THE VOLTI AUDIO STORY
Living, Breathing Music in Your Living Room
Volti Audio has been making high-sensitivity horn-loaded loudspeakers since 2010, and this is how it happened . . .
By: Greg Roberts
THE BEGINNING
A Lifetime Shaped by Horn Speakers
Using money I earned from selling sports cards at the age of fourteen, I bought a used pair of Klipsch La Scala speakers from my local Klipsch/McIntosh dealer and dragged them down into my basement bedroom. I didn’t realize it at the time, but owning a pair of La Scalas at such a young age shaped my audio sensibilities for the rest of my life. I heard MUSIC from those speakers. They were exciting and powerful, and being able to own a pair was the coolest thing I could think of. I was hooked on ‘hi-fi’ at that early age, and from then on, horn speakers would be the only speakers for me.
I wasn’t just a Klipsch owner. I was a Klipsch fan. I read “Dope From Hope”, collected Klipsch Literature, hung around my local dealer whenever I could, and soaked up everything I could learn about Paul W. Klipsch and horn loudspeakers.
Later I traded in the La Scala’s for Klipschorns and enjoyed an even higher level of dynamics and realism for a long time. I loved my Khorns. There was nothing else like them. The effortless way they played music made it impossible for me to consider any other type of speaker for my own system.
As I matured as an audiophile, I became increasingly aware of the inherent shortcomings in the design and construction of these iconic beasts. The shortcomings became more and more of an issue for me, and as time wore on, I found myself listening to my speakers out of ‘duty’ rather than for the enjoyment of listening to music.
Anyone with an interest in audio will have read about horn-loaded loudspeakers and the polarizing affect they have on listeners and audio reviewers.
Some love them and cannot imagine life without the effortless dynamics and life-like presence they can conjure. That was me! No other loudspeaker topology can match the dynamic freedom, air-moving capability, and vitality of a big horn.
Equally there are those that dislike horns, pointing to colorations, harshness, and limited bandwidth: a badly designed horn speaker can indeed be a troubled mess, and in some ways I was beginning to feel that way about my own speakers.
I almost gave up on my beloved K-horns and considered a different direction altogether. Bur really there was no way I was going to give up the effortless dynamics and realism of these Khorns. So rather than sell them, I fixed them.
TURNING POINT
I Fixed Them
Over a two-year period, I bought and tried an array of aftermarket upgrades for my Klipschorns, but none of them made a significant enough improvement for me. So I began developing my own upgrades, starting with a new midrange horn that I built in my woodworking shop and installed in my speakers.
The larger 2-inch throat, shallower Tractrix flare, wood construction, and high-quality compression driver made a dramatic difference. The honky, shouty, unintegrated sound that characterized the original system was greatly reduced and, in some ways, eliminated altogether.
I really liked what I was hearing, so I kept going. I developed new crossovers, discovered much more refined and articulate tweeters, and gradually transformed my speakers into something I genuinely enjoyed listening to again.
I had my speakers back, and the excitement of listening to music returned.
During this time, the recession of 2008 hit and severely impacted the home construction business that my wife Laurie and I had built over the previous twenty years. A bleak outlook for the housing industry, combined with my renewed interest in hi-fi, set me on a completely different path.
What started as an effort to improve my own speakers soon became a business providing upgrades for Klipschorn and Belle owners. Volti Audio was born.
Before long, I was designing, manufacturing, marketing, and selling my own line of loudspeakers, beginning with the much-heralded Vittora Loudspeaker System.
The Old Horn Speaker Sound:
Over the years I came to realize that many of the criticisms directed at horn speakers were deserved.
Limited bandwidth. Colorations. Harshness. Poor integration between drivers. I’ve heard all of those things myself, including from some of my own speakers.
Many of the older horn speaker designs suffered from these shortcomings, and if we’re being honest, plenty of newer ones still do.
The thing is, those problems don’t have to be part of the horn speaker experience. A lot of them come from design compromises, cost constraints, and in some cases just not doing a very good job of designing the speaker in the first place.
As I continued developing upgrades and eventually complete loudspeaker systems, my goal became pretty simple. Keep everything that makes horn speakers special and get rid of the things that make people not like them.
That’s still what I’m trying to do today.
Why Horns?
Simply, it’s the sound.
In the end, that’s what keeps me interested in horn speakers after all these years.
I’ve listened to a lot of different loudspeakers over the years, including some very expensive and very impressive ones. Many of them can sound beautiful. Many of them can be engaging.
But a well-designed horn speaker does something different.
Horn speakers give me some of the same qualities that I hear when I’m sitting in front of live instruments. The dynamics, the presence, the ease, the sense that the music is simply happening in front of me rather than being reproduced by a machine.
When a speaker reproduces the sound of a piano in a way that reminds me of sitting ten feet from a real piano, I find myself giving the music and the musician the same respect I would if they were actually in the room.
That’s engagement.
That’s what grabbed me when I first heard those La Scalas as a teenager, and it’s what I’m still chasing today.
That’s why I build horn speakers.
The Volti Audio Way
I want to hear music, not a stereo system.
Ever since I first heard those La Scalas as a teenager, I’ve been chasing the feeling that real musicians are performing in front of me rather than a pair of loudspeakers reproducing a recording. Wide bandwidth, natural tonal balance, and effortless dynamics all play a part, but they don’t fully explain what makes a great horn speaker so compelling.
There’s a feeling that’s difficult to describe with the usual audiophile vocabulary—a wave of energy that washes over you when the performance feels real. For a few moments, you’re no longer thinking about loudspeakers or stereo equipment. You’re simply caught up in the music.
I’ve felt it sitting a few rows from the University of Maine Symphony Orchestra. I’ve felt it standing in front of Ted Nugent while Stranglehold seemed to suspend time for eight unforgettable minutes. They’re completely different musical experiences, but the feeling is exactly the same.
That’s what has guided me for nearly fifty years. It’s what inspired me to develop my own upgrades, design my own loudspeakers, and spend countless hours listening, measuring, refining, and listening again. Every Volti Audio speaker is my best effort to recreate that experience.
The name Volti comes from an Italian musical directive found in orchestral sheet music. It means “turn the page.”
I chose the name because it describes exactly what I wanted to do—not abandon the past, but build upon it. To preserve everything that makes great horn speakers so special while turning the page on the compromises that have followed them for generations.