you want to avoid.

So when Grant says that sibilants were relaxed and smooth, he's saying that these speakers were not overemphasizing those sounds during playback.

JohnnieB, post: 1085417, member: 68619

One thing that caught my attention,

"sibilants were always relaxed and smooth."

Perhaps I misunderstood but, unless there is another definition of sibilance, why is it being mentioned. To my thinking, a speaker should not have any sibilance at all.

Could someone clarify?

JohnnieB posts on June 06, 2015 01:04

One thing that caught my attention,

"sibilants were always relaxed and smooth."

Perhaps I misunderstood but, unless there is another definition of sibilance, why is it being mentioned. To my thinking, a speaker should not have any sibilance at all.

Could someone clarify?

fuzz092888 posts on June 04, 2015 08:19

Excellent review, I think it was worth the wait

Based on the review, if I was in the market I'd definitely be taking a hard look at XTZ.

alphaiii posts on June 04, 2015 08:09

fuzz092888, post: 1085223, member: 59310

GranteedEV's review

Oops...

Thanks for the correction.

fuzz092888 posts on June 03, 2015 20:51



GranteedEV's review

http://www.audioholics.com/tower-speaker-reviews/divine-100.49-tower-loudspeaker

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