Customer Comments from the Audio Asylum Message Board:

This is just a short note as I wanted to share the joy – I’ll try to put something more thoughtful and thorough down in due time. I received my Maxxhorn Immersion speakers this past week, and had them up and in my system for the Memorial Day weekend. The short answer is: these are off-the-chart spectacular loudspeakers. They are the most refined, balanced and articulate speakers I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. I’ve had probably two dozen different speakers in my house over the years … many different variations on the single driver (Hedlund through Oris); acclaimed boxes like the Verity Parsifal; and my beloved Quad ESL-57s (which hold a special place in my heart, to give you a perspective on what I like). The Maxxhorn beats them all.

There is nothing these speakers don’t do well, and they are drop-dead gorgeous to boot. I have never – EVER – heard bass like this: deep, full, quick, perfectly aligned and scaled to the instrument, whether a standing bass, drums in an orchestra, or an organ, be it a church or Jimmy Smith (the latter is playing in the room next door, and both Jimmy and the sound of the speakers are scary good!). The kind people of Maxxhorn offered me a 60-day in home trial, no returns, just send ‘em back if I don’t want ‘em, but these are never leaving. (No, for the cynics out there, I don’t have anything to do with the company).

More info here: http://www.maxxhorn.com

The rest of my system consists of a Sony 777 SACD player with the 5+ Vacuum State mod -> Vacuum State RTP3C (the “D” supply is on its way) -> Vacuum State DPA-300b monoblocks. All interconnects are balanced Redel with Allen’s silver laquer wire and the speaker cables are Kondo silver.

If you’re thinking about these speakers, run, don’t walk, before the price doubles. Back to The Sermon ...

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Listener Comment from the Transcendent Sound Message Board:

MaxxHorn Immersions full range, single driver, back-loaded horn speakers, designed and built by Johan van Zyl of BASSMAXX, using French made PHL 1240 TWX drivers, sounded excellent with the Transcendent Sound 1.5 watt SE-OTL. The speaker cables and interconnects were made by Dennis Boyle of Chimera Labs.

Johan van Zyl has spent the last 15 years working on horn designs the latest of which are the ones at Bob Spence's home in Plano, TX. I believe that Johan, who has been designing pro audio subwoofers (now in their third generation of the back-loaded horn subwoofers), sold by BASSMAXX, is now planning to market a single driver full-range horn under the name of MaxxHorn and plans to be showing them at the Rocky Mountain AudioFest 2005 in Denver, and later at T.H.E. Show in Las Vegas. The horns are certainly at the point to be marketed. Pricing has not been established at this time.

The Transcendent Sound 1.5 watt SE-OTL that Bob built as a kit, performed extremely well with the MaxxHorn Immersions. I am a great fan of SET amplifiers and was taken by surprise that the output wattage was a measly 1.5 watts per channel into 8 ohms. We listened to a large variety of music including some of my favorite classical music on the Everest Ultra Analog label. The speakers had absolutely no problem keeping up with even my favorite the Wagner, directed by Stokowsky with the Houston Philharmonic, which has lots of deep bass horns and tympani drums. Other offerings were folk on Vanguard, jazz on Verve and an excellent recording of Albinoni's Adagio with pipe organ, and some other more contemporary recordings of both male and female jazz vocalists. I want to point out that the piano was extremely life like. The vocalists occupied a definite place in space reflecting how the recording was mixed.

The soundstage was excellent. The better the recording the more 3D the soundstage became. The dynamics of the drums and percussion translated extremely well and there were no problems with coherency, even though one might expect that from a single dual concentric driver. The bass in the lower registers was notable because of the excellent design and build of the horn, even though the driver was only 6.5". Clipping began at around 100 db within the lower octaves verified by a RS decibel meter on hand to back up personal opinions. While I think that the PHL Audio 1240 TWX dual concentric is in itself an excellent driver, I have no doubts that the horn loading raised the efficiency of the PHL to the point that the Transcendent Sound SE-OTL was able to provide the dynamics and volume that was distortion free, and a real pleasure to listen to.

As an aside note, I am not a great fan of single driver speakers and the MaxxHorn is by far the best I have listened to, including the bass heavy techno music of Yello.

Bob Spence does have a tube preamp and an excellent DIY tube DAC. All music was in a Redbook CD format. All interconnects internal speakers wires, external speaker cable were made of CCOFC by Dennis Boyle of Chimera Labs and the binding posts are OFC from Vampire.

Truly a great listening experience I am sure it would have sounded even better in my house with the corners available to enhance the bass response. The Transcendent Sound 1.5 watt OTL and the MaxxHorn Immersions back loaded single driver horns seem to be a match made in heaven. Every once in a while you hear something that re-affirms the reasons that one gets into HiFi, this is definitely one. Single driver speakers do not get better than this.

(edited for spelling and grammar)

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