Volti Experience !

@riaa_award_collectors_on_facebook We listened to a pair of RAZZ in the red gum, made without the grills and finished front baffle. Wow they are simply beautiful. 

@willywonka I would think the PL400 would sound fantastic. Sterophile review and Greg's comments too. 

@jonwolfpell I completely agree with you. In my opinion they are worth every penny. In only a short time, the thought of how much they cost will fade from memory. What I feel we all get from music and this hobby can't have a price tag. 

Willy - I think a good 35 watts will easily drive the Rivals for all but the loudest levels in a big room. I think Stereophile measured them to be 98 db sensitive but I also think that can be misleading in & of itself. The watt meter on my Rogers amp displays the average power for both channels combined at any one instant & up really loud w/ a big bass peak demand, the Rivals are drawing about 50 watts or 25 watts / channel. At this volume, many speakers driven hard by realistically priced & sized amps (maybe & arbitrarily less than $20K & 100 lbs.??) are being pushed to their limit  & strain to do so. Of course, my categorization is all relative. My investment in my system is absurdly high to many & barely scratches the surface to some others.

The Rivals w/ the Rogers are just strolling along @ almost any volume (although the Rogers operates in full class A so it's not really) & sound great doing so but you get the point. I almost bought a Prima Luna but once I found the Rogers, talked to Roger @ great length & demo'ed it in my home, I was completely sold. That said, the Prima Luna will probably also sound excellent w/ the any Volti speaker. 

Congratulations Doyle! Great write-up and agree Greg is great people (met him at the Tampa show). I just bought some used Rivals via Audiogon classified a few months ago (thanks Ken!) and am still completely blown away by these speakers - especially with the Townshend Podiums which sent my whole system to yet another level. I don’t have much time with those but listened to side 2 of DSotM, UK 5th pressing at 85-90 db with peaks of 97 a few days ago and it was a religious experience. I lol’d a few times. Unbelievable. The sound stage is full and expansive. I couldn’t quite get them to disappear before but the Podiums “took them away”. This was a few days ago and I’m still in awe. My volume very is WAF limited so will be another week before I can repeat. 
 

Willy, I have a Primaluna Evo 300 integrated amp with KT-150s and may need to hire a structural engineer to check my foundation after my last session. 

@laynes Thanks for the suggestion on the amp for these speakers. There are so many good speakers in the $5K-$7K range but for horn speakers Volti highly impresses me. Hopefully I can make some decisions next week at Axpona. 

@willywonka Greg was really a fan of the Cary gear paired with his speakers. Last night I experimented with an older Cary, 2400a hybrid amp I’ve had for 25 plus years. Sounded amazing. Border Patrol is also recommending by Greg. My local HIFI shop (close for me, 1 hour drive) has a customer who paired the Razz with a Line Magnetic 845, (the one with the scary output tubes). He reports the customer is thrilled with the results. Today I’m going to instal the Margules I just brought home from Northern Audio. Can’t wait! If you are anywhere near the NE area of the US, Mark has a beautiful store, with an amazing variety of great gear. (he’s also a tube nut and a hell of a guy).