Vittora Speakers - Volti Audio - Hi-Efficiency Horn Speakers

I'm very proud to introduce the very first, all-Volti speaker. It has taken almost a year of development time for just the bass horn! I had a lot of help from Mark Kravchenko on the bass horn design, and John Warren of North Reading Engineering did the acoustic testing and development of the crossover network. Without the help of these guys, the Vittora would not be. So I'm very thankful to them for their patience with me, especially Mark, who I probably drove crazy more than a few times!

I have a passion for fully horn-loaded speakers, and now that I have developed one myself, I realize how difficult it is to pull off and yet how rewarding it is to listen to music being reproduced on such a great format. The sound from the Vittora is everything I had hoped it would be, and the aesthetics of the speaker are better than I imagined. Overall, I'm very happy with the results of my first horn speaker, and I'm looking forward to designing many more in the years to come.

The Vittora is a fully horn-loaded, three-way, high-efficiency speaker system that delivers wide dynamic range, high output, and extremely low distortion. It IS a horn speaker, and it gives us everything we like about horns while minimizing the problems that plague some other horn designs. The Vittora strikes a balance between the sound of a high-end, smooth, audiophile speaker, and the in-your-face, lively, dynamic sound of a big horn system. It is unmistakably true to the all-horn format, but polite enough to be taken seriously by any audiophile.

The Vittora utilizes a 15" woofer in a folded horn to produce solid, accurate bass. Even at high output levels, the distortion from this horn is undetectable, and the result is a quickness and definition that you can only get with a horn design. There's no ported bass sound with this horn speaker! You get tight, accurate bass, a correct sounding mid-bass, perfect integration between bass and mid, and a lush high end from the top of the mid through the tweeter. The Vittora speakers are simply a joy to listen to music with.

"'Volti' is Italian for 'turn the page', and turning the page on horn-speaker performance issues is just what the Vittora seems to do.

The midrange is truly the heart of the Vittora, and the listener is rewarded with a midrange musicality that is very rare in this industry, at any price. However, I spent the most time on the bass horn design of this speaker.

I designed the Vittora to provide all of the wonderful attributes of horn-loading throughout the entire musical spectrum, from the very highest frequencies to the solid low bass frequencies. The Vittora covers the entire spectrum smoothly and with great efficiency. Bass is solid and flat to 70Hz, and then gently rolls off from there.

Designing bass horns is a difficult task, and one that is full of compromises, which is why there are so few of them available. As I looked around at what is available on the market for horn speakers, I noticed that most horn speakers use a vented bass cabinet beneath midrange and tweeter horns. I could have easily done the same thing with the Vittora, and in fact I have done exactly this with the Volti Alura speaker.

While this type of format (horns for the upper end and vented bass for the low end) is fine for some people, and designers feel comfortable calling them horn speakers (even though I think they should be called partial horn speakers), for me it's a compromise that I didn't want to make with the Vittora. I wanted fully horn-loaded sound, all the way down to the deepest bass notes. Ha Ha! THE deepest bass notes.

The problem with that of course, is that getting a bass horn to play down low (below 50hz) requires a VERY BIG horn. We're talking larger than a refrigerator here. In addition to the obvious problems with building a speaker that won't fit through normal size doorways, building a horn large enough to produce very low frequencies and also asking the same horn to play mid-bass in an accurate and musical way just doesn't work. The bigger the horn, the less musical and tonally correct the mid-bass becomes. Oh yes, I know there are many horn designs that have been introduced over the years that cover both low bass and mid-bass, and there are plenty of people out there who are going to defend these old designs and say that this one or that one does both just fine. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but over the last few decades speakers have become a LOT better sounding than they used to be. What was once accepted as good sound quality (think Klipsch Khorn) is not so accepted anymore. The standards used to determine the quality of reproduced sound are much higher today than they were in the 1960's 70's and 80's. So when I make the statement that building a big enough horn to produce a 30Hz wave, and also asking that horn to accurately and musically reproduce the mid-bass up to 400Hz is problematic, I am doing so using the standards set by the very best speakers being designed and built today.

