The latest OBX-RW4 is, naturally enough, visually indistinguishable from the RW3. That’s because in this case, the updates are all to do with the crossover and are thus all, hidden from view. The speaker cabinets and short, separate box plinths are identical, which importantly means that you can upgrade from the RW3 to the RW4 simply by swapping the crossover. This is a very real option for RW3 owners, but there are a couple of provisos. Given that the contents of the crossover cabinet are entirely new, Living Voice don’t need those back. This is a straight purchase of a new and better crossover. However, if your RW3 crossovers are veneered to match your speaker cabinets (rather than painted black, an aesthetic option made at the time of purchase) then you’ll want to return the crossovers so that the new circuitry can be built into the existing cabinets, maintaining the match to your cabinets. The IBX-RW3, built with internal crossovers, cannot be updated. A pair of OBX-RW4s starts at £15,545. A set of RW4 crossovers costs £5,000.
The changes themselves are significant, involving a shift in the crossover point and adjustments to the slopes, resulting in improved phase coherence and (as suggested above) a significant reduction in out-of-band artefacts. At the same time, the choice of capacitors in particular has been exhaustively honed, every one being revised or replaced. Bass level has been lifted slightly and the speaker re-voiced. Way more than a few tweaks, this amounts to an all-new crossover and thus an all-new loudspeaker. With the RW3s on hand for direct comparison, swapping crossovers left no room for doubt as to the scale of the change. Just as the RW3 was musically eclipsed by the R25, the RW4 rams home its advantage on both musical and sonic grounds.
Setting up the OBX-RW4 involves essentially the same process as the R25. That means using four small (smaller than a frozen pea) blobs of Blu-tack to attach the plinth to the speaker cabinet. Don’t worry about the security of the attachment. Align the plinth carefully and stand the speakers up. After they been in place for a month you’ll struggle to remove the plinth. Normal placement sees the offset tweeter closer to the speaker’s inner edge, but in narrow spaces you have the option to reverse that arrangement: especially useful given how well all of the Auditoriums work in smaller rooms. Next, fit the spikes and their locking nuts. Don’t forget to grease the spikes (Copaslip is the best option) or even replace/upgrade them with the excellent Track Audio M8 spikes. Both steps will make precise attitude adjustment considerably easier. Finally – keep the locking nuts loose to allow for the range of adjustment. When it comes time to lock the spikes in place, nip them up with a pair of 13mm spanners, careful to preserve the setting of the spike. Do not over-tighten them or you will start to spin the threaded inserts in the plinth.
But before you get to start set up (let alone enjoy any music) you have to deal with the added complication of the external crossover. Like all the other Auditorium models, the crossover is bi-wirable, meaning that you’ve got four inputs and four outputs to cable. In turn, that means a minimum requirement of one set of jumpers for the inputs and two short sets of speaker cable to run from the crossovers to the speakers – ideally the same cable that’s running from the amp(s) to the speakers. On top of that you can opt to run bi-wirable cable, or two sets of identical cable, between amp and each crossover and, ultimately, you can consider bi-amping. The crossover terminals that feed the speakers are colour-coded, white, blue, green and yellow, which is clear enough. The input terminals are not labelled, on the face of it you might think that doesn’t matter, but particularly if single-wired, then it is important to know which is which, as the speakers (like most single-wired but bi-wirable models) sound best wired diagonally, with the positive cable running to the treble input and the negative one connected to the bass, with jumpers arranged accordingly. The crossovers boxes have no feet, which leaves you with choices when it comes to how you place them. They sound noticeably better stood on their faces, with terminals pointing at the ceiling. Why? Who knows, but it’s clearly audible in terms of air and space in the soundstage and a sweeter, more focussed treble performance. What you stand them on is clearly audible too. I got great results from the HRS Nimbus, which delivered considerably more weight, floated a more convincing and better-defined acoustic space and markedly improved dynamic range. But the best performance was achieved with Neodio B2 footers. These offered everything that the Nimbus delivered along with a greater sense of musical flow, dynamic discrimination, musical texture and, as a result, expressive range.
