Finish:

The Rival comes with real wood veneer applied in a vacuum bag for a glass-smooth surface.  I use a “permanent” two-part glue to bond the veneer to the cabinet.  By contrast, many manufacturers use PVA glue or contact cement, which are not ‘permanent’ glue bonds.

Volti Audio is known for beautiful finish work.  The lacquer finish used on the wood veneer of The Rival cabinets is catalyzed and designed to resist damage from UV light.  I use a medium-rubbed lacquer finish to allow the character and texture of the wood grain to show through, so you always know you’re looking at a real piece of wood.

The durable textured paint finish used on some panels of The Rival is a commercial grade coating designed to handle wear and tear better than typical paint finishes.  This coating is easy to clean and is not scratched or damaged as easily as smooth, glossy coatings.

Cabinet:

You will never find MDF or ‘flakeboard’ used in the construction of a Volti Audio speaker cabinet.  I think of my speakers as 100-year products, and I use the finest wood, adhesives, and fasteners in the construction of my cabinets.  The Rival cabinet is built from 1” thick Baltic Birch plywood, fully braced, and properly damped.    I welcome comparisons to any other speaker – especially in the same price range as The Rival.

Components:

Driver and crossover components are ‘Pro-Audio’ grade, meaning they are very durable and capable of being used a lot harder than they ever will be in your home.  This means that even at full rated input power, the drivers are only working at a fraction of their capability, and will last a very long time because of that.  The Rival woofer for instance, is capable of continuous 600 watt input – ten times what it will ever handle with full rated input into the speaker.  And unlike woofers with rubber surrounds, it has a resin impregnated cloth surround that will last for decades.

Cloth:

The cloth used on the grills of the Rival is of the highest quality woven fabric that is stretched tightly over 1/2″ thick Baltic Birch frames and secured in place with plenty of staples.  These grills are a beautiful part of the look of the Rival that will also last for decades.

The Rival speakers truly do offer both Beauty and Durability

The materials used in the Rival are meticulously selected for their physical beauty, durability, and sonic characteristics.

The look, feel and sound of the Rival is the combination of great craftsmanship, great materials and attention to details.

Consider the workmanship and high quality materials for the grill frames.  They align and snap onto the cabinets with magnets and are made from a solid piece of ½” thick Baltic Birch plywood, cut by CNC, sanded, primed, painted, and then covered with a durable cloth.

Go ahead, find another speaker on the market at any price point that is made with 1″ Baltic Birch plywood.  Most cabinets are made with inferior materials, such as MDF or ‘flakeboard’

Take a look at the crossovers in other speakers, even ones costing many times more than the Rival.  You probably will not see the quality level of components used, nor will you see one of the very nice features of the Rival;  crossovers that are separated into two plates inside the cabinet to minimize interference between the low and high filter components.

Many other quality details can be found on Rival speakers, like laser cut Lexan input plates with high quality five-way binding posts (bi-wire-able), drivers mounted with machine screws and inserts (rather than wood screws into flakeboard), the use of ‘No Rez’ brand damping material, and polyurethane ‘lifetime’ adhesives.

The Rival features a very high quality tweeter driver with a voice coil diameter of nearly 2″ wrapped around a dome-shaped composite diaphragm and a powerful neodymium magnet for fast, smooth, and extended response out to 20Khz.  The tweeter lens attached to the driver has an oval shape and tractrix flare.  Like all Volti tweeters, they integrate high frequencies without the annoying and harsh sounding peaks that other high-sensitivity horn tweeters exhibit.

The Rival features one of the finest sounding midrange compression drivers money can buy.   These drivers have a 2” outlet, a 3.5″ phenolic diaphragm, and a neodymium magnet.  Other companies love to spout statistics about the superiority of metal diaphragms in their midrange drivers.  Phooey!  I’ll take the natural sound of a phenolic diaphragm over a metal one any day.  You would too, if you had the opportunity to sit and compare them as I have.  The Rival has a midrange horn that I build out of wood, with a 2″ throat and a modified tractrix flare.  This combination of driver and midrange horn used in the Rival is where the music lives!

The Rival features a cutting-edge woofer, with low distortion, high sensitivity, a neodymium magnet, cast-aluminum frame, and a host of other features that all work together to help the Rival produce tight, low bass.  At audio shows, more than one person has commented to me about how ‘right on’ the bass is with the Rival.  While other speakers have impressive bass sound, the Rival offers the experience of listening to music with impressive bass.  It is an important distinction.

The Rival features hand-built crossovers with very high quality Metalized Polypropylene Capacitors, 14ga hand-wound copper inductors, and metal-oxide resistors, all mounted on separate high and low frequency wooden boards that are carefully located within the cabinet to reduce vibration and interference with driver magnets.  These Volti Audio crossovers are the key to the great integration and overall voicing you hear from the Rival.

The Rival is able to reproduce nine-full-octaves of rich, smooth, ultra-low distortion sound because of these great drivers and components.

Our chosen business model is to sell direct to our customers, without dealers or distributors.  This essentially cuts the price of our speakers in half compared to loudspeakers sold through dealers.

The quality of materials, the craftsmanship, the meticulous finish work, and our direct-to-customer sales approach make Volti Audio loudspeakers the best value for money loudspeakers available.