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VH-1
the
Hi-Fi Voigt horn
(We
will not go into detail, but this design is really a hybrid between a
”tempered quarter wave pipe” and a horn. It expands like a horn,
and its length is a quarter of the speakers resonance wavelength. We
prefer the shorter expression, horn. Yes, we could also write TQWP
but except for the experts it might be just confusing. AND – the
Voigt design is not just any quarter wave pipe. It is one of the most
intelligent hybrids between the pipe and horn ideas. It is an old
idea, from the 1930´s, but the combination of this old idea and
modern loudspeaker elements will produce a sound very few Hifi owners
normally can afford.)
A
well designed horn speaker will make a good recording sound like a
live performance. But they are often very, very expensive. There are
horns as expensive as some cars.
Build
the VH-1 horns yourself, and save a small fortune!
One
Hifi enthusiast described the typical horn sound this way:
”...Horns
will definitely not sound laid back! The music will jump at you
rather than shyly hiding some place far behind the speakers.”
The
VH-1´s are no exception. The increased presence will put the
musicians right inside your room, which at the same time will sound
bigger and more ”airy” due to the open cabinet design.
Close
your eyes, and you can easily imagine that you are sitting in the
front row at a concert with live musicians playing right in front of
you. This applies not only to the VH-1´s but is a rather common
feeling when listening to horn loudspeakers. It sounds BIG and close
at the same time.
Read
email from owners of the VH-1 (and VH-2),
built using the original
speaker kit. Click here.
...and
here you will find email and a nice picture of a pair of VH-2´s
built by Tony Morgan in Canada. He really did a good job!
The
VH-1´s (using the original HSV-1E speaker kit) deliver both a high
level of presence, and a ”concert hall feeling” ordinary speakers
will not.
A gunshot or thunder in a DVD movie can make you jump
out of your seat. But the same speakers can also reproduce the fine
details of a soft human voice in close-up song recordings as well as
separating different bass sounds playing at the same time.
The
Voigt design keeps the speