Reviewing is easy right? Get some kit, throw it in your system and have a listen?
Not in my experience. Certainly not here at Audiograde. The simple fact is that in hifi, like life, context matters. Any piece of equipment needs to be given the chance to shine. It will also have been designed with a certain set of criteria in mind, and/or to a manufacturer’s preferences.
An obvious example of not getting this is trying to use too large a speaker in a small room – and
yes, I have been guilty of this.
Small speakers also have their limits, but are more flexible in the ways in which they can be used. And yes, I am labouring over these paragraphs as this speaker very much fits this critique, but I’ll get to that later (have I whetted your appetite?).
Don’t like matt burgundy? Then fear not as the Aurora SQ-10 comes in a wide range of colours, including walnut and birch wood (see Specifications section)
Local produce
D’Von Audio is a family run manufacturer set up in 2019 and based in Exeter, Devon – would you believe (hence the inspiration behind the brand name). It has a custom designed factory which includes an anechoic chamber, where each pair of speakers is tested before release, involving measuring and listening.
The Aurora SQ-10 under scrutiny here is the smallest speaker D’Von offers, sitting below the larger SQ-20 standmount, and floorstanding SQ-30 and SQ-40 models.
They arrived well packaged in a branded box with bespoke foam inserts for their pass ports, alongside felt pad feet and a polishing cloth for keeping fingertips at bay, all very professional.
Supplied accessories include listening pleasure instructions and bubble level
By comparison, the speakers themselves are higher and deeper than the eponymous LS3/5a (my reference standmount), with a narrower baffle. For cabinet construction, birch ply and high density fibre-board (HDF) are on the menu, with internal bracing to manage and reduce resonances.
Aurora SQ-10 cabinet showing its pronounced front baffle
Having reviewed a fair few speakers in predictable finishes, the matt burgundy carcass of the review samples wasn’t what I was expecting and made for a pleasant surprise. They’re very attractive, emphasised by the funky D’Von badge placed centrally at the bottom of the fascia.
The cabinet corners are lightly rounded, which removes edges to be dented, boding well for long term good looks.
Magnetically attached pear shaped front grille contrasts the usual square types
A two-way speaker, the Aurora SQ-10 boasts two drivers, comprised of a 19mm soft dome tweeter and five inch carbon fibre reinforced mid/bass woofer, both by SB Acoustics. The crossovers use Jantzen components, with its frequency set at 2.1kHz, well beyond the human voice, while the speaker has a frequency response covering 42Hz to 20kHz.
The SQ-10 is bass-reflex model with a rear firing port that exhausts towards the top of its cabinet via a rounded tube and offers a nominal impedance of 4 ohms, with a 3.65 ohm minimum.
Being a standmount design, D’Von offers its own bespoke speaker stands but these weren’t included in the review package, hence I reached for my own back-breakingly heavy pair of Foundation stands, which worked well (less can be said for my back).
Aurora SQ-10 revealing its rear port and single set of multi-way speaker binding posts
Performance
If you have read my previous speaker reviews you’ll know that I tend to start with smaller speakers placed in my nearfield system, before moving up to my main room. But for the D’Vons I’m shaking things up, for reasons that will become clear.
My main listening room is a good size for these speakers, being about 12’x13’ and hosting my main system which includes a dCS Network Bridge – I hope that you are paying attention, as this will come up in the homework.
I placed the speakers on the stands 24” out from the rear wall and four feet apart. The baffles were angled so that the drive units were firing just past the outside of my ears. The sound was attractive, in that there were no issues and I could get on with the hard work of simply enjoying the music. Having given the D’Vons a couple of days to settle in, I started taking my listening notes.
Do It Again (24-bit/96kHz) by Steely Dan is West Coast soft rock at its coolest. The musicianship on the track is superb, Becker and Fagen were hard taskmasters and there is nothing accidental in their creations.
The Aurora SQ-10 loaded my room nicely, with present and articulate bass. The sound field was not all enveloping like that of some mighty floorstanders, but articulated well between the speakers and deeper into the soundstage with a strong sense of realism. This could be heard for example in the cymbals on this track, which are well created with a believable sense of metal being struck and brushed. This is what I find gives this song its underlying impetus, and this was very much present and correct.
Next up was only a very slight change in style via Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt (16-bit/44kHz) by The Mars Volta, The band is described as progressive rock, but there are a number of influences in their music. What they are definitely not though is laid back West Coast, and to do them justice a speaker needs to be able to deliver their dynamic swings and punchy bass with gusto, which the Aurora stepped up to without hesitation.