So with the current limitations and standards in mind, it was apparent to me that designing the bass horn for the Vittora that could compete with the world's best, required that I strike a careful balance between the voicing of the mid-bass and the size of the cabinet that would be acceptable in the marketplace for producing low bass. And I think I struck that balance perfectly, at least to my way of thinking and hearing.

The Vittoras reproduce the mid-bass so accurately, and they integrate the mid-bass and midrange so perfectly, that they produce a level of musicality that I have not experienced from any other design. Now keep in mind that I am biased towards horns, so there's plenty of room for argument from others who prefer other topologies. None-the-less, I'm overwhelmed by the overall musicality of this speaker from 50Hz to 20Khz, and I think you will be too.

The Importance of Mid-bass

So let's talk about mid-bass a little bit. Do you know how much musical information there is in the frequencies between 150Hz and 400Hz? This mid-bass range is incredibly important to the overall listening experience. Do you realize that these frequencies are more midrange than bass? Well, ok, certainly in the case of 150Hz it's very low-midrange, but the point is, these are very musical frequencies and not really what you would think of as bass. Do you realize that in most cases, this frequency range is coming from the bass cabinet in a three-way horn speaker system? Yup, and that means that the driver that is being asked to reproduce low bass kick and the lowest frequencies that vibrate the room, is also being asked to accurately reproduce the lower midrange notes of a piano, organ, voice, guitar, drums, horns, etc., essentially the most musical parts of a recording. It's just about impossible to expect a bass driver to do both of these things perfectly. There's going to be compromise somewhere.

As a speaker designer, thinking of a particular design, I have to decide where I am going to accept that compromise. For the Vittora bass horn, it was going to be anywhere but the mid-bass performance - mid-bass tonal accuracy.

To reproduce music in a believable way, and to meet the very high standards that audiophiles are listening for today, there is nothing more important to a speaker designer than producing a speaker that is tonally accurate and musical in the mid-bass. In fact, I don't think there's anything more important to me in my own system than the quality, clarity, and strength of the mid-bass. A weakness in the mid-bass is a weakness that I cannot ignore, and so the design of the Vittora has a priority in the voicing of the mid-bass and the integration of the mid-bass with the midrange. This design element took precedence over how much low bass I could get out of the bass horn.

So what about the compromise on the low-end extension? Well, I'm not supposed to talk about that don't you know! This is about sales and marketing! I'm supposed to doctor the curves and only talk about how strong the bass is. I mean after all, most people can be fooled by the amount of 100Hz bass coming from a horn speaker, and think that they're listening to low bass (any La Scala fans out there?). Here's my answer to the compromise that I accepted in this design: Better to compromise only the low bass (less than 50Hz) than to compromise the entire bass range, including the mid-bass, by using a vented cabinet for the low end. Or put a different way - I would rather enjoy the musicality and tonal accuracy from horns with a slightly limited low-end extension than I would to be subjected to ported mid-bass.

To overcome this slightly limited low-end extension, Mark Kravchenko has designed a subwoofer for the Vittora. It uses a very high quality Faital Pro, 18" driver that is in a vented enclosure, powered separately from the Vittora speakers. Designing a subwoofer that matched the musicality of the Vittora bass horn was not easy to do. But kudos to Mark, because his design easily produces the very lowest, gut-wrenching frequencies with ease, and it is so well designed that it does not require equalization.

Please be patient, as I will have more pictures of the subwoofer and more information coming soon. I do have a few pictures to show you, including a couple of the inside of the sub:

That's 1" thick Baltic Birch, even for the inside braces, which curve to match the sides of the cabinet. The port is built with 3/4" thick Baltic Birch.

The subwoofer is designed, built, and finished in the same way as the Vittora bass cabinet. It's even the same size as one of the Vittora bass cabinets.

As I said, the subwoofer is still a work in progress. I am currently working on an even newer design that uses a unique Ciare 18" driver that works extremely well in an enclosure half of the size of the subwoofer shown in the pictures above. Initial testing, including the use of one of the prototypes at Rocky Mountain Audiofest 2011, have proven very promising.

Do I Really Need the Subwoofer?

Well, when it comes down to it, I feel like I do based on my experience with the Vittoras in my own living room system.

