Vivid Audio's B1 Decade -- State-of-the-Art Measurements?

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Created: 26 October 2016 26 October 2016

To Doug Schneider,

I have read your reviews of Vivid Audio Oval B1 and B1 Decade, as well as the KEF Blade Two. Your reviews are excellent, but I find it interesting that you could almost predict your conclusions from the NRC measurements.

The distortion measurements (from the upper bass on up) for the B1 Decade are truly state of the art and essentially show a transducer that is more accurate than most of the valve electronics out there. The difference in measurements between the B1 and B1 Decade is astonishing.

I was going to purchase the Blade Two but will now focus on acquiring a pair of the B1 Decades.

Thanks,
Rami
Canada

I am glad that you like my reviews and that our measurements are valuable to you. The measurements never tell the whole story, but they can tell a lot if you know what to look at.

Insofar as the Oval B1 Decade goes, it is clearly better than the original Oval B1 in pretty much every way -- sometimes by a little bit, sometimes by a lot. Where it still falls back against something like the KEF Blade Two is its inability to produce really low bass (below 40Hz), something I outlined in the review. But if you can do without those low frequencies, it’s hard to imagine a speaker that is much better than the B1 Decade is for any price. . . . Doug Schneider