Voxativ Ampeggio Speaker Review

Listening

The sound of the Voxativ Ampeggio is quite beguiling, with a big cohesive soundstage, full of tone and color. There is a lot to get excited about with these speakers. They play music with an ease and relaxation that is intoxicating. They also have a lot of mid-bass energy for a single-driver speaker, and an incredibly smooth presentation. In my room, the bass above 40Hz had real power and a nice if somewhat warm tone.  The bass was not the last word in impact, but it really bloomed.

Voxativ’s Ampeggios play strings, cymbals, and percussion  instruments beautifully and with a wonderful wholeness to the sound. They do this without the shout or glare you get from some single-driver speakers and with a lot more bass than the wonderful Feastrex Makoto. While they play music with a lot of bass energy in my room, they didn’t seem to have much bass below 40 and I would not say they were flat to 40 in my room.

The Voxativ Ampeggios have a unique combination of immediacy, warmth, and good harmonic structure. They are what I’m going to call for a lack of a better word, a big picture speaker. Said another way, they are far better than the sum of their parts. I’m still not saying this quite like I want to; with the Ampeggios you are invited to listen to the whole performance more than its parts. They lure you into an emotional experience with the entire experience, the music, the performance, and the venue.

Comparisons

Truth is, the Voxativ don’t sound anything like any of the four speakers I talked about above, but they do share certain sounds with them. They share the wonderful warmth and harmonics of the LM 755i field coils, but they do not sound as alive; I suspect because of the Voxativ’s use a much deader cabinet. In fact, the deadness of the cabinet is something they don’t share with any of the other three speakers I mentioned above and I expect that has much to do with how different they sound.

They also image and produce a soundstage that is more like the 755i than either of the Lowther speakers. By that, I mean the Voxativ’s don’t image as much like a point source. Their imaging is consistently big and full, but doesn’t vary as much from recording to recording as the two Lowther speakers do. Of all the speakers mentioned, the Voxativ sounds most like the LM 755i though I should mention that the Ampeggio goes deeper and higher than the LM 755i.

Coherency is one area it shares most with the Lowther Alerion and less with the Line Magnetic 755i or the Teresonic Ingenium. The Line Magnetic and the Teresonic are the two most coherent speakers I have heard. Both the Lowther Alerion and the Voxativ Ampeggios require you to sit far away from them or you don’t get real coherency between the driver and the horn. Truth is that the two-way Audio Note E SE was more coherent than the Ampeggio unless I sat far enough back from them. Even then I would say their coherency is no better than the Audio Notes. Admittedly, the Audio Notes are the most coherent two-ways I have heard.

Compared to the Teresonic Ingenium XR Silvers, the Voxativ Ampeggio’s midrange is somewhat smoother and warmer sounding. The Ampeggios have a much bigger lower midrange and upper bass. The bass does not go as deep in my room as the Ingeniums XRs, and while it is bigger it is not nearly as fast or powerful. The top-end of the speakers seem to go out about the same, but again the Teresonics are faster while the Ampeggios have a more velvety sounding treble.

Different Amps

I listened to these speakers with three different amps. The WAVAC EC-300B, the Art Audio Diavolo TW Ref Signature, and the Electrocompaniet PI 2D. The WAVAC was the best from about 200Hz up. The Art Audio was not quite as quick or open sounding. Surprisingly, in some ways the little Electrocompaniet solid-state was the best. No, the Norwegian wasn’t as refined, nor did it have the amazing reality of the EC-300B, but it gave the bass more speed and power. It tightened up the overall sound. The Electrocompaniet made we wish I had heard them with one of the more powerful WAVAC SETs, but I did not have the time or resources to make this happen.