It might be because of the controlled directivity of horn speakers. I have owned several, and they have less room interaction problems.
Upgraded from Klipsch to Volti - Was it worth it?
Short answer... YES!
I have two systems, one in a large living room that opens to the rest of the house and one in my office. I was running Klipsch Corwalls in the L.R. and Klipsch Fortes in my office. As I upgraded electronics and cables the limitations of the Klipsch, as good as they are for the money, began to become more apparent (see profile for electronics).
I did a ton of research and listened to several brands, but nothing I heard produced the warm and full sound as the Klipsch, especially the Cornwalls - they are good and get better with good electronics & definately fun, but they do have resonance, clarity, and bass issues.
One brand in particular that I auditioned uses DSP and powered subs - and this just didn't sound natural to me, was complex, and would have required large speakers, masses of cables, and in the end am glad I chose not to go that route.
I looked hard into what Greg, at Volti, was doing and it made tons of sense to me. Super high quality cabinets finished beautifully, filled with the highest quality drivers available, and assembled with "do no harm" crossovers.
So I took the plunge and purchased a very handsome set of Burl Walnut Rivals for the living room and a beautiful set of Luceras for the office that matched the wood of my desk and trim.
Wow, is all I can say! Superb balance, clarity, bass, it's all there - warm, full, refined and fun when you turn them up. To my ears they sound far more like real music than non-horn speakers - and the high quality 15" woofer drivers really bring the bass and lower mid-range voice.
Working with Greg was easy - he even took my Klipsch speakers in on trade so he could make a video series comparing Klipsch to Volti. Here's a link to the first one in the series: https://youtu.be/9BB-BTGaJxA?si=qSejdSk2-nSh_yME
I was super impressed with the fit and finish quality. The magnetically attached grills fit perfectly into the CNC cabinets.
But what's best from my wife's perspective is how nice they integrate into the house [this is huge] - For their size they produce copious warm and full music while adding beautiful wood work. No new cables or electronics required, they integrated perfectly in only few minutes to set up. The tube front-end on both my McIntosh systems really makes them sing, could not be happier with the upgrade.
Of course when upgrading we know that diminishing returns begins to set in... to get X% increase you may need to spend 2x, 3x, or 4x to get noticably better. In this case I'd say the Luceras are literally 100% better than the Fortes and are probably 25% better than the Cornwalls. The Rivals are easily 50% better than the Cornwalls and took the system to whole different level - frankly I can't imagine better and know that my system is now at the point where it would take more money than I'm willing to spend as I know any improvements from here would be minor but expensive.
So I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Voltis - If you own Klipsch or another brand and are looking for better give Greg a call!
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@ale1601 When referring to ease of integration into my room, I was mostly referring to the amount of, and quality of, sound produced for the size and look of the speaker. I don't have a dedicated listening room, so my system can't take over my primary living space. The Rivals are smaller in physical size than the Klipsch Cornwalls, and the Luceras are smaller still... yet they put out more warm & quality sound, and are better looking, better built. Also, they are designed with a forward facing port, and so placing them in a corner or close to a wall isn't going to diminish the sound, thus placement is easier than with some speaker designs. And they produce enough bass that you don't need subs at all - I use subs because for me they make it even more rich, more full, broaden the sound stage, and even produce holographic sound if set up correctly. They also are adjustable by using different resistors... in my case for my systems the Luceras were perfect right from the get go. The Rivals are more detailed and took more adjustments to get just right. Plus integrating them with my REL Carbon Specials took some experimenting to get right - but as soon as it was right, the holographic imaging jumped out. So... fun to place, the wife and visitors like them, sound great with all types of music - that was the goal for these, all without having wires and gear all over the place! Good luck... call Greg, you won't regret it! |
I think where Klipsch is shooting themselves in the foot with DSP, however, I would just like to share something regarding the OP's comments about cabinet resonance. Volti does use higher quality components and it's very obvious. I've worked with Baltic birch for three decades myself and Volti also does a nice job with bracing. If you put some simple earbuds on or a pair of high quality headsets or even use your car stereo, Greg has a lot of demo videos. Even though video's never replicate the real thing, they provide strong clues. One of the things you'll notice about the Volti's is the midrange and upper sparkle are quite evident compared to a Forte and even the Cornwall for that matter. When I first heard the Volti line in person, I was a somewhat surprised how much cabinet resonance and interior wall knocking they have. The bass is clean and very tight, however, the cabinet designs do have a knocking sound. Klipsch are not necessarily saints with this either. Klipsch has clearly taken on a the bottom line approach and abandoned some of PWK's philosophy with wood materials to cut more costs to increase profits. Yes, the bracing in the Volti's is very nice, but I think what's happening with the Volti's has more to do with strategizing how to break the bass waves behind the main bass driver itself internally, which is what contributes to this issue. For example, I currently have a pair of Forte 1's with Crites crossovers. The Volti Razz by comparison has a more audible and palpable upper midrange. For example, I primarily play jazz and blues and some classic rock and classical music from time to time. If I play jazz horn instruments on my Forte 1's, they have a very relaxed midrange and jazz simply sounds a bit subdued while jazz and horns sound more life-like and realistic through the Volti's. Being that the midrange in the Forte I is smaller and more relaxed and less evident that the Volti though, this actually helps relax some of the tonal midrange with many of the bad recordings in classic rock which actually makes classic rock more forgiving to listen to compared to the Volti's which totally expose bad recordings. The other thing I noticed about the Forte I is the bass is very warm, lush but highly impactful compared to the Volti which has a more sterile sound with very audible cabinet resonance throughout their line. Gary Gillum, a brilliant engineer who developed the original Forte 1 discovered an issue with the the interior bass waves inside the cabinet, so what he did was implement a wedge near the bottom of the cabinet at about a 45 degree angle to eliminate the audible bump in the measurements. What this did was break apart the internal bass waves from pounding against the interior walls of the cabinet and into each-other and I think this is the problem Greg at Volti may be having with his conventional cabinet designs. Even though the Forte 1 design utilized a passive woofer, that alone wasn't enough to subdue the issue. The Forte I doesn't have the life-like sound of Jazz that the Volti line carries, but I still think Greg needs to work on dealing with the sterile cabinet resonance which is clearly audible in his own videos with the three first models of the line. |
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