Anyone see this train wreck in Stereophile?

[LDKTA]

Woah... This is terrible. I’ve heard a pair of massive horns from Volti Audio driven by tube/valve amplification and pre-amplification. That was one very interesting demonstration and I couldn’t put my finger on it but many songs just sounded so “off.”

 

[richard12511]

My only beef is encouraging the purchase of these types of systems.
It's extremely simple to build a accurate rig and then distort to taste.
It's extremely difficult (expensive) to build a distorted rig and then un-distort it

I agree. Given the price, it does seem a bit unethical to recommend these to the general reader. Something like:

"Most people are probably not going to like the sound of this speaker, and for that reason, I cannot recommend them outright. However, if you are someone who loves horns, and you know that you love exaggerated bass and treble, then I definitely recommend checking these out. I would still recommend hearing them before you buy, though."

Would seem appropriate. Though, I guess you can't really hear before you buy I don't really see anything wrong with trying to cater to a niche market, as long as you're honest about it, and you're not trying to push it as mainstream.

 

[restorer-john]

Woah... This is terrible. I’ve heard a pair of massive horns from Volti Audio driven by tube/valve amplification and pre-amplification. That was one very interesting demonstration and I couldn’t put my finger on it but many songs just sounded so “off.”

If they truly do reproduce a piano with realism as the designer states, they must be doing something right. In my listening experience, realistic level piano reproduction is something that eludes most speakers. As the designer also mentioned, recording the piano in the first place with accuracy is a huge issue in itself.

@Blumlein 88 has done a fair bit of acoustic recording IIRC?, he may have something to add.

 

[RayDunzl]

Volti plans to show at the Florida Audio Expo next February.

I'll be sure to check out their demo, since this thread is so contentious.

If it isn't cancelled due to da dezeeze, that is.

 

[Sal1950]

I could see that except that he states that "all sales are final", which means that if you think you might like them but find out later that you don't, you have no recourse. At least companies like PS Audio allow 30 day audition periods with no obligation.

Fully understand the objections but we must remember the pricing level of these speakers
If you can afford these, you can take a couple days to fly to the factory and listen to the configuration your interested in. It would be very foolish not to do so. Then you pick your veneer, stain color, etc and have them custom built for you. Then later you want to tell Volti you don't like them and want to return.

 

[Sal1950]

Volti plans to show at the Florida Audio Expo next February.

They were there last year, and also the first year IIRC.

 

[RayDunzl]

They were there last year, and also the first year IIRC.

I don't have any memory of them, so, ???

 

[Sal1950]

I don't have any memory of them, so, ???

That's OK, I understand Ray

 

[Balle Clorin]

Has anyone here actually listened to it?

I like and believe in scientific design, and got Revel F36 based on measurement, specs and many days trials at home. But I also listened to KEF R7 and R11 at a well respected dealer in a high end room with 100k$ of electronics and expected fabulous sound based on very nice spinoramas, But the sound was boring and just flat wall of sound with little depth and frankly unexiting ... What are spinoramas not telling , or we not hearing/hearing actually.
. . I think a good /speaker should be recognized even if the room blurs the "picture"

 

[tomtoo]

Has anyone here actually listened to it?

I like and believe in scientific design, and got Revel F36 based on measurement, specs and many days trials at home. But I also listened to KEF R7 and R11 at a well respected dealer in a high end room with 100k$ of electronics and expected fabulous sound based on very nice spinoramas, But the sound was boring and just flat wall of sound with little depth and frankly unexiting ... What are spinoramas not telling , or we not hearing/hearing actually.
. . I think a good /speaker should be recognized even if the room blurs the "picture"

If you enjoy effects thats ok. If i want a effect i use a plugin for my daw. I dont like a permanent build in effect in my speakers.

 

[Blumlein 88]

If they truly do reproduce a piano with realism as the designer states, they must be doing something right. In my listening experience, realistic level piano reproduction is something that eludes most speakers. As the designer also mentioned, recording the piano in the first place with accuracy is a huge issue in itself.

@Blumlein 88 has done a fair bit of acoustic recording IIRC?, he may have something to add.

Well, I've not recorded a piano actually. I've an acquaintance that owns a grand piano, and have wanted to record it. But it is really too large for the room.

Recording piano is problematic in the same way drums are. Do you have the overblown piano that has a large stereo image? Like the 20 foot wide rock drum kit. Many fine recordings do, but you'll never hear that listening to a piano. Or do you back off and try to capture it more naturally which ends up sounding bland to most people on many systems that can't play loud enough.

Systems that do well with piano have to be able to play loud. Horns can give you that sense of immediate power even if some of it is over-blown and a bit honky-horny sounding. More accurate speakers that won't play loud enough just sound overly polite and lacking in the gestalt that listening to a powerful piano in person can have. I've heard good piano recordings do well over horns for this reason. I've also heard it done well with panel speakers in a smaller space and a good pair of subs to handle the low end.

