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VENTURE’S ULTIMATE REFERENCE R A I D H O ’ S C 1 . 1 W O R L D ’ S B E S T C O M P A C T ? PUSHING THE LIMITS JULY/AUGUST 2012 $6.99 US / $6.99 CAN / £4.50 UK DISPLAY UNTIL AUGUST 20TH 2012 www.theabsolutesound.com High-Res Digital Fact and Fiction VAC Signature IIa Preamp Tube Audio at its Finest Music from Nora Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Wes Montgomery, Cowboy Junkies, and the Chieftans PLUS High-Res Download Roundup SPECIAL SPEAKER ISSUE! WE REVIEW 11 MODELS FROM $399 TO $140K
Transcript
Venture’s ultimate reference
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Pushing The LimiTs
JULY/AUGUST 2012$6.99 US / $6.99 cAn / £4.50 Uk
DiSPLAY UnTiL AUGUST 20TH 2012
www.theabsolutesound.com
high-Res digital Fact and FictionVaC signature iia preamp Tube Audio at its Finestmusic from nora Jones, Bruce springsteen, Wes montgomery, Cowboy Junkies, and the Chieftansplus high-Res Download Roundup
SPECIALSPEAkEr ISSUE! WE rEVIEW 11 ModELS froM $399 to $140k
founder, Njoo Hoo Kong, a native of Indonesia, holds
a Master’s degree in physics. He thinks
of loudspeaker design as more of a physics
challenge than one of electrical engineering.
In his quest to create super-top-end loudspeakers,
Njoo Hoo Kong has applied his physics background to develop all his own drivers
in-house. These drivers feature proprietary
cone materials that, according to Venture, are key
to the loudspeakers’ performance.
the absolute sound July/August 2012 123
124 July/August 2012 the absolute sound
The model under review here is the Ultimate Reference. Despite that lofty name and the speaker’s equally lofty price of $139,500, the Ultimate Reference is actually the penultimate product in the line, eclipsed by the $199,000 Xtreme. The Ultimate Reference is a nearly-five-foot-tall floorstanding three-way design employing four 9" woofers, a 7" midrange, and an unusual 2" tweeter. Forgoing the usual stretched-fabric grille, the Ultimate Reference’s drivers are covered by individual metal grilles, giving the speaker a business-like, yet elegant appearance from the front. But your attention is unlikely to be drawn toward the drivers and their grilles. Instead, you’ll probably focus on what is among the most beautiful cabinetry ever lavished on a loudspeaker. The gorgeous ebony wood and layer after layer of buffed polyester lacquer combine to make the Ultimate Reference’s enclosure a work of art in its own right.
The Ultimate Reference’s design is somewhat unorthodox. The crossover slopes are first-order, a design approach employed by very few manufacturers (Vandersteen and Thiel chief among them). First-order crossovers produce very gentle roll-offs (6dB per octave) in the frequency bands sent to each driver. First-order crossovers are the only type to achieve perfect phase coherence, but they require drivers that are well behaved far outside their passbands. Consider the Ultimate Reference’s midrange driver, crossed over at 400Hz; at 200Hz the signal driving it is attenuated by only 6dB, at 100Hz by just 12dB, and at 50Hz by 18dB. This wideband signal puts additional stress on the drivers, often reducing the speaker’s ability to play loudly without strain. Nonetheless, these tradeoffs are, as noted, balanced by perfect time and phase performance. So long as the drivers are well behaved, loudspeakers with first-order crossovers have a coherence and purity that are unmistakable. It’s also worth noting that the Ultimate Reference’s midrange driver is a 7" unit rather than the typical 5", giving it greater ability to play lower in frequency. The crossover points of 400Hz and 3kHz mean that most of the music is reproduced by this 7" underhung midrange driver, with no driver-to-driver transitions in the most critical frequency bands. Note also that the signal driving the 7" midrange is down by 6dB at 6kHz and 12dB at 12kHz, requiring that the midrange’s out-of-band behavior be exemplary. Incidentally, the crossovers are built with point-to-point wiring rather than with components mounted on a circuit board. Internal wiring is of Venture’s own design.
