Mai-June 2006

BOLZANO VILLETRI – Piazzetta Speakers
At CTA Perception

Bolzano Villetri is a new Italian producer of speakers who chose to go off the beaten track to offer a new technology of sound diffusion, through an atypical display of conventional loudspeakers. The Piazzetta, first column of the producer's catalogue, gave us the opportunity to check in the field the well-founded of this approach.

Despite the abundance of producers and the diverse ways of modellisation technologies in the last few years, the functioning of a pair of speakers has not evolved that much since its creation. If we except from the electrostatic panels, which work in acoustic double, almost-all the speakers of the market trust an identical architecture, based on the direct crosscheck of the foil of directivity of the speakers which emits from the baffle towards the listener.

In that sense, the conception of Bolzano Villetri speakers, and the Piazzetta is an illustration, will not fail to catch the attention of both the technician and the music lover front of its atypical shape which presents a different vision of the musical perception. For the Italian producer, it was to offer an aesthetic and technical alternative, susceptible to create a sound scope as large and consistent as possible, in order to release totally the listener's movements in a listening room of large dimensions.

The 'RoundStream' technology, foundation of all the models, does not aim to reproduce the sound in its most perfect exactness and its soundness, but to dive the listener in a musical ambiance in his day-to-day life. The Piazzetta, with its elegant forms - all in height - and its impeccable finish, is part of the ambassadors for this new way of approaching music, which corresponds well when step back, to the art of life of our civilisation who wishes to accede to an certain level of quality, minimising at the same time the constraints that enable us to enjoy the benefits.

CTA Perception: a convivial place dedicated to music

Founded in 1977 by Jean Artozoul, great passionate of music and technique, CTA auditorium – 138 rue Lecourbe in the 15th district in Paris – is since 2005 in the competent hands of Olivier Double and Guillaume Gay, who took on the torch from the old master in the respect of both the tradition and the conviviality of the place. Olivier Double warmly received us with a nice coffee, served at the bar of the auditorium, before letting us discover this surprising place, over 3 floors, to give the full place to the music and home cinema. With 3 auditoriums dedicated to hi-fi and 2 dedicated to home-cinema, without forgetting one room for second-hand products, the enlightened amateur or the novice will be able to take time to find out more about with his own pace the large range of products – mainly French, with JM Reynaud, PE Leon, 3D Lab, Isem or Icos, and also Arcam, Plinuis or Cambridge – offered by a team who gives priority first to homogeneity, relevance and musicality/price relation of your system.

Far from any form of snobbism, here we first look for sharing the common passion through some simply implemented sets and comparative listening sessions, which facilitate the discovery of the difference. Hence, Guillaume admits to prefer the nearly-immediate listening of two different pairs of speakers, which implies an undesirable proximity for the implementation of those later, considering that the interaction between the speakers at the same place are less decisive than the noted fragility of the auditory memory.

However, the preparation of the setting is made with the highest care, and our host already works on new adjustments of listening rooms in the basement, to facilitate again the life of the ears that will come to take benefits of their know-how.

Some French Electronics have pride of place

If the Bolzano Villetri Piazzetta speakers count on the great easiness of implementation, their natural quality could not be discounted at the first system, and as any good quality speaker, they required to be well accompanied to deliver their full potential.

We got the chance to listen the Piazzetta on two different systems. The first was made of a complete chain Icos. The integrated player Fado along for the occasion with the Dactablette converter and the Elsberg 270 integrated amplifier, served us as a starting point to assess the musical performances of our elegant columns, that present a sensibility of high enough to satisfy the reasonable power of this setting.

Following that, a second system, with a different aesthetic sound, made up of a 3D Lab CD Master and of an I-500 numerical integrated, undertook to explore the dynamic capacities of the Piazzetta columns, when associated, as recommended by the producer, with the new Vecchio subwoofer offered in the same series.

Bolzano Villetri or how to distinguish from the competition

At the first glance, once rid of the grills, we understand quickly that the Bolzano Villetri speakers have nothing in common with something already existing. The Piazzetta is part of the 'Campanile' series, in reference to the bell towers in the north of Italy and that the column takes the shape and the function.

The shape, because the column with its superb finish in wood does not offer any loudspeakers in direct view, letting scarcely appear, as a bell does, the brackets holding the two tweeters between the two caissons that contain the boomers.

