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09-15-2013 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,184
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 1
Post ID: 20056
Reply to: 20056
Volti Audio's Vittora
fiogf49gjkf0d

Art Dudley  printed his review of Volti Audio's Vittora loudspeakers.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-129

He said: “This is surely one of the finest horn-loaded speakers made in the US” Well, that is kind of dubious label, let stay out of this as it does not give credit to Volti but rather indicates a low competition level.

http://www.voltiaudio.com/

The speaker is designed and built by Greg Roberts, a new name to me and I generally like some point he makes.

http://www.voltiaudio.com/vittora.shtml

For sure the use if BMS drivers is what it is and it dives the whole expectation of the Volti sound certain perspective.

Anyhow, what I ma interested about this design is how Greg Roberts positioned the tweeter inside the MF horn. For sure the tweeter has to be time-aligned (if not then all bets off) but it is a bit tricky to do in this configuration as tweeter would be way back of MF horn and will be impractical. Does anybody has a picture of Vittora without the grill cloth?

The Cat

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
09-15-2013 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
jsd
Posts 1
Joined on 09-15-2013
Post #: 2
Post ID: 20057
Reply to: 20056
Under the hood
fiogf49gjkf0d
http://www.voltiaudio.com/images/vittoraimages/tiamavittora42.jpg
09-15-2013 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,184
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 3
Post ID: 20058
Reply to: 20057
Hm, that sucks.
fiogf49gjkf0d
Thanks, jsd. I have received an email from a site visitor telling that the tweeter is not aligned and the image above does confirm it. That transforms Vittora loudspeakers into a realm of uninteresting designs. There is peaty much nothing else to say. It is very unfortunate that the industry Morons who enumerated at the Volti Audio's site and who positively reported about Vittora sound do not understand what they are listening.  

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
09-15-2013 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
scooter
Posts 161
Joined on 07-17-2008
Post #: 4
Post ID: 20060
Reply to: 20058
Opportunity to improve v1
fiogf49gjkf0d
"A tweeter positioned inside the MF horn"
I wasn't sure how that could be done effectively but was looking forward to a creative solution. That photo image is not what I expected; on hindsight it is not a surprise. 
Of course one could rip the tweeter and put it on top of that wonderful handbuffed finish to move in the right direction (at least for the MF & tweeter). That does not solve the design flaw or "reviews." It still may be a pleasant design (if not it is pleasant to look at!).
Portland is close enough to Boston and interesting enough to warrant a day visit. As builder claims to be hyper-detail oriented (as demonstrated by his nice woodwork) this guy may be open to constructive criticism here and elsewhere (or polar opposite). Are there other fundamental compromises he could easily resolve? It would be nice if this local guy could improve the product as I see his fundamental efforts as positive). 
09-16-2013 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,184
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 5
Post ID: 20061
Reply to: 20060
A creative solution
fiogf49gjkf0d
scooter,

that was a whole point – to see if the fundamental dilemma of the those designs was addressed. Frankly I was prepared to see some kind of interpretation of unity horn, not just blunt lock of any efforts in this direction.  As is, the Vittora, as far as I can see it, is not advancement in horn design,  but rather it is pretty much a pile of BMS-level drivers in a random wooden box. For sure some attitudes of the guy who build it do sound attractive but I think  is not enough to make a speaker to sound “interesting”. The guy says about his custom finding in the design of throat for bass section that according to him make some difference. It might be true or not but frankly I personally do not extend a lot of credit to it. If the guy demonstrated an attempts to deal with HF/MF alignment then might expectation would be higher. I certainly do not close a book on the Volti but I also do not find it to be interesting to talk about it.

Here is an example of a creative solution that would make a difference. Volti Vittora loudspeakers is good 8 inch leas wide (that would help) and has a flash-mount door atop of loudspeaker, sort of missile silo. As the speaker detects the signal flows, or by a manual override, the tweeter silo is opening and the tweeter extends itself at precise time-sensitive position above the loudspeaker. This might be not a perfect idea but this would indicate sonic ambitions of the designer.