The frequency response is stated in the literature as 20Hz–60kHz, although no tolerance is given, rendering the spec meaningless. Venture clarified the low-frequency extension spec by saying that the combination of the woofer’s resonant frequency (17Hz) and the port tuning of 18Hz result in a response that is down by 6dB at 18Hz. Sensitivity is a highish 92dB, and the impedance is 6 ohms. The impedance magnitude is quite flat over the audio band, and there are no severe swings in phase angle, suggesting that the Ultimate Reference is fairly easy to drive. Input is via a single pair of Furutech binding posts or a Speakon connector. This was my first encounter with the Furutech posts, and they are exemplary. In addition to being easy to tighten by hand and offering a solid connection, they have a torque-limiting feature that
prevents over-tightening. The input connectors are mounted on a removable metal panel to which handles are attached for accessing the crossover.
The enclosure is made from alternating layers of high-density fiberboard and solid hardwood. Two large ports at the top rear provide reflex-loading of the four 9" woofers. The cabinet’s thickness isn’t specified, but Venture says that the enclosure is heavily braced. The side panels converge toward a front baffle that is narrower than the rear panel. This “C” shape makes the enclosure more rigid, minimizes the front baffle area, and gives the speaker an apparently smaller footprint when seen from the front. A hard polyester mirror coat finishes the enclosure. My review samples were finished Makassar Ebony. Other finishes include Rosewood, Elm Burl, Piano Black, and Pearl White. Custom finishes are available upon request.
The drivers are unusual in their shape and cone composition. The four 9" woofers and the single 7" midrange driver are based on a cone material developed by Venture called CFGC, or Carbon Fibre Graphite Composite. Tiny graphite particles are uniformly mixed with a resin to form a graphite composite that in cured in a mold at high temperature. In addition, long carbon fibers are embedded in the graphite composite in a proprietary pattern to increase stiffness while keeping the cone mass low. Note that the cone is not built up from woven cloth, nor is the graphite a coating on the cone. Rather, the graphite is an integral part of the cone. This Venture-developed cone material reportedly nearly eliminates cone resonances that would introduce distortion and smear micro-dynamic detail. It’s also very light and stiff. Graphite composite matrices were first developed for absorbing vibration in ship hulls. In addition to being made from this custom material, the cones are also unusual for their shallow, perfectly concave profile (no dust cap). This cone profile was developed for “a wave launch that results in optimum matching of amplitude and phase in the soundfield.”
As with the woofers and midrange drivers, the Ultimate Reference’s tweeter is also custom-designed by Venture. It is a 2" device that looks like a tiny cone midrange driver with a whizzer cone in the center. I’ve never seen a tweeter that looks anything like this, either in its size (most tweeters are 1"), cone-shape (most tweeters are domes or inverted domes), or the secondary whizzer cone in the center. In addition, the cone material is another custom Venture creation, called AGC, or Abaca Graphite Composite. This material similar to the CFGC in the woofers and midrange drivers except that the cone is composed of a pulp and long fibers from
This Venture-developed cone material reportedly nearly
eliminates cone resonances
that would introduce distortion and smear
micro-dynamic detail.
the absolute sound July/August 2012 125
The most beautiful cabinetry ever lavished on a speaker.
126 July/August 2012 the absolute sound
SPECS & PRICING
coMMent on this Article on the foruM At AVGuIDE.COM
the stems of the abaca tree. Tiny graphite particles are uniformly mixed with the abaca pulp to form a graphite composite. The long abaca fibers, embedded in the abaca pulp in a defined pattern, increase the cone’s stiffness. The combined material is cured in a mold at high temperature. Abaca, which is related to the banana tree, is used in making rope, teabags, bank notes, carpet, and specialized paper products. Venture claims that this AGC tweeter, crossed over at 3kHz, has a bandwidth of 100Hz–60kHz, an astounding specification.
All this technology comes together in a loudspeaker that while large, doesn’t dominate a room the way some loudspeakers can. The stunning cabinetry no doubt draws your attention away from the technological nature of the product, giving it a natural and organic feel.
ListeningThere are a number of rules to follow in setting up a pair of Venture speakers that simplify the installation. The first is that the optimum distance between them is narrower than that of most other loudspeakers, and absolutely crucial to the performance. The second is that the ideal amount of toe-in is exactly six degrees, no more and no less. Venture’s US distributor, Mike Slaminski of Precision Audio and Video, used a protractor and 3'-long metal ruler to dial in the toe-in. I would have thought that the optimum toe-in would be a function of the listening distance, but six degrees seemed to work perfectly for my 12' listening distance. The loudspeaker spacing was realized by moving the loudspeakers
along a line marked with masking tape on the floor at the speakers’ front edges, and then listening to every incremental change. As we zero’d in on the optimum placement, movements of a quarter inch became significant. This effort in finding just the right distance apart, and using the protractor to set the toe-in, pays off when the sound unmistakably “locks in,” with the soundstage
suddenly existing independently of the loudspeakers. You can get close to the ideal placement and think that the sound is quite good, but finding just the right spot resulted in a “step function” in which the sound takes a leap in quality.