Now as for the Volti speakers, I've never heard a pair. And they aren't actually so sensitive as claimed. 93 db/2.83v/meter is pretty good, but not all that incredibly great. I'd take a pass. Even if they make piano's sound great, they aren't the only one that could do the trick.

 

[MattHooper]

Recording piano is problematic in the same way drums are. Do you have the overblown piano that has a large stereo image? Like the 20 foot wide rock drum kit. Many fine recordings do, but you'll never hear that listening to a piano.

I often find it interesting when people complain of instruments sounding too big. My issue is that for the most part instruments sound far too small in reproduced sound, like toy versions of the real thing.

As for piano, I'm sure some of my own expectations come from growing up in a house with 4 pianos (one a fortepiano), where all of us played, so I was used to sitting in front of a piano, and also being adjacent to pianos being played. To me pianos sound HUGE in real life, and always too small in recording playback (on most consumer systems). Last time I was at my father-in-laws he was playing his mini-grand in his living room and, again, the scale of the sound was like no hi-fi I've heard (not to mention presence and dynamics).

As for drum sets, most people don't have their speakers set up 20 feet apart. Mine are between 7 and 8 feet apart at the moment, so even a recordidng of a drum set spanning speaker to speaker isn't in much danger of sounding too big.

 

[richard12511]

I often find it interesting when people complain of instruments sounding too big. My issue is that for the most part instruments sound far too small in reproduced sound, like toy versions of the real thing.

As for piano, I'm sure some of my own expectations come from growing up in a house with 4 pianos (one a fortepiano), where all of us played, so I was used to sitting in front of a piano, and also being adjacent to pianos being played. To me pianos sound HUGE in real life, and always too small in recording playback (on most consumer systems). Last time I was at my father-in-laws he was playing his mini-grand in his living room and, again, the scale of the sound was like no hi-fi I've heard (not to mention presence and dynamics).

As for drum sets, most people don't have their speakers set up 20 feet apart. Mine are between 7 and 8 feet apart at the moment, so even a recordidng of a drum set spanning speaker to speaker isn't in much danger of sounding too big.

There's definitely a ton of rock recordings where the drums sound way too big. With my speakers being almost 4m apart, I've heard many drums that span the entire space.

 

[Robin L]

If they truly do reproduce a piano with realism as the designer states, they must be doing something right. In my listening experience, realistic level piano reproduction is something that eludes most speakers. As the designer also mentioned, recording the piano in the first place with accuracy is a huge issue in itself.

@Blumlein 88 has done a fair bit of acoustic recording IIRC?, he may have something to add.

I've recorded a fair amount of piano. A seasoned engineer recommended using a "tail shot", two small diaphragm omni condensers, about 20" apart on a stereo tree, aiming from past the tail end of the piano into the harp. Adjust height and distance from the harp to taste. Works better in a big room with a high ceiling. The voicing is more accurate than an xy pair from the audience side into the harp. The Image is about the right size and in the right place. The bass is all there and in the right quantity. Individual notes don't pop out like they do with other techniques.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I often find it interesting when people complain of instruments sounding too big. My issue is that for the most part instruments sound far too small in reproduced sound, like toy versions of the real thing.

As for piano, I'm sure some of my own expectations come from growing up in a house with 4 pianos (one a fortepiano), where all of us played, so I was used to sitting in front of a piano, and also being adjacent to pianos being played. To me pianos sound HUGE in real life, and always too small in recording playback (on most consumer systems). Last time I was at my father-in-laws he was playing his mini-grand in his living room and, again, the scale of the sound was like no hi-fi I've heard (not to mention presence and dynamics).

As for drum sets, most people don't have their speakers set up 20 feet apart. Mine are between 7 and 8 feet apart at the moment, so even a recordidng of a drum set spanning speaker to speaker isn't in much danger of sounding too big.

Yes, your perspective sitting in front of the piano playing isn't one you can have in the audience. This is one of the reasons I've said asking for recordings the way the musician wants it to sound isn't really a good idea. They don't know how they sound 20 feet away.

My friend with the grand has it in a large spare bedroom, and you'll be hard pressed to match the dynamics and loudness, but that isn't really the venue for such an instrument in the first place.

 

[MattHooper]

Yes, your perspective sitting in front of the piano playing isn't one you can have in the audience. This is one of the reasons I've said asking for recordings the way the musician wants it to sound isn't really a good idea. They don't know how they sound 20 feet away.

My friend with the grand has it in a large spare bedroom, and you'll be hard pressed to match the dynamics and loudness, but that isn't really the venue for such an instrument in the first place.

But that, again, presumes a certain goal: that a piano should always sound like it does from an audience's perspective in a hall, or whatever.
There are certainly reasons why someone may want to replicated that perspective - if you are trying to replicate the sound from where an audience would sit further away.

