Volti Audio owners, is the fire still there?

@doyle3433 

You beat me to it.  Greg Roberts not only own Volti, he is Volti, owner, designer, and manufacturer.  I have spoken to him once in person at RMAF and exchanged brief emails about the upcoming Florida show.   Once I knew we would both be there I saved us both the extra time of typing back and forth, much easier in person.

I did see the Twittering Machines review.  I tend to set my room up very similar to Michael, speakers a good 1/3 into the room and coach is about 1/5 off the rear wall proper.  Its a dedicated listening space so I have the luxury to do so.  Speakers sound fine closer to the back wall but it seems when I pull them out I get a tremendously deep  soundstage.

Great to see you are having such success with a broad group of amplification.  I would love to the  keep the front end, which to me is pretty neutral, the same and play around with amps to experience the different flavors of audio.  Certainly seems like the Voltis will play that game.  I am somewhat torn about keeping the XA30.8, works great but probably overkill even for the Razz.  In my head if the Volti come to the house I would sell the XA30.8 and grab a XA25 and then with leftover change look at grabbing a tube amp for something different than the Pass.  The XA25 in principle is pretty close to the Border Patrol PP amps Greg likes, 2 large high power transistors in the output stage in a pure Class A push pull arrangement.  Many have described it as such also, most SET tube like sounding of all teh Pass amps.  Interesting that you mentioned the SLI-80 because one thought was  to chase down an old Cary Rocket 88 which best I can tell in the amplifier circuit in the SLI-80 minus the preamp stage.  My Pass preamp kicks out plenty of voltage to drive the original Rocket 88 to clipping and would let my play around with the 6922 they replaced in the R version.

I did briefly  talk to Greg about the new speaker, for those that don't get the newsletter, it sounds like he took the upper horn and 15" driver from the Rival with a new midrange horn in a smaller cabinet than the Rival.  Price pretty much splits the Rival and Razz, $11.5K.  Selfishly I was kind of hoping he would keep the 12" Razz driver and squeeze the Rival mid and upper horn into a slightly small cabinet at price around $10K (evil thoughts were going through my head of trying to escape Tampa with the show samples).  However at that price point I would probably try the Razz first and if I fall in deep make the jump to the Rivals.

I suspect the external crossovers are the icing on the cake once you have everything else in your system ironed out.  Probably not the biggest bang for the buck but if everything else is sorted and sweet ending.

Pretty cool to hear them rock out to Thievery Corp, right up my alley.  And unless I am reading into everyones comments, given the wide range of music people seem to be listening to on the Volti they must be able to walk that fine line of providing all the details buried in the music but at the same time being tolerant of less than "audiophile" grade recordings. 

Greg owns Volti. 

My wife left the building for a few hours yesterday so I was able to turn it up and still amazed at how good my system sounds. Sure there are a few things here-and-there to work on but those are upstream from the speakers (and possibly more on the room itself) but are minor. I finished with Theivery Corporation's "Symphonik" and it was LOL good.

Fairly new review of the Rivals from a few weeks ago: I like to hear of others placement with these speakers:

I do wonder how much difference those outside crossovers make (to my ears). 

 IIs the fire still there for your Volti speakers?  Do you still love them today as much as when they first hit the house?  I know Greg loves long wall speaker placement with relatively nearfield listening position. 

@loki_ut , Who's 'Greg'? Someone you know? (you seem to know a lot about him).

100% agree @2psyop ! A pair of Vittora with a well matched pair of tube mono blocks… there’s my end game..

If I ever get that Mega Millions jackpot the Vittora is on my list. Beautiful speakers IMO.

Absolutely 100% in love with my Volti Razz! I can't get enough of them. Everything I play through them is an experience. It doesn't matter the genre, jazz, rock, alt, metal, sludge, death.. they just make me smile and immediately turbocharge my mood. 

I think the Pass would be a great pairing. I've used my trusty rusty Mac 240, Margules ACRH3 and Cary SLI 80HS, they all sound fantastic with my beloved Volti. 

I understand Greg is bringing something brand new to Tampa. Something between the Razz and Rival is my guess. I'm excited to get to the show. 

Re: bringing the speakers out into the room more. I experimented a bit with mine. They seemed to shine all the same wherever I placed them in relation to side and rear walls. 

Sounds good - my guess is you can hear most anything you want....

Yes, I bought the American Speaker Cables (TWL) for my prior speakers, Sapphire M3s so I haven't used any others to compare.

I had originally planned on putting them (well, the M3's actually) on the long wall but that would have meant 1 of the first reflections would have been that curtain in front of the glass doors. So I wanted that wall (of glass with a curtain covering it) to be the front wall since no acoustic treatment can be mounted. I close the curtains of course when I listen and have some deflection panels I put out / front wall. I've also purchased more plants.

@laynes 

Appreciate the offer and wish I could stay.  Busy weekend with kids though.  I’m heading over Friday after I drop the kids off to school.  Got a 3 hour drive from the other coast and will head back that night.  Hopefully I beat the crowds by going early Friday and can annoy Greg with crazy, non-audiophile music 🤪.  
 

I checked out the profile pic, nice to see them working well on short wall into the room.  
 

Did you have the Triode Wire cables after getting the Rivals?   I know they believe in their synergy but curious what difference you noticed adding the Triode cables?   I’m currently using Purist Audio Design and am opening to switching the loom to Triode.  Plan talking cables with Pete while in Tampa.  

I've had mine for almost exactly 1 year and they are my end game. PM me if you want to hear them when you are in town. There are a few of us going back to my place on Sat late afternoon after we are at the show. 

Mine sit on Townshend Podiums which made a big difference (doing the same that they do to most others - definition of instruments, sound stage and other good stuff I can't remember). I'm 99.99% vinyl btw. I own a cd player but haven't plugged it in, in a few months. Pics are in my profile although I've changed things up some from a year ago.

Thank you both for the input.  Just what I am looking for, real world experience.  To both of you, how long have you had the Rivals?  Are they part of the audio journey or a final resting place (unless Greg phone and wants to give away a pair of Vittora).  
 

@kennyc 

i suspect the Rivals will love the 45 SET, with the right music.  I had a Dennis Had Inspire 45 SET previously with less sensitive speakers.  It was the most see though into the heart of the music amp I have ever experienced.  Small ensemble, singer/guitar, small group jazz, and interesting Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Life all excelled, just don’t expect it rock that 15” wooder.  
 

@laynes 

I’m all over the world musically, more jazz/small ensemble than previously but still love to rock out to Tool, grunge, Floyd, Zeppelin when the house is empty.  Also also I worked hard in my listening space this year to change it from solo audio cave to family friendly space where kids hop on the couch to listen.  That also means listening to some of their Pop music.  That’s part of the reason for more “Fun”.  I grew up in a house with Klipschhorns and miss that big sound.  

100% yes to the fire still there. My Rivals bring me many, many SPH (smiles per hour), with a few LOL's thrown in there.

I'm running a PrimaLuna Evo 300i with KT-150s and a mix of RadioTechniques and Brimars up front. Phonostage is a Modwright 9.0x with Telefunken 6922's.

I like a big, realistic, "OMG this sounds amazing sound" and that is what my system gives me. 

I listen to about 40% rock, 40% hard rock, 10% electronic and the rest of mix of jazz, old school rap and misc.

I'll be at the Tampa show on that Saturday.

I own the 100db Volti Rival for my foray into tube magic starting with a 300b amp. I also plan to try a 45 SET amp in which Greg says should work okay (speaker is efficient enough). I also run a second system with 89db speakers and SS electronics.