In December, Elettromedia invited me to its HQ in Potenza Picena, Italy, to meet some of the design team and listen to the new range. I boarded a plane to Ancona airport with our trusty assistant/photographer/social media manager, Lauren, in tow.
We were met by our hosts for the visit, Head of International Sales Massimo Mezzadri and Elettromedia Marketing Communications Manager Matteo Kalogris. They kindly gave up their Sunday evening to take us out for dinner and a catch-up. Following a superb dinner, we were advised to rest as the following day was likely to be full-on.
I have been fortunate to visit Elettromedia’s state-of-the-art facility a few times. The building is full of technologies that help reduce its carbon footprint and has won several awards for this. It is also full of incredibly clever, creative, and lovely people.
The first part of our day began in the lecture theatre, where we were fed with information and news about Elettromedia’s current and future activities. Having come from an electronics manufacturing background, I love all the stuff about manufacturing facilities as much as deep technical explanations of how new Voce came about. We moved on to a tour of the facility and met a few people I have had cause to deal with in the past but perhaps not met so often. Technical Director Luca Girotti joined us. I have met Luca before and first communicated with him around the launch of Hertz Cento speakers (Young Guns Issue VI), for which he was the product development manager. He is an intensely clever man who is extremely generous with his time and knowledge. He showed us around and introduced us to his vast team of engineers, explaining the development processes for all products across their brands.
While being shown around, we were teased with the odd speaker grille hanging around. After lunch, we reconvened in the showroom, where we saw the full range of new Voce for the first time. What a feast for the eyes!
Although I have always loved the sound of Voce speakers, they look somewhat unremarkable. New Voce is very different and looks as exciting as its description sounds. They share little or no DNA with old Voce and look more like Audison Thesis speakers. This is Elettromedia’s superpower. So many products that start as the best, no-compromise designs, like Thesis, get reworked to make a product close in performance but more affordable.
Luca quickly explained that Voce II is not a reworking of existing technology but a truly innovative, ground-up product.
By this stage, I had already been bombarded with intimate details of the design process, particularly the challenge of creating a Hi-Res soft dome tweeter. To meet the Japan Audio Society’s (JAS) exacting standards, a speaker must be capable of reproducing frequencies up to 40kHz, which has never been achieved with a soft dome tweeter.
The purpose of reproducing frequencies outside of the human hearing range is due to the effect these frequencies have with both fundamental frequencies and harmonics of complex sound waves. The impact on the timbre of sound makes instruments full and lustrous. It can also help to add pinpoint accuracy in instrument placement in a stereo mix.
We were shown the complete range but will focus on the AV 1.1 II tweeter and AV 6.5 P II woofer, which were demonstrated later in the day. It is often said that men like to look with their hands as much as their eyes. This is undoubtedly the case for me, and having the product in my hands increased my excitement. All elements, including crossovers and grilles, are built to the finest mechanical quality. They feel solidly engineered, and I immediately knew they would sound very special.
There are too many technical elements to describe in this article, but all of the innovations will be revealed via our Driving Sounds Club newsletter (sign up for free at www.drivingsounds.co.uk) in the coming months. However, some significance was given to the 28mm voice coil in the tweeter. This is wound on an aluminium former, which is good at transferring heat away, significantly reducing thermal compression. Almost the only truths carried over from previous development programs were that paper is still the best basis for a cone material, silk works best for tweeters, and heat dissipation is key to stable performance and linearity.
Luca told me that the design process required them to unlearn much of the knowledge they had leaned on over many years of speaker design. In addition to modern modelling software, brand-new materials were trialled in the designs, leading to new manufacturing processes being developed at their wholly owned Chinese factory.
Blind listening tests formed a key part of the development. Listening tests are undertaken by experienced as well as inexperienced listeners. Each listener is given a crib sheet telling them what to listen for. They are then given a survey form on which they score different parameters using a mix of music. Each test used three different sets of speakers, including old Voce and a competitor product. This process was repeated throughout the years of development (yes, years!) until Voce II consistently scored higher than the other speakers in each test.
After a busy and intriguing day, Luca seated me in a modified BMW 3 Series. For this demonstration, a pair of AV 1.1 II tweeters were fitted into the vehicle’s A-pillars, and a pair of AV 6.5 P II woofers were installed in the doors. An AVCX 2P TW passive crossover with Bi-Amp facility was fed from a Forza AF C8.14 running bridged channels at 4 X 200 Watts.
A prototype Voce subwoofer ran from a Forza AF M1.7bit. This was switched off during most of the demonstration. The 6.5“ woofers did the heavy lifting in the bass department, and their bass extension was nothing short of amazing.
There was no EQ on the DSP, only a low pass between the subwoofer and woofer (60Hz, - 12dB) and delays between the right channel, left channel, and subwoofer.
Luca admitted to being a little cautious about the demonstration. He has clearly read my opinions of existing Voce and wanted to be clear that Voce II is not necessarily related to the experiences I have spoken about in previous issues of the magazine.
He needn’t have worried. I am open-minded when it comes to listening. Sometimes, it only takes one sound to demonstrate a pair of speakers’ class and superior performance. I was stunned straight away.
Luca played a Pat Metheny track – “When We Were Free.” It opens with a beautifully rendered double bass, followed by a single snare hit at 11 seconds. This made me jump out of my skin (an experience Lauren shared; she asked Luca to rewind, jumping out of her skin a second time, even though she knew what was coming!). From that moment, I was smitten! I tend to listen for mid-bass in a car, and the sound was so precise and articulate that all I could do was smile.
The set-up was pretty flat, but as Luca mentioned, if the speakers can deliver the complete sound spectrum, then tuning can be achieved. If anything is missing, then it cannot be added with any amount of processing.
Luca played about 12 tracks, including a number I am familiar with. Acoustic instruments were particularly impressive, as was the bass, which, although detailed and precise, also demonstrated a musicality that left me wanting more!
I can’t wait to test Voce II in some feature cars and hear what UK installers can extract from them.
Audison has once again prioritised sonic performance to outstanding effect!
Top Five Tunes:
Back Home – Eric Clapton
Wild Mountain Thyme - James Taylor
It’s On – George Duke
Sunrise – Norah Jones
When We Were Free – Pat Metheney
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