The function, because Bolzano Villetri's first pretension is to make sure that the sound escaping the Piazzetta is loud and clear in a volume of large size, without losing in specialisation, wherever is the listener. In that sense, the Bolzano Villetri speakers are more ambio-phonic speakers that audiophile ones.

RoundStream and PilotEdge Technologies

The Bolzano Villetri's 'RoundStream' Technology rests on the 'counter aperture' principle, that we could translate by a calculated management of the counter-pressure of two loudspeakers, displayed one facing the other one on the vertical axe, each one taking place in its own volume of charge. Those two transductors, perfectly synchronised, issue the signal in phase, creating in the space that separates them a symmetric air deformation, such a way that the sound pressure spread horizontally over 360 degrees around the speaker. Hence, the direct sound comes from the speakers, not very significant, is reinforced by the reverberations of lateral walls, giving to the listener the impression of being bathed in a consistent sound scope, wherever he is located in the room.

With the Piazzetta, the medium-high is left to a pair of transductors with 170mm polypropylene membrane individually bass-reflex charged by two identical caissons, the first one leaning on the solid basis of the speaker, which contains the filter and the two BORNIERS enabling the bi-cabling or bi-amplification, the second one located symmetrically above the PODE in charge of reproducing the high of the spectrum.

The 'PilotEdge' technology minimises the require surface for the assembling of those two transductors on the caisson through an ENTRETOISE with angular faces that send back a part of the sound wave toward the ground and the ceiling, to reinforce again the signal, all this avoiding the board effects susceptible to disturb the functioning of the system.

The high of the range comes from a pair of 28mm-soft-dome tweeters, held back to back at the middle of this configuration, still on the vertical plan, through the intermediary of star-shape frame reinforced by four ribs in corbelled structure, that reach the low caisson.

A filter – that we guess complex – compensates the loss of level resulting from a non-direct assembling of the tweeters, while the surfaces of reflection formed by the membranes of the two boomers take in charge of spreading the signal on the horizontal plan.

Listening session

The discovery of the Piazzetta speakers goes first by a visual acceptance of its aesthetics qualities out of the ordinary. The elegant finishing of these Italian speakers will facilitate their integration in large rooms, which they are dedicated to.

From the first seconds of the listening session, we understand that the Piazzetta have not been conceived to satisfy the critical and aroused ear of the audiophile in search of sound perfection, but rather of the music lover seeking to dive in the music, without imposing himself neither listening constraints or positioning ones.

In that sense, the capacity of the Piazzetta to fill up the space is quite amazing, further more if we consider the fact that the auditorium where we listened to Piazzetta does not correspond, due to its important deadening, to the required conditions by the 'RoundStream' technology to ideally express itself.

Guillaume confirmed it: Bolzano Villetri speakers give even better results in his customers' places than on his auditorium.

What caught our attention is the total absence of referent to the speaker, wherever we are located in the room. With these conditions, the sound stage, if it can not demonstrate the same precision as traditional speakers, surprises with its length and its depth.

The high, if it does not go very high, does not however lack subjectively of any level, staying both soft and full of nuances, as long as we do not push the speakers in its last entrenchments.

If the tone neutrality is not the main features of the Piazzetta, they offer nevertheless a good relevance in the medium and an amazing energy, when we supply it with a fair speed and detailed amplifier such as the 3D Lab I-500 which we get the best result with. In these conditions, and even if the listening session lacks a bit of density, we guess easily the sensation of aeration and overture that the Bolzano Villetri speakers must be capable of in a room really adapted to their atypical functioning.

If the medium-high range demonstrates some obvious qualities that we would not suspected at the first look, the low spectrum of the Piazzetta lacks of foundation and of level to fulfil space with the same easiness. It is true that the producer recommends using the subwoofer to complete the natural qualities of his first column and it is naturally that we plugged it to the initial configuration to enjoy immediately the benefits, with a sensation of dynamism in relation to the impressive depth of the sound which the speakers are capable of.

Conclusion

Atypical, different, the Bolzano Villetri's Piazzetta speakers deliver a listening and an impressive sound space to those who want to live in the middle of the music, without seeking the perfection and the realism of a diffusion system axed on the performance.

Well finished, easy to implement, they offer an interesting ambio-phonic alternative, without searching to assert themselves, and will gain a new special dimension by the addition of the Vecchio subwoofer, which will support the low spectrum.