The Cat

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
10-31-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
LogicAudio
Posts 6
Joined on 07-06-2013
Post #: 6
Post ID: 21290
Reply to: 20061
Time-alignment
fiogf49gjkf0d
thanks for the good info
actually we are developing a full horn-loaded speaker the bass-bin is just inspired by Klipsch La Scala (just like Volti speaker) with curved sides. the mid-range consists of TAD 4001/Beryllium in Edgar wooden Tractrix horn and the tweeter is Fostex  T500AMKII. we were thinking about how should we time-align MF and HF sections and a friend come up with Volti Vittora. we were anxious to find out how the designer came over time-alignment problem. I thought why not check Romy's site (whom I like his ideas about horns) and found this thread. Vittora speakers obviously suffer from misaligned drivers. seems Vittora has received some rave reviews, I was wondering if they could get even better if the tweeter is placed somewhere at the back section of MF horn

Arash,


"Nothing is better than a horn loudspeaker, well... unless two horn loudspeakers!"
Regards,
Arash
10-31-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
rowuk


Germany
Posts 454
Joined on 07-05-2012
Post #: 7
Post ID: 21292
Reply to: 21290
Who suffers?
fiogf49gjkf0d
The Vittori does not suffer, neither do their owners. Who needs time alignment anyway?

Well that loaded question has a simple answer - only those that really care about things like time alignment "need it". They most likely would not even consider the Vittori because of the primitive design approach. 

For those that bought Vittoris and read about time alignment somewhere and all of a sudden hear something, I think that they also do not "need" it. They were too easily manipulated by what they read. Another report that confirms that alignment is not critical or that horns have to be aligned at the mouth is more than enough to soothe their souls!

Need of Time alignment, in my opinion is an "acquired" taste like with cigars, good wine or cognac. It is the product of an investment in time, purpose and result.

The Vittori does not have the midrange and bass bin lined up either. To do so would require putting the midrange horn at least a foot behind the bass bin..... Who suffers then when the WAF flies out the window?

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
10-31-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,184
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 8
Post ID: 21294
Reply to: 21292
It has nothing to do with acquired taste.
fiogf49gjkf0d
 rowuk wrote:
Need of Time alignment, in my opinion is an "acquired" taste like with cigars, good wine or cognac. It is the product of an investment in time, purpose and result.
Hm, not necessarily, it has nothing to do with acquired taste but it is rather an elementary listening hygiene. You might have a 6 cylinder engine and have your timing belt not properly set or your crankshaft not properly made. As a result you have a feedstock injected to cylinder at not optimum time or cylinders do not work in unison. So, you might say that if you have acquired taste driver then he will be able to detect that the engine does not give you a full power. It is true, he would be able to but let instead to consider that the engine that is improperly built with fundamental faults whish made cylinders to fight each other shall not be ever put in used. One might more appreciate sophistication of cooking and to develop acquired taste in something but any food tasting presume that there was no cyanide used for cooking and the environment is not poisoned. You do not need acquired taste to detect the presence of cyanide, you need cooks agree that it will not be used to begin with.
 
The time alignment of drivers is the very same: the misaligned drivers is just a poisoned environment where there is no need to even to talk about Sound.

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
10-31-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
LogicAudio
Posts 6
Joined on 07-06-2013
Post #: 9
Post ID: 21295
Reply to: 21292
?
fiogf49gjkf0d
I do agree even the bass-bin is not time-aligned to the MF horn, I think it's at least ~25cm far from the midrange horn but IMO as frequency goes up, time-alignment gets more critical. this alignment might look "unnecessary" with when midrange and tweets are time-aligned, you'll hear some notes you wouldn't before. some mid-frequencies need their own harmonics (which may be at HF region) "at the right time" as a complement to sound just right.
as a speaker sounds good and gets good review, its doesn't mean it's perfect as those commentators ears are not perfect.



"Nothing is better than a horn loudspeaker, well... unless two horn loudspeakers!"
Regards,
Arash
11-01-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
rowuk


Germany
Posts 454
Joined on 07-05-2012
Post #: 10
Post ID: 21296
Reply to: 21294
Diapers and other developments
fiogf49gjkf0d
When we are babies, we don't know much, but still have an IQ higher than a carrot. We crap in whatever we are wearing - smart parents choose diapers. We reach a point when we cry when the diapers are full and get relief when someone else changes our diapers. We do not yet have a solution (don't crap in the diapers in the first place) for the problem. We do learn however with time that there are alternatives to hygiene!

