Vivid Audio B1 or 1.5 with D220Pro

[Flashman]

I had aan rare opportunity to listen to both the V1. 5 and B1 speakers with my Devialet.

Yesterday we took a ride together with a friend and listened to the Vivid Audio V1.5 and the B1. Bring your own amplifier. Phone put on hotspot with wifi address of home and bubleupnp on and play but what a pleasure Devialet is then. We started by listening to the Vivid Audio V1.5 which didn't sound wrong, especially the low is not bad for a small speaker. Vivid Audio has done that well. Tonally we thought the speaker was not quite our thing. You notice that the drive is not always there and that, for example, the piano in PB Cafe Blue does not look that nice. Stimela also lacks drive and attack. Then switched to the B1.

The b1 well that was a bit different. Where we missed the drive, it was back here. Stimela sounded like you were there. PB Cafe Blue's piano was also very beautiful. The bass is very good for a speaker of this size. Will miss fractionally deep low compared to the T2 +, but is really steps better on all other fronts. For the money there won't be anything better 2nd hand out there anytime soon. what these speakers are very good at is that their high mids are very beautiful. The bass has a lot of layering and played a lot of songs like James Blake and the famous other songs and that went really well. The 1st speaker where I could live without the absolute deep low bass for the first time because what you get in return is simply super.

This was even without SAM activated. So still a an step to discover. Now have to decide if i want to spent that money on a speaker.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk

I would never have purchased the Vivid Oval 1.5 without the benefit of SAM.  No comparison IMHO as SAM transformed the bass and overall cohesion of music.  After falling in love with both the Vivid look and sound, I found a pair of used B1 Decade speakers and decided to move up the food chain.  As Drifter mentions, there is no SAM profile for the B1 Decade, which has a different x-over from the SAM-enabled B1, but nevertheless the bass response is spot on.  Plus, you get a dedicated mid-range driver, so important for vocals.  If you are on a budget, I would definitely test the 1.5 with SAM just to see whether you would like it.  If you have the coin, the B1 will be better.