I discovered Bert's site accidently about a year ago. I was searching for a knowledge about the full range drivers and as an owner of a tall and thin full range speaker, I was curious what this approach to speaker building could offer at it's best. The Oris horns kept appearing again and again in the forums and I decided to find about what the fuzz was all about. The round horns of Acapella and Avantgarde had interested me for quite awhile, but what really intrigued me was the combination of full range drivers and the front horns.

I've owned Oris Reference Basic 200 for about a month now and I can give some of my experiences about the system so far. First of all I must make a confession: I'm not much of a DIY-person. Okay, that was a lie. I'm not a DIY-person by any standards. But I do not doubt though that if I had decided to start building the system by myself I could have done the job in some degree with very wide ranged success rate. Big perhaps. I did not want to take a risk so I decided to purchase the Oris system completely build from Bert. And like some people before me, unheard.

There are many good reviews about the Oris horns on this site site, but I still want to share my thoughts for those who are about to make the decision whether to get these speakers. I really enjoyed reading the comments from the owners too.

First of you don't necessarily need an amp priced thousands of Euros to enjoy these speakers - surely it would be great to try a true high-end amplifier one day. What you likely want though is a low powered tube amp. My current amp is integrated 300b amp from China, priced so low that you can't believe. I've also tried driving Oris horns and AER MD2 with KT66 and EL34 tubes. The last mentioned tubes did not work very well though. With the 300b tubes the speakers come alive!

The first impression of the Oris horns is that the sound is very relaxed, easy and smooth. I'm not going write the same things already written many times before on this site, but everything you can read from other people's reviews is true. It is funny that when you read a review of some more 'commercial' speaker from the Internet, you can usually find several pages text full of praises about the speaker's features: Every speaker is a 'top a of it's class'. After hearing the Oris horns you have to wonder...

This is my favorite part of the speaker review and it's always very efficient - it's called 'who said what' section. My sister is a pianist and she has not heard many hi-fi systems before. And yet she talked like a true hi-fi devotee. She heard the phrases and located the instruments into their places. Even the piano sounded natural. 'It is so good loudspeaker that you have to keep smiling!' she said. And her friend, also a pianist, wondered how the jazz sounded better that in the club. Some curious visitors stated simply 'the best sound I've heard including the hi-fi shows!'. How about that? My best friend said everytime he comes to listen at my place the sound is better and better. Now I have to stop. This is getting little suspicious, how much Bert is paying me for these comments you wonder?

My system: 

• Oris Reference Basic 200 + AER MD2
• Yarland 300b integrated tube amp
• Vincent CD-S3 - JPC 2.5 powercords
• Audioquest inteconnects and speaker cables

All I'm saying is this: Do yourself a favor and listen to Oris horns somewhere you can. It is truly a joy.