This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below

The EARs may have been apples to my reference SET oranges and the Volterras were a departure from my 'less is more' mentality when it comes to drive units. Yet there was no faulting any aspect of the combination. Ignoring any urge to use flowery adjectives, realism nails the experience succinctly when male voices can so often trip up speakers and be rendered unconvincing. I suspect this is down to the ability of a speaker to reproduce tone and our own ability to pick up on an unnatural tone particularly in vocals. A half hour sampling of tracks from Willie Nelson's Heroes reinforced the impression that the Volterras appeared flawless in their rendition of tonality and timbre. Harmonica, slide guitar, drums and high hats all sounded as authentic as American apple pie and Willie exactly as I'd expect him to.


A quick change of sex established ability to reproduce higher octaves and the more seductive nature of female vocals. Track 3 of The Katie Melua Collection [DRAMCD0040] is her duet of "What a Wonderful World" with the late Eva Cassidy, an homage if you will. I remember watching a documentary of Eva Cassidy which included clips of Katie recording her parts of this duet. Whilst expressing her awe of Eva's talent, Katie actually wrote "Faraway Voice" (not included in this collection) with Eva in mind and credits her with becoming a recording artist herself. Despite the fact that this duet is actually a simple case of Katie adding her vocals to Eva's version, the result certainly doesn't come across as artificial or contrived and both vocals complement each other perfectly.


Once again the Volterras' tonality and ability to differentiate between two singers during the harmonies and separate them was immaculate. In fact faultless was the word which above all others would best describe the Volterras during their extended stay. I'd anticipate that because of their resolving powers and even-handed nature they would be excellent tools for reviewing other equipment apart from low-powered amps. By way of confirming this, I swapped out the reference Kimber Select KS-1030 pure silver ICs for a pair of Artisan Silver Cables Ultimate Dream between CDP and pre. The Volterras were up to the job of revealing the differences even though both ICs used the highest purity silver and a broadly similar woven design. The Kimber ICs retail for well over £1,00/pr, the Artisan for a couple of hundred. Yet the Kimber's superiority was subtle (though important) and exactly as I perceived it to be when scrutinizing these two cables under the electron microscope of the Mono Max SETs and AN-Es.


As touched upon earlier, being a simple-minded person I do much prefer the principle of keeping things simple when it comes to audio. In this vein a multi-driver speaker is anathema. Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note (who picked up the baton of the late Peter Snell and ran with it to refine the Audio Note range of loudspeakers) is of the opinion that given how hard it is to mesh two drivers seamlessly, incorporating more is apt to introduce more problems than it solves. After living with a pair of Tannoy Monitor Gold dual-concentrics for a few years with their single point-source sound, it always struck me how other speakers could sound messed up especially when listening more near-field. Single-driver speakers shared this aspect of the Tannoy's strengths to some degree but the very limited range of available designs and the required hornloading to approach full range brought their own problems or rather signature to these ears.

Two carefully matched drivers such as those in my reference Audio Note AN/Es and Dynaudio Contour 1.3 Mk2s can cover pretty much the whole range whilst sitting cheek to jowl on the front baffle to minimize time alignment issues. A reflex port can usually flesh out the lower registers in all but the largest rooms. That's a compromise for sure and Peter is being robbed to pay Paul - but Peter is easier to please and Paul can be very disruptive.

This 10mm aluminium front panel sports three drivers across the top half of a vented asymmetrically braced cabinet and a fourth in the lower sealed section. To my mind the Volterra was asking for trouble to manifest during listening yet these Italians stubbornly refused to accommodate my speculation as they got on with the job of knocking down every subconscious bias I might have held against them and their multi-driver ilk. I'd expected tone and timbre to suffer as four drivers served up individual contributions yet tonal accuracy was an obvious strength of these speakers.

Musical instruments as a whole were reproduced flawlessly and lovers of piano in particular won't feel shortchanged when listening to the best recordings such as Jacqueline Dankworth's and James Pearson's For all we know on the Black Box label. "Nobody's Fault But Mine" is a delightful interplay of Jacqui's vocals and Pearson's musicianship. Every foot pedal operation is revealed in full detail without becoming a distraction. I'd suggest a drop of oil wouldn't have gone amiss though. Yes of course SETs or indeed decent class A bias would have improved the midrange even further and at both frequency extremes I'd have to be totally blinkered and apply some pretty blatant confirmation bias to suggest that the Volterras and EARs couldn't be bettered... yet across the spectrum this combination was proving to be very involving and rather addictive.


Low-frequency response was impressive though 100wpc should be considered minimum to drive the Volterras. The EARs punch above their weight and in an arm-wrestling match with most similar-rated SS amps will slam their opponent's hands down yet to make those 8" and 6.5" Nomex woofers really dance in their vibration-damped frames I'd recommend in excess of 150 quality watts. This will invariably involve transistor amplification. In conclusion I'd suggest that although Rosso Fiorentino may not be a name which is as highly lauded or recognized as Italy's Sonus faber or Opera, if performance is anything to go by they soon will be. For me the Rosso Fiorentino Volterras are the most outstanding Italian pair since Sophia Loren.
Rosso Fiorentino "Dead Christ with angels"




Reusability of packing: Multiple times.
Condition of component received: Immaculate.
Quality of owner's manual: Very good.
Website comments: Extensive technical specifications.
Human interactions: Professional and friendly.
Warranty: From their website: "If something goes wrong with this product during the period covered by the warranty, parts will be replaced free of charge provided that failure is not due to point 3, detailed below. This limited warranty is valid for a period of 5 years for cabinets and 2 years for drivers and electrical components. The warranty starts from purchase date. To obtain service under guarantee the item together with an original or clear copy of proof of purchase must be delivered to the local RF dealer or distributor at the owner’s expense (the product must be packed in original packaging)."
Pricing: About par for the course when compared to their peers in material terms (don't all high-end speakers seem overpriced considering the component count and construction materials?) yet the Volterras are a very attractive compact floorstander offering a subjectively flawless reference quality performance which is bound to impress—dare I say seduce—in systems capable of providing a quality signal to their voice coils. Recommended.

Rosso Fiorentino website