That sense of knowing with certainty when the Ultimate References were in the right location was the result of a tremendous coherence in which the soundstage truly floated with no apparent attachment to the two large boxes in front of me. When that happened, everything else naturally fell into place.
I’ll start with the Ultimate Reference’s soundstaging, this loudspeaker’s most compelling attribute. Despite the somewhat narrower distance between the Ventures compared with all other speakers I’ve had in my room, the Ultimate Reference threw a spectacularly wide soundstage that extended beyond the loudspeakers. The spatial presentation was extremely enveloping in that the soundstage seemed to wrap around to the sides of the listening room rather than appearing as a square window in front of me. On the stunning new 45rpm reissue of Muddy Waters’ Folk
Singer, the snare drum at the soundstage’s far left has an enormous “pop” that “lights up” the acoustic and gives dimension to the recording space. The Ventures presented this ambient information as fully surrounding the far-left drum placement rather than truncating the edge beyond the loudspeaker boundary. By getting this little detail right, the Ultimate Reference created a more compelling impression of being present at the original musical event. This quality of the loudspeaker was particularly rewarding with orchestral music; the Ultimate Reference was magical in its ability to disappear into an enormous and transparent soundstage bounded by the recording venue’s walls rather than by a limitation of the loudspeaker placement or listening room. I must stress that the Venture’s soundstaging wasn’t a hi-fi trick but rather a quality that made the spatial presentation more realistic and the music more engaging.
The Venture combined this enormous sense of size with precise image placement and the ability to sound small and focused when appropriate. The beautiful SACD Jazz in the Key of Blue by
Jimmy Cobb [Chesky] was recorded with a single Soundfield microphone, with trumpeter Roy Hargrove in the middle flanked by Cobb on drums on the right and guitarist Russell Malone on the left. Hargrove doesn’t stay in one place during the set, a fact revealed with great precision by the Ultimate Reference. By the way, this is the most realistic recording of a trumpet I’ve heard, and Hargrove’s playing is exquisite.
The Ultimate Reference had a coherence that combined with the imaging precision to create a vivid, up-front portrayal of instrumental images and their timbres. The palpability of images—the impression of the instrument hanging in space in front of the listening seat—was phenomenal. The coherence was partially attributable to the seamless integration of the drivers—it is perhaps no coincidence that the drivers feature similar construction and design, and are crossed over with first-order slopes.
Despite the first-order crossovers, the Ultimate Reference had wide dynamic contrasts and could reproduce even the most challenging music. I never heard the Venture approach its bottom-end dynamic limitations on high-res orchestral music or power rock. In this regard, the Ultimate Reference was sensational. Although the Ultimate Reference played loudly and had considerable “jump factor” on transients, I thought that the soundstage became temporarily less well defined and timbres hardened during the loudest and most demanding passages.
The Ultimate Reference’s bass was well extended and weighty, but didn’t plum the depths of the lowermost octave (at least in my room). The organ pedal points on Rutter’s Requiem, that old reliable reference for bass extension, were somewhat audible but didn’t pressurize the room the way it does with a select few reference-quality loudspeakers. Despite a roll-off at about 30Hz in my room, the bass had a terrific combination of weight, authority, and power on one hand, and pitch definition, articulation, and precision on the other. The Ultimate Reference seemed to combine the best attributes of reflex-loading (weight, impact, power) with the qualities associated with infinite-baffle loading (definition, resolution, transient fidelity). The superbly recorded acoustic bass on Joe Morello’s Morello Standard Time [DMP] had a musically compelling combination of body and articulation. The bass was also finely textured, with great color and a sense of a resonant, three-dimensional wooden body. I noticed this quality on quite a number of recordings; the Ultimate Reference’s bass is superb. Still, the Ultimate Reference didn’t quite match the visceral, full-body experience of the Rockport Altair, which remains for me the reference standard in this regard.
The Ultimate Reference had a tonal balance I’ll call “lively.” The top end was very open and extended, with a terrific sense of air riding above the music. This upper-midrange/treble character contributed to the sense of palpability as well as to the soundstage openness and transparency, but also to an overall balance that favored upper-midrange resolution and detail over timbral warmth, body, and saturation of tone colors. Instruments rich in upper harmonics—saxophone, for example—tended to sound lighter in color and thinner in body. The brass and woodwinds of Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band on its new