Much of the jazz music I listen to does not benefit at all from the subwoofer, as there is no significant musical content below 50Hz in the recordings. However, there are plenty of other jazz recordings where the addition of the subwoofer allows me to discover new sounds from my system. My classic rock and rock/fusion material has a lot of musical content down low that I find very satisfying with the subwoofer.

At the Capital Audiofest I had the Vittora speakers set up in my room with my simple (but high quality) electronics system from my house, and the matching powered subwoofer. I had the sub crossed over at 42Hz with a 24db slope filter, no EQ, and just up high enough in volume so it blended with the Vittoras. First, I demonstrated the system to listeners without the subwoofer on, and then I gave them the subwoofer remote control and let them switch the sub on and off themselves. Some said they could barely notice the sub on, others heard it right away. Half the time they turned the sub off and left it off while they listened to music, and the other half of the time they left it on, saying they liked the added "weight" that the sub gave to the music.

We did play a few songs in which the subwoofer was really cranked up in good shape. One person in particular brought in a Pink Floyd CD and asked if I would turn it up loud. So I switched over to the 18 watt, class A, Border Patrol amplifier that I borrowed for the show, and cranked it up. It was impressively loud, clean and clear. The sub never flinched, as it pounded out that last octave of bass. There were a few big eyes in the room! And I think a couple of people left! Oops, oh well, you can't please everyone.

So do you need the subwoofer with the Vittora speakers? If the answer was a clear "no", I wouldn't have built it in the first place. But I can also imagine many people being completely satisfied with the Vittoras without the sub. Hopefully this little essay has provided you with some useful information that you can use to determine if the subwoofer is right for you.

Instead of compromising the entire bass/mid-bass range of the speaker with a vented bass cabinet, the Vittora is designed to provide fully horn-loaded sound deep into the bass region, while only sacrificing the very lowest frequencies. If you require it, the subwoofer takes over and blends seemlessly with the Vittora to provide those lowest frequencies. The listener is rewarded with a highly efficient, fully horn-loaded sound that is refined, musical, and up to the standards set by the very best speaker designers and builders today. All in all, it's a brilliant design that works very well.

"Greg Roberts was at RMAF with his Volti Audio Vittora Speakers. They were simply shocking. The speakers look for all the world like a cross between a Klipschorn and a Klipsch La Scala, but sounding like some of the very best horn speakers I had ever heard."

Jack Roberts,
Dagogo

"The $10,600 Volti Audio Vittora, fully horn-loaded, three-way, 104dB sensitivity loudspeaker is good for 50Hz - 20kHz. One look, and you're probably thinking 'Klipsch'. I was, anyway. But the sound - definitely not Klipsch. Based on what I heard, Designer/builder Greg Roberts nailed it. What an amazing sounding speaker. Clearly a contender for Best In Show."

Socrates7,
Confessions Of A Part-Time Audiophile

The Vittora speakers are very efficient. Most horn speakers are, but the Vittoras are among the highest with a sensitivity of 104db 1W/1M. They work perfectly with low or medium powered tube amplifiers. They also work well with solid state amplifiers up to 100 watts per channel. No matter what, the most important thing to remember is that the Vittora speakers are extremely revealing of any downstream problems. So the quality level of all of the components, and perhaps most importantly the amplifiers, needs to be very good.

My own preference in a system is to have a very simple electronic path, with a very few high quality components in the chain. I like high-efficiency horn speakers and high quality, low-power tube amps. The Vittora speakers are built for this type of system. A system like this provides the musicality, dynamic range, and the reach-out-and-grab-you kind of interaction that gets me excited to listen to music. The Vittoras do this with only one watt of power and in the most pure and natural way.

The Vittora speakers provide fantastic imaging. John Warren can explain in technical detail why the Volti midrange horns are able to achieve a realistic central image better than other horn designs; I'll do so in a much less technical way! First, the Vittora midrange horns are big, and they have big midrange drivers feeding into big throats. Size does matter with horn speakers! Proportionally, when you look at the amount of horn to throat area, there is a lot more sound coming from the driver and less from the horn than in other system designs. As a designer, I found that I did not need to "push" the midrange frequencies through a long, constricted throat to increase efficiency or bandwidth, as long as I was using higher-efficiency and larger bandwidth midrange drivers to start with. We're still padding down the midrange in relation to the rest of the system, so efficiency isn't an issue. The focus instead became how to "steer" the frequencies into the room without messing with the tonal characteristics of the midrange coming from the driver.

