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To highlight Davone's USP (unique selling proposition) which goes for the ocean rather than ponds in which the usual audiophile products fish, Chris Sommovigo forwarded the following prospective dealer release: "U.S. Airways In-Flight Magazine gave the Davone Rithm a little bit of coverage in this month's issue. The Davone Rithm crosses boundaries from the world of audiophile sound to that of fine furniture. Some have said it looks like the Star Trek insignia, others have said it looks like 'come hither' high-heeled shoes. Yet others have agreed that the Rithm may have been the loudspeaker Charles and Ray Eames would have designed. All seem to agree however that it is dead sexy. High Performance meets Lifestyle with no excuses on either side. Davone is getting attention in mainstream venues well outside of the audio trades we tend to focus on."

Becoming more specific, Sommovigo continued: "Men's Health Living featured it recently on a full page in their magazine as editor's Top Pick among several very interesting speakers. Industrial Design, Interior Design and Architecture-oriented blogs are picking up on this little beauty as well. What is your go-to sex-appeal speaker? You know, the speaker she will say 'Yes' to? The one that actually goes with that Eames lounge, the George Nelson bench, the Noguchi coffee table, the Aarnio ball-chair? If you haven't yet filled that slot, I have a suggestion."


For ages now, industry pundits and hobbyist observers alike have proposed an audio outreach mission to get the word to new audiences. One suggestion that's nearly simultaneously pulled as soon as it is offered is advertising in non-audio mags. Simply put, most audio firms are far too small to afford playing those papers. For every B&O, Linn or Meridian whose products pop up in LifeStyle magazines, there's the multitudes who can only dream theirs could or would. Puny Davone, newcomer out of nowhere, now gets freebie rides simply for having hit a nerve. Somehow it hitched the galactic synchronization beam of today's zeitgeist. On many levels beyond performance, the Rithm is making headway on behalf of us all. It is an outreach product, no accompanying words necessary. If there were awards for products that benefit the audio community at large by their mere existence, the Davone Rithm is an obvious and rare front-line candidate.
And to paraphrase my numerous auditions in one deft sentence, "no dumb blonde jokes please". This product crosses off all the usual audiophile check list items to be serious. With its seemingly honest 85dB rating, this speaker loves power so I pulled out the big ModWright KWA-150 and Pass Labs INT-150. This created mini monitor acts of disappearance, colossal staging and unexpectedly potent bass into the mid thirties.
On paper and size matters, a 7-inch woofer would seem to be middle of the road at best, especially if it must also double up on midrange duties. In the room and in the grip of manly amps however, theory and practice rather diverged. A useful comparator was DeVore Fidelity's popular Nines model, another deceptively simple speaker that packs more punch than obvious artillery. Identically priced, it pitched twin 6.5-inchers plus 0.75" soft-dome tweeter vs. 7-inch coax with 1-inch soft-dome tweeters (the mid-
woofers of either model run synthetic cones). It was conventional vs. unconventional appearance, well-established performance vs. unfamiliar potential. How did the Rithm fare against the Nines?

In a lower league of resolution. The smaller tweeter in the Nines was the clearly more refined, illuminated and informative. When it came to top-end finesse, insight, leading edge brilliance and decay shimmer, the American no doubt took the prize. Surprisingly, the Dane got even on the other end. This was counter intuitive but consistent. The Rithm packed more wallop and punch in the 60-100Hz zone to feel weightier and more massive. This together with lesser separation and less acute midband clarity shifted things into warmth and comfort which by comparison had the DeVore lither, more detailed, quicker and more articulate.


On female and male vocals -- Dulce Pontes and Dhafer Youssef for example -- the DeVores retrieved rather more information about the singers' fluid shifts between throat, head and belly reliance. Separating out the vocalists from their backup ensembles was keener, too. Modern parlance calls that higher resolution and air. Climbing the ladder downwards into the bassment, the Nines were arguably the more linear. The Rithms cheated a bit for that extra impact and heft. To underplay this tendency to the soft-focus voluptuous, I needed a different amp.

To graft the DeVores' more lit-up vibe onto the Rithm, I moved the Modwright KWA-150 out and the Pass Labs INT-150 in. Then I pulled out the Esoteric C-03 preamp that had run the ModWright and parked the UX-1/NWO 3.0GO Esoteric/APL Hifi universal player in its stead. This made my 4-meter stretch of ASI LiveLine interconnect reach the integrated between the speakers directly and extricated the preamp.

The Pass amp's superb dynamics, speed and inherently leaner character meshed better with the warmer, darker, softer and heavier personality of Davone's first speaker model. This swap of ancillaries brought the Rithm into the general (but still lower rent) neighborhood of what the Nines had done over the ModWright. Without giving up groundedness and midbass kick, the Rithm now separated better. They had more energy in the upper bands and the subjective impression of audible space increased.
While the 25/50wpc into 8/4-ohm FirstWatt F5 drives the Rithm all day long (Sommovigo uses Berning's 10wpc Siegfried at moderate volumes and in a small room and I could run the 18wpc Ancient Audio Single Six monos below unity gain for happy times), the triple power and higher caffeine factor of the integrated Pass woke up its living daylights (Sommovigo's equivalent expression was completely different animals on his big behold monos). While a knee-jerk reaction could protest that all speakers sound better on more power, that's not the case. My ASI Tango R prefers the F5 over the INT-150 and, on many occasions, the 8wpc Yamamoto A-09S over the F5.

For the Rithm, you want high damping and quality power of the leaner, sharper and (dare I even suggest it) edgier sort. It'll be the speaker's wake up call. The amp needs to provide a slight emphasis on the attack and a very extended, lit-up top. That handled, you'll be rewarded with mini monitor-type staging (somewhat lower in height than customary perhaps), high tone density and surprising bass potency from a cleverly tuned port, with a slight shelf in the upper bass. Put differently, the Davone is an easy listening rather than edge-of-seat performer. Its paints with broader strokes and heavier colors, not adrenaline jump factor and samurai blade sorting. Despite its name, the Rithm is built for comfort, not speed. Some of that can be shifted. I bet that NuForce amps for example would match exceptionally well. In my arsenal, the first Nelson Pass integrated proved to be the most copasetic mate.


Davone's first speaker appeals to a music-focused audience rather than the ultra resolution crowd. Add that it's a real looker of the artisanal furniture rather than hi-tech outer space sort and what we have is an audio product for general rather than specialized consumption. With that being its (presumed) design brief in the first place, one has to call the Rithm project Mission Accomplished. It should go places others cannot. That's a very good thing for us all...
Quality of packing: Sufficient.
Reusability of packing: At least once.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Molded inserts are bidirectional to make for brainless repacking.
Condition of component received: Perfect.
Completeness of delivery: No spikes.
Website comments: Stylish just like the product.
Human interactions: Quick responses.
Pricing: In line with present market conventions.
Final comments & suggestions: To tease out the most performance from an audiophile perspective, high power, good damping and fast rise times are all prerequisites for a partnering amplifier. This speaker will sound good even on brighter and more aggressive electronics since it's been voiced to be rather forgiving.
Davone website