AXPONA 2011

The Voxativ Ampeggio

John Atkinson  |  Apr 17, 2011

I first heard the Voxativ Ampeggio speaker ($29,750/pair) at the 2011 Montreal Show, where I was gobsmacked by what I heard. In a beautiful, high-gloss enclosure from the Schimmell piano company was a single drive-unit with an old-fashioned "whizzer" cone that resembled but wasn't a Lowther unit, which is was loaded with a rear-loaded horn. Such designs offer enormously high sensitivity—the speakers at Axpona filled the room with sound using a Fi WE421A single-ended amplifier ($3275) that offered just 4Wpc for its single dual-triode output tube—but my experience with Lowthers is that they can sound equally enormously colored. But the Ampeggios, seen here with importer Gideon Schwartz, just produced the same uncolored, dynamic-sounding music in Atlanta as they had in Canada. I'll be driving up to Artie Dudley's in upstate New York in a few weeks to listen to and measure the Voxativs in his room. Intrigued by what I'll find.

COMMENTS
pmcneil's picture
Submitted by pmcneil on April 17, 2011 - 1:44pm

Yes, they were impressive, even after one got past the one driver only point.

The coherence of these speakers, which was excellent, derives, I'd guess, from the lack of a passive crossover. Why are we still putting up with these?

X