Moving onto something a bit more acoustic I played Chris Jones’ No Sanctuary Here (16-bit/44kHz). This is simply a superb bit of musicianship, with a recording to match, and by now the D’Vons were really in their wheelhouse, revelling in the nice bass weighting while rendering the vocals beautifully. There is a clarity here too from the D’Vons that I appreciated.
19mm soft dome tweeter delivers the D’Von’s high stuff
Fresh pour
A few weeks ago I was in a coffee shop when I heard a song that sounded as though it had arrived direct from the 1940s, by a singer I had not heard of – Shazam is a useful app. Laufey as it turns out is a Eurasian, having an Icelandic father and Chinese mother, and they have gifted her with a lovely voice which she has cultivated.
While You Were Sleeping (24-bit/48kHz) from her 2023 album Bewitched allowed the Aurora SQ-10 to push the recording beyond the outer edges of the speakers. Laufey’s captivating vocals are also done real justice via these speakers, while the detail in the track is especially engaging.
As hinted at earlier, the soundfield of the SQ-10 is honest, but not perhaps in the 3D projecting arena I’m used to from my usual floorstanders. Adding my (sealed unit) BK Electronics XXLS400-DF subwoofer into proceedings (via a Neutrik high-level input, direct from the speakers for seamless speaker integration) takes them from a good value standmount onto a higher plane of room-filling performance. As well as delivering the expected extra bottom heft I was craving, the sound now escaped further into the room. The sub also helped fill in a tad of lower-mid richness to such a degree that I was left wondering whether this partnership is on a par with my reference Naim SBLs – not something I say very often.
5” woven fabric mid/bass driver with generous roll surround really looks and sounds the part in the SQ-10
Step into my office
So why did I not report my nearfield system findings first? I was listening to my LS3/5a speakers when the D’Von Aurora SQ-10 arrived. Slotting them in I immediately welcomed the extra bit of low down grunt and up top presence they brought to this smaller space, however, there was an emphasis on sung treble notes on some albums that I found a tad hard and sharp up close. One such album is Jeff Buckley’s Grace tour de force at 24-bit/96kHz. This is an album that sounds so effortlessly clear, but with a tendency to tip towards bright in the wrong system.
This sharpness was easily controlled though, by using the provided bass bungs. However with them installed a small degree of extra bass that I had already come to love was also dialled back. Could I have my cake and eat it?
I have found that my Chord 2go/2yu streamer in this system tilts towards the detailed, while the dCS Network Bridge in my main system is less inclined to exacerbate brighter recordings – and so I took the speakers downstairs – and obtained the results I have described previously. Back in my nearfield system, can I now get the full SQ-10 sound advantages without the fricative fallibility
With the tweeter fully run-in I found my issues were undoubtedly lessened, although my preference was for my Meridian 210 streamer, which includes its Apodising Filter that allowed me to retain the speaker’s full bass response while keeping the upper frequencies in check. The lesson here being that these speakers are quite rightly sensitive to their partnering gear, so choose wisely, and experiment to get the best from them (as I did).
I have a playlist titled Pop Great Singles (that our Editor keeps threatening to publish) which I’ll confess to getting little airtime when I’m head down reviewing, as pop doesn’t necessarily equate with recording quality. But with the D’Vons on duty, I found myself frequently returning to this, as their extra bit of low down punch over my more usual LS3/5a was very welcome – the BBCs have their own set of strengths, but they do act as a high-pass filter, lowish bass shall not pass.
The SQ-10 proved to be a welcome tonic in this respect, as they just love to party. And the strengths they demonstrated on these tracks readily translate to other genres, from opera to piano music – from Jon Baptiste to Chopin (that extra left hand presence was very nice).
To summarise, D’Von has crafted a flexible and rewarding speaker in the Aurora SQ-10 and returning to my opening remarks, the task of a reviewer is not simply to listen, it’s to enable an audio product to produce its best – nothing stands alone. It took me a while to fully get the SQ-10’s measure and careful partnering paid dividends, ensuring the investment reaped the rewards.
Designed and made in the UK, D’Von’s Aurora SQ-10 bucks the trend for mass produced speakers, and should be applauded for it
In summary
The D’Von Aurora SQ-10 is a well made and fine looking pair of speakers that packs welcome levels of extra low down punch in comparison to my usual reference.
This speaker has the flexibility to give you a well judged musical result that more than justifies its asking price. In small rooms they can hold their own with ease, and in larger ones, add a well designed sub-woofer for a full range solution that threatens far more expensive speakers.
