The Vivaldis Take On A Conundrum
One immediate danger with such a standard, of course, is that, in the attempt to produce a "musical" sound, we may just smother everything under a layer of distortion that will be additive to the distortions already there. Return to the Klemperer Mozart, or the Nonesuch Bach; recordings that had to be untangled by the purity of the BEL amplifier and the VPI table and arm. So here is a true conundrum, the real division in high end audio. My intention is not to invite a "my opinion is as good as yours" free-for-all. Rather I hope that serious thinkers will try to untangle the puzzle of accuracy in process versus accuracy of result.
Now it may be that this puzzle will never be solved, but is susceptible of being transcended. That would happen if we somehow managed to build systems that were at once "accurate" and yet "musical." In this effort, it may be that the speaker, as Audio Artistry contends, is the most critical component of the system.
How then do the Vivaldis measure up to this standard? First and above all, if you avoid screeching at them, their sound will be relaxed and natural. With a non-aggressive VTA, vinyl is rich and fulfilling. Digital, particularly with a rolled-off player like the Rotel RCD-940, is also non-fatiguing and without edge. Yet the Vivaldis seem to reproduce the maximum resolution of detail and tonal and dynamic gradation that can be fed to them by either source. Soundstaging I regard as less important than tonal and harmonic rightness; there is no pinpoint imaging in the concert hall (or in a jazz club, either; as to rock performances - don't ask). The Vivaldis do locate and embody instruments with reasonable precision, but I am sure that many small monitors do better, and I have not been able to make the Vivaldis effect the last iota of disappearance. What the Vivaldis do that is truly important in the real world is preserve their sound and imaging over a relatively broad area. You don't have to sit in the One Sweet Spot to hear everything, and you don't suddenly lose the high harmonics when you move your head or stand up. So they can be enjoyed by more than one listener at a time, and you can move to the other end of the couch - or even to a different chair! - and still be an audiophile. Further, in the real world, you can put them in your living room, with relatively wide latitude as to placement, without completely reorienting your life. These speakers are usably good.
But they are not always easy, and they are not for everyone. Audio Artistry touts these as basic speakers for the non-audio cultist (and supplies a minimal manual less informative than the one that comes with your Hitachi TV). In reality, these are highly sophisticated instruments that demand first-class systems and serious attention. Their resolution, for example, makes them very sensitive to channel balance. (My speculation is that speakers with greater room interaction tend to blur differences between channels that the Vivaldis keep distinct.) Anyone whose principal source is vinyl knows that balance varies wildly from record to record; and the soundstaging on which audiophiles insist places the violins strongly to the left and the cellos and basses strongly right, so that channel imbalance skews tonal balance, a far worse flaw than bad image placement.
Moreover, the manual warns that music may have to be played at a certain level to sound right: at a lower volume, the sound will be thin, at a higher one "unnatural." On a number of recordings I found the manual right, and the range of correct sound volume to be relatively narrow. But then I tried the Decca re-issue of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with Alwyn and the London Symphony Orchestra (SXL2001). I played it at huge volume, without pain or distortion; but recordings less good will require careful adjustment. Since a lot of volume controls - like those on my SP9 MkII - change the balance when the volume is changed, you can do a bit of hopping up and down at the start of a record. And forget about preamps that (in the modern fashion) omit balance controls. With the Vivaldis you should have a balance control even for digital, since no room is perfectly symmetrical; for vinyl it's indispensable. In summary: The Audio Artistry Vivaldis are a big step forward: speakers of great resolution whose sound has much of the relaxed detail that characterizes live music, if that is what you feed them. They are, however, absolutely intolerant of sharpness or edge in the signal. This can be a special problem on high-resolution vinyl, and you will have to dial down the VTA. But they will also give you much of the bass foundation and midrange warmth that make music sound right. And, most of all, Audio Artistry appears to have succeeded in significantly reducing room interactions. These speakers are not cheap, but they are built to a price that is affordable by many music lovers willing to make a reasonably serious commitment to home music reproduction. Without regard to price, the Vivaldis are outstanding. Considering their price, they are spectacular.
Inside The Box
The Audio Artistry Vivaldis have a footprint of about 14 inches square and stand 50 inches high. They weigh 85 pounds each and the finish is excellent. There are five drivers in each cabinet: two 12-inch woofers, a pair of 8-inch midrange units, one above and one below the 1-inch tweeter. Only the tweeter is a traditional monopole - the midrange and woofer units operate as dipole radiators in free air. That means that the midrange and woofer drivers are mounted to a structure that does not enclose them. Thus, the sound of each driver radiates in both directions; in-phase sound projecting forward toward the listener and out-of-phase sound projecting backwards, away from the listener.
Because the woofers and midrange drivers are mounted in free air, the forward and backward outputs of the drivers wrap around the edge of the driver and cancel each other. Thus, the speaker radiates very little sound directly to its side, reducing the acoustic energy put into the room by approximately 5db according to Audio Artistry. The result is that the sound of the room - its resonances - is substantially reduced, "unmasking" the direct sound from the speakers and letting the listener more clearly hear the music. Unlike the more expensive Dvoráks (see sidebar), the Vivaldis do not use an active electronic crossover. The Vivaldis' crossovers are passive and, consequently, the speaker is more difficult to drive than its sibling. Audio Artistry recommends a solid state amp of at least 100 watts (the 50-watt BEL 1001 MkII is an exception to this power requirement). Specifically, the Vivaldis want to see an amplifier with low output impedance (less than .5 ohms) and high damping factor (over 50). Further, Audio Artistry strongly recommends bi-wiring the Vivaldis, and there are high-quality gold-plated binding posts for this purpose. That means that a separate speaker cable runs from the amplifier for both the bass and the midrange/treble of the Vivaldis.