The first line of almost any story can be improved by making sure the second line is:
“And then the murders began.”
Mark Laidlaw’s tweet last month pretty much won the Internet for me. And that’s pretty much how I felt walking into Volya Audio‘s demo room here at AXPONA. As if all expectations were suddenly upended. I laughed. I cried. I took photos. I bid on their charity auction (see the website for more information).
The NoLimits speakers look, well, like speakers. The drive unit from a subwoofer, actually. The bass coming out of these speakers was prodigious, so naturally, I walked over and laid my bare hand on what seemed like the “surface” of the “drive unit” before I was told that it was “only a cabinet”. Fooled me! Sensitivity is 88dB for a 4Ω array that can produce 25Hz-27kHz of sound. Drive units are all Accuton ceramics. US prices are about $33k/pair.
In the hall was a static display of another, very unusual — and wildly colorful — speaker called “Bouquet”. Bouquet brings the diamond midrange and tweeters from Accuton into the all-Accuton drive complement. 86dB, 4Ω, 25Hz-50kHz in a 210kg (each) cabinet. Currency conversion puts these artistic beauties at about $130k/pair.
Electronics were from Mark Levinson.
This was a fun room, and unexpectedly so. The sound was deep, the imaging precise, and it was all presented in this completely unexpected package. Happily, there were no murders … well, except for expectation, that is. Good times.