All of the serious audio people that I know started that hobby liking things out of ignorance and developed a more refined taste for various things over time. The poisoned environment was fine for a long time and only after learning what to listen for, did the warts become the problem. As far as time aligned goes, most of us started with a ruler, then perhaps software with a pulse generator and finally our ears.

The acquired taste is not only "phase aligning speakers", it is developing a taste for picking alistening spot where the alignment is referenced to, it is picking body use that keeps out ears in the non-poisoned zone. It is learning to live with the necessities of advanced playback. I don't smoke, so I can't speak with great authority on cigars, but with cognac and wine, we learn the necessities of the trade and develop a taste for what is necessary, then out of a learned desire react.

Can someone who starts audio in a "clean" environment, short circuit the process, my guess is no. Basic hygiene is not enough.

How conditioned do we have to become to be able to resist the marketing machine of the morons? Perhaps content for another thread.

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
11-01-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,184
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 11
Post ID: 21297
Reply to: 21296
How enough a basic hygiene is?
fiogf49gjkf0d
Well, you for sure did make a valid argument but from my point of view the argument even valid but not definitive. You see, when you are a baby and you crap in whatever you are wearing then you for sure do it because you do not have an association between discomfort near your bottom and the necessity to pass the residuals of you GA track. Then, as you grow up, your parents teach you to use a toilet. You do not question the toilet benefit and you do not invent toilet – you use what zillion generation before you have developed to accommodate your basic human need. It is king of unspoken rule for adults do not crap in what they wearing and to use toilets. You do not need to develop some kind of fine acquired taste in order to chose to use a toilet, this come to you naturally and it is rather a norm then a subject of choice. 
 
Now about the time alignment.  No one told me about time alignment, I developed the relationship between time alignment and auditable experiences completely in my own by years of listening and experimenting. Years back I wrote an article “Macondo's Axioms” where I clearly stated that for multichannel horn installation the time alignment is mandatory. It is not that if people do not use time alignment then they violate some kind of stupid wish of mine but rather I know easels what and how they listening and I do not value those listening experiences. So, I am not in the business to make internet audio yahoos to take me seriously but I am perfectly within my rights do not take anybody seriously if they ether by verdure of own hearing or by virtue of following my rules do not factor time alignment in own acoustic system design. To me the time alignment is basic design hygiene and if a person dumps the MF and tweeter in random locations and does not feel that “something is wrong” then I truly do not care what this person thinks or do in audio.


Pretend that your orchestra has addition and they are searching for a second trumpet.  How would you feel about a 35 year old man who still craps in whatever he is wearing?  It is not very accurate example as his crappy pence do not directly impede his playing techniques. The misaligned drivers do affects anything else, including some very fine micro-perceptions of musical seriousness. From what I have seen on audio any person who put MF and HF in misalignment do listen only restaurant music and I see no need to have more than a table radio to play that music.

Rgs, the Cat

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
11-01-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
decoud
United Kingdom
Posts 247
Joined on 03-01-2008
Post #: 12
Post ID: 21298
Reply to: 21297
Psychophysics of phase
fiogf49gjkf0d

To argue that time alignment is unnecessary is to go against a very basic feature of the auditory system: sound location from phase information. But if so, then the effect ought to be frequency specific, with a much lower magnitude at HF. And one would insist on killing reflections, which naturally introduce unpredictable asynchronies.  
11-01-2014 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
rowuk


Germany
Posts 454
Joined on 07-05-2012
Post #: 13
Post ID: 21299
Reply to: 21298
High phase?
fiogf49gjkf0d
what do you base "should be" on?
My experience shows considerable improvement in the "sweet spot" window when we align properly. Things like sibilants become much more natural. The "improved" uhf makes my hf more effortless. The sense of space seems make more sense. I would not consider it less important than alignment at lower frequencies. 
There is also no need to sacrifice.

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
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