Volti Audio’s room at the 2020 Florida Audio Expo show-cased the company’s newest offering, the $20K/ pair Rival Special Edition hybrid horn loudspeaker. With a custom cabinet and exotic Bubinga wood veneer, it easily counted among the best-looking loudspeakers I saw at the show. I also found the Rival SE’s sound, powered by Border Patrol amplification, intoxicating. I placed it near the top of my shortlist for Best Sound at Show.
Not that a good Volti performance came as a surprise: Stereophile ’s Ken Micallef was impressed, in his 2017 review, with the ability of the Volti Audio Rival to portray music of all genres with “supreme fidelity.”1 Four years after its release, the Rival remains in Class A (Restricted Extreme LF) on Stereophile’s Recommended Components list.2
The Razzes gave a remarkably real-sounding impression of the players and the big 30th Street Studio space.
At the Florida Expo, I talked at length with Greg Roberts, Volti’s “majordomo, designer, and engineer,” as KM called him in his Rival review, about the execution of the Rival SE’s cabinets. I found fascinating his description of the painstaking process required to create the SE’s graceful curves. Roberts later contacted me about the impending launch of his newest product, the floorstanding Razz loudspeaker. Volti’s location—just a few hours from my home—made delivery of a review sample easy, an important factor in the weeks leading up to the COVID-19 crisis. Arrangements were made.
Design
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