Finish:

The Razz comes with real wood veneer applied in a vacuum bag for a glass-smooth surface.  We 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’ glues.

Volti Audio is known for beautiful finish work.  The lacquer finish used on the wood veneer of Razz cabinets is catalyzed and designed to resist damage from UV light.  We 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 Razz 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 damaged as easily as smooth, glossy coatings.

Your Razz speakers will be veneered on the top, sides, and front edges, with paint applied to the backs, inset fronts, and bottoms.

 

Cabinet:

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

 

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 the drivers are never near their max, and will last a very long time because of that.  The Razz woofer for instance, is capable of continuous 600 watt input – ten times what it will ever handle in the Razz – and unlike woofers with rubber surrounds, it has a resin impregnated cloth surround that will last for decades.

 

Cloth:

The cloth used on the standard grills for the Razz is a high quality, acoustically transparent black stretch cloth.  There is an available upgrade to Premium woven cloths, which add a beautiful texture to the front of the speaker, and resist fading and tearing much better than the standard stretch cloth.   All of our cloth is stretched tightly and secured in place with plenty of staples.

 

The Razz speakers truly do offer both Beauty and Durability

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

The look, feel and sound of the Razz 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 Razz.  You probably will not see the quality level of components used in the Razz, nor will you see one of the very nice features of the Razz, 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 Razz 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 Razz features a 2” outlet midrange compression driver with a dome shaped composite diaphragm, an annular phase plug, and a neodymium magnet – feeding into the 2” throat of a large midrange horn with a shallow profile.  The midrange is carefully voiced and integrated through the crossover and with extra damping applied to the horn lens.  The midrange of the Razz is where the music lives!

The Razz features a cutting edge woofer, with low distortion, high sensitivity, a neodymium motor with a built-in demodulation ring, cast-aluminum frame, and a host of other features that all work together to help the Razz produce tight, low bass that is unexpected at 97db sensitivity in a cabinet this compact.   The bass from the Razz is the foundation of the music and it is an impressive foundation!

The Razz 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 Razz.

The Razz 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.

We offer the Razz speakers in four standard veneer options and four premium options

 

Standard options:

Walnut after the clear lacquer is applied is a dark shaded veneer that will typically have a very nice grain pattern.  Walnut will start out a bit Gray/brown in color and then will become more red/brown in color over time.

Cherry with a clear lacquer finish is a medium shaded veneer with a very nice grain pattern.  Our Cherry finish is a ‘natural’ cherry, as opposed to the dark cherry stain you often see on furniture or kitchen cabinets.  Natural cherry, when it is first delivered to us, will vary in the amount of red tone it has, but over time, all natural cherry will take on more of a reddish hue.

Mahogany has that classic golden/red hue and understated beauty that you see in antique furniture.  Even though they are brand new, speakers finished with mahogany often look immediately well-aged – almost antique in appearance.  Mahogany has an interesting texture that is highlighted by the clear lacquer.

For those folks who want a very light colored speaker cabinet, we offer a Natural Ash veneer.  After the clear lacquer is applied, the finish takes on a light golden hue.  Ash has a pronounced grain patter that is similar to Oak, but lighter in color than Oak.  The grain provides a very nice texture that is highlighted by the clear lacquer.

 

Premium options:

Our Premium veneers include Bosse Cedar, Rosewood, Red Gum, and Black Ash.

Bosse Cedar is the veneer that can vary the most in grain pattern and color from the pictures shown on this website.  But we are very particular about choosing really beautiful Bosse Cedar.  BC has it all – great color, interesting grain ‘picture’, and wonderful texture that is highlighted by the clear lacquer finish.  Bosse usually has a beautiful color tone that can range from an orange/red to a deep brown/red.  Most people who see our Bosse veneered speakers mistakenly think that we have stained them that color.

You can never go wrong with Rosewood.  A classically elegant dark wood that can be both playfully fun, and seriously formal at the same time.

Red Gum is just plain fun.  What a great wood.  Hard to imagine there is a tree growing in a swamp in Mississippi somewhere the looks like that inside.

Black Ash is an Ash veneer that has been blackened or dyed black.  We offer this choice for those customers who want a black painted speaker.  We’ve had such difficulty with smooth black paint finishes over the years that we simply do not offer it anymore.  Go ahead, look closely at a painted black speaker cabinet that is just a year old and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  Just cleaning a painted black speaker will leave a mark on the paint.  It’s not for me, sorry.  I need to offer my customers something more durable than that, and that’s why I’m so excited to now offer dyed black veneer.  Black Ash veneer with clear coat lacquer finish is every bit as durable as any of our wood veneers, and in my opinion has a much more interesting and beautiful finish than any black painted cabinet.

 

Disclaimer:

Volti Audio uses real wood veneer on the sides, top, and front edges of the Razz cabinets.  We buy each species of wood veneer in small batches from our suppliers, and the grain pattern, color, and grade of the wood veneers will vary from batch to batch. The veneer photos used in this website are meant only to be representative of the species selected. Actual color, grain pattern and other appearance characteristics will vary within each veneer species.  Your speakers may look a little different from the ones shown here in the photos.  

Standard grill cloth for the Razz is a black stretch cloth made by Mellotone Fabrics.  Unlike many other black grill cloths which can look a bit washed out or even a bit purple in color, the Mellotone cloth is very dark black in color, and we like using it for this reason.

The Premium black woven cloth is not quite as dark black in color as the black stretch cloth is, but it is a beautiful black color none the less.  The Premium black cloth is nice because it does not show dust or cat hair like the black stretch cloth does, and it does have that unique vintage look.  It is also the most durable cloth we use, and will likely last for decades on your speakers.

I’m often asked about acoustic transparency of the various cloths that we offer.  The black stretch has the best sound transmission, with almost no noticeable change in the sound of the speaker with the grill on or off.  The Premium black woven cloth changes the sound of the speaker just a tiny bit more than the black stretch.  The light beige, tan mix weave, and gray all make a noticeable difference in the quality of sound from the speaker, which means I recommend removing them for serious music listening sessions.