But that's not the only valid approach IMO. The fact audiences sit at distance is essentially a contingent, practical fact to some degree. They aren't playing the piano, and typically many people are watching, so many end up quite a distance from the piano, and that is a contingent fact of concert-going.

But as someone who plays piano, I find that nothing beats the sound of actually being in the position of playing the piano. The vividness and richness of every note is elevated relative to the ever-homogonizing effect the further away you are in a hall. I used to just hit a single note, or chord, and would just luxurate in the rich tone and rumble of being right near the body, sounding board and strings. So I LIKE the closer, bigger sounding micing of pianos, where I hear more of the luxurious timbral nuances and dynamics of the player.

Similarly, in many orchestral recordings it's often assumed you want to create the homogenized sound of the orchestra from hall perspective. And again that's an understandable goal. But I'm one of those who, like the piano scenario, really appreciates the individuality of instrumental tones and textures, which become more vivid when closer to the instruments. Which is why I often liked to sit quite close to orchestras. And so, while I can appreciate many of the "mid-hall perspective" recordings, I also really love a more close up sound recording as well. (All that with the caveats that even mid-hall/back hall sounding recordings often incorporate close micing with distant micing, but the final mix creates the more distant perspective).

 

[Robin L]

But that, again, presumes a certain goal: that a piano should always sound like it does from an audience's perspective in a hall, or whatever.
There are certainly reasons why someone may want to replicated that perspective - if you are trying to replicate the sound from where an audience would sit further away.

But that's not the only valid approach IMO. The fact audiences sit at distance is essentially a contingent, practical fact to some degree. They aren't playing the piano, and typically many people are watching, so many end up quite a distance from the piano, and that is a contingent fact of concert-going.

But as someone who plays piano, I find that nothing beats the sound of actually being in the position of playing the piano. The vividness and richness of every note is elevated relative to the ever-homogonizing effect the further away you are in a hall. I used to just hit a single note, or chord, and would just luxurate in the rich tone and rumble of being right near the body, sounding board and strings. So I LIKE the closer, bigger sounding micing of pianos, where I hear more of the luxurious timbral nuances and dynamics of the player.

Similarly, in many orchestral recordings it's often assumed you want to create the homogenized sound of the orchestra from hall perspective. And again that's an understandable goal. But I'm one of those who, like the piano scenario, really appreciates the individuality of instrumental tones and textures, which become more vivid when closer to the instruments. Which is why I often liked to sit quite close to orchestras. And so, while I can appreciate many of the "mid-hall perspective" recordings, I also really love a more close up sound recording as well. (All that with the caveats that even mid-hall/back hall sounding recordings often incorporate close micing with distant micing, but the final mix creates the more distant perspective).

Make of this what you will, the "Tail-Shot" is the technique used on Decca recordings, feel free to judge for yourself. I've been happy with the sound of Decca recordings of piano for a long time. The sound from the perspective of the player is the best, but I haven't heard successful recordings with that perspective. Attempts at that perspective [the Glenn Gould recordings come to mind] are usually too close. An awful lot of piano sound is reflected sound, the tail-shot approach is more successful than others in capturing room sound without losing clarity.

 

[raistlin65]

Poor Stereophile - they really are in a pickle! On one horn of their dilemma they have a business model based on "accepting donations" from equipment manufacturers to wax lyrical about their products, and on the other horn they have science. The problem is that science doesn't really pay their bills, especially when it shines a light on the imperfections of its subjects. What should poor Stereophile to do? Well, they appear to have some options...

• They could publish the science and not state any conclusions. Perhaps that way the negative indicators might just get overlooked by their less informed listeners. [BTW, they have done this].
• They could publish articles arguing that the science should not be given too much weight when deciding which equipment to buy. [BTW, they have done this too].
• They could stop doing the science and return to the dark ages of publishing just the flowery bullshit. [They can't do this because (thanks to ASR and others) the science cannot be put back in its box].

Poor poor Stereophile!

10 years ago. I agree. They would have been in a pickle.

But things have changed a lot. Now there are many consumers who are interested in the measurements, and some manufacturers who respect that. They could stop playing the middle and start embracing the science. They might lose a few manufacturers, but there are plenty more products to review and advertisements to get paid for.

 

[Sal1950]

I don't have any memory of them, so, ???

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...io-expo-february-8-9-10-2019.6709/post-156202

 

[Dialectic]

I like this one also: “Volti Audio passes on to our customers, all manufacturers warranties provided to us by our distributors or manufacturers directly.” Translation, a driver or component fails, it is for you the customer to deal with the manufacture of the component. That should be fun with no receipt from the manufacture who probably sold it through a wholesaler.

I'm sure Volti's arrangements with manufacturers do not allow warranties to be passed through to third parties.

Greg Robert is an ignoramus not only about speaker design but also about the law.

His one year warranty on passive speakers also is laughable.