And so this is the basis of the design - to build a horn that adds as little coloration as possible to the midrange, while guiding the sound to the listener for proper imaging. Old-school midrange horn design is simply not needed with the three and half inch voice coil, two-inch outlet BMS midrange driver, and would only serve to compromise imaging and add coloration. A relatively shallow wooden horn with a tractrix flare gave me exactly what I wanted for this design; a horn that guides the sound into the room more gently and without the beaming effect of a longer, narrower horn, resulting in improved stereo imaging.

You know how you can cup your hands over your mouth to direct your voice to someone across a room? Try doing it, and listen for the coloration added to the sound of your voice. Now while speaking, spread your hands apart farther and farther and listen to the difference in sound as you do it. This is very similar to the difference between old-school horns and the Volti midrange horn.

The Vittora speakers work well in just about any room size. At the Capital Audiofest, I demonstrated how flexible the Vittoras were by toeing the speakers in and out over a thirty degree range without affecting the pinpoint imaging they produced, and that was in a fairly small room. They are extremely flexible in terms of placement, and are able to dazzle the listener from just a few feet away as easily as they fill a 24' x 30' room with hair-parting sound.

Imaging and soundstage are very important elements of listening to reproduced music for me. It is important that when listening to music on my system, that I not hear either of the speakers. My goal is to hear only music floating in front of me. The Vittora speakers achieve this with great effect, combining breathtaking dynamic range with that wonderful floating image of music in front of you.

I myself was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful the design ended up being. Most of my time during the development of these speakers was spent with ugly prototypes built with cheap O.S.B. It was not until the very end when I got set up to make the curved sides of the bass horn, that I figured out that the curve used for the bass horn could also be used on the upper cabinet. The feet under the bass horn and the spikes that separate the top cabinet from the bass horn were all design elements that came along at the very last minute. I still remember just a week before leaving for the Capital Audiofest show when I first placed the top horn section on top of one of the bass horns. I nearly fell backwards at seeing it for the first time. My first thought was that they look so professional! I couldn't believe that it was actually my own design. Then I thought how substantial they look. They are much more impressive in person than in pictures.

At the Capital Audiofest I had a great time talking to people about the construction. I showed the listeners a midrange horn, and I spoke through it so they could hear how natural my voice sounded. I also had blocks of wood that I made showing the multiple plies of the 1" Baltic Birch plywood that I used, and also of the eight layers of 1/8" Baltic Birch plywood that I laminated into my own curved panels that I used for the sides of the speaker. I explained that I have my own vacuum press to make the curved panels, and that it takes 100 hours of labor to complete a pair of Vittora speakers, with all the labor done by myself. Here's a picture of those blocks.

The cabinet construction really is heirloom quality. I use all Baltic Birch plywood, 1" and 3/4" thick, with no MDF used anywhere. There's no wacky wood used in the curved sides, that's real Baltic Birch.

Where others may be fine with using lesser quality materials like MDF or bendable plywood, I choose to use Baltic Birch. Regarding the laminated curved panels - If you ever got a chance to hold a piece of 1" thick bendable poplar and 1" thick Baltic Birch, you'd notice the difference right away. The Baltic Birch weighs twice as much, and it is the higher density and quality that you would want in your speakers.

The insides of the tophat section and the underneath of the bass horn are painted with a high-quality paint in "Volti" black color. The veneers I use are all top quality and applied with care. The clear finish is a catalyzed lacquer with a medium-rubbed finish. Hardware is of very high quality.

The Vittora cabinets are built to be handed down from generation to generation for a lifetime of use.

"The Volti speaker cabinets are wonders to behold! What beautiful craftsmanship by Greg Roberts, designer of the Volti speakers. They were advertised for $10,600/pr and the demo pair sold during the show. Talk about high Wife Acceptance Factor. Any wife who'd object to the looks of these should be traded in for an upgrade! The Volti Vittora resemblance to the Belle Klipsch speakers is not coincidental. Greg took this design and rigorously improved upon the bass horn flare, cabinet construction and driver quality. Greg was driving them easily with a pair of 2A3 triode amps he built himself from a Canadian DIY schematic. The sound, when sitting in the one magical seat (dead center), was very musical and lively with no obvious horn colorations."

The pictures of the Vittora speakers shown on this webpage are of the first pair I built and used as the demo units that I brought to CAF2011 and RMAF2011. I sold them at RMAF2011. They are veneered in Bosse Cedar with black cloth and a clear lacquer finish. There are hundreds of different veneers available, so please consult with me about your choices. I'll help you decide on the right veneer for you.

Frequency response is 50Hz to 20Khz
Power handling is 100watts RMS
Sensitivity is 104db 1W/1M
32" wide at the front, 15" wide at the rear, 27" deep, 40" tall
The bass horns weigh @150lbs. each, and the upper horns weigh @75lbs. each

The Vittora uses a large wooden midrange horn with a tractrix flare that I build myself. The horn has an Fc of 260Hz and a 2" throat.

The midrange drivers are BMS 4592ND-MID. These German made, two-inch-outlet drivers use a three and a half inch polyester diaphragm, sound remarkably good, and are very well built.

High frequencies are handled by a Beyma CP25 compression tweeter, delivering the lush, full sound that these tweeters are known for, and dispersing that sound in a way that only a "baby cheeks" horn lens can do.

The crossover networks used in the Vittora speakers are built with care and attention to detail by John Warren of North Reading Engineering. John has done extensive acoustic testing of the Vittora and developed a network that perfectly balances the three drivers. Each set of networks is tested, and the test results are forwarded to the new Vittora owners. For you "chartheads" out there, here is a webpage detailing the testing that was done on the Vittora speakers to develop the crossover networks. Plenty of graphs and techno-speak here!

The crossover networks allow for various midrange attenuation to custom balance the midrange for your system.

I offer a money back guarantee on these speakers. Try them in your own listening room and with your own components and if you're not satisfied, send them back for a full refund and pay only the shipping costs. Please inquire about the details of this offer.

"A tip from Roy Gregory brought us to the room in which DSA and Border Patrol electronics drove "a speaker that looks like a Klipschorn but doesn't sound like a Klipschorn at all," as Roy emphatically put it. The speaker was the Volti Audio Vittora, whose craftsmanship and, moreover, sound belied their $10,600 price. It took all of two seconds to know that this was not your usual horn-loaded speaker. While the dynamic alacrity was present -- the Vittora clocks in at 104dB sensitivity -- the horn colorations weren't.

Internally, we refer to these new Vittora speakers as "V2", for second generation. Prior to building these I manufactured a few pairs of "V1" Vittora speakers, which have smaller bass horns very similar to the Klipsch La Scala design. If you're interested in what the V1's looked like, here's a link Vittora Version One Webpage

"I just got the Vittoras delivered this evening. I didn't have the help to get them into my livingroom, but I did get the packing crate totally opened, and OMG! You certainly were right when you said I would like the black grill covers, and I most certainly do. My girlfriend was just blown away at the the incredible veneer and the sheen of your new clearcoat. I just stood there for the better part of an hour taking them in and I'll just have to wait until I get a buddy over here who can help me move them in and I can hear them. To say that I am pleased is an understatement. I am very pleased, and I will let you know when I have a chance to hear them."

"Other high-end speakers I've owned have left me cold, but the Vittora speakers are warm and full sounding - not in your face, but enveloping. They are like "comfort food" for the ears!"

"I am a huge Jackson Browne fan and I am listening to his Time the Conqueror album and the bottom end is defined, substantial and warm. I absolutely love the bass, it is as perfect as I could imagine it. I will not be using any sort of subwoofer with this system, the sound is very full and satisfying. I am very, very happy with these speakers on every level. They are definitely worth the price to me."

If you are seriously considering buying speakers from Volti Audio, and you'd like to hear what they sound like prior to buying, you are invited to come to my shop in Benton, ME and see my operation and hear my speakers. Fly into Portland and I'll pick you up. You can even stay overnight at my shop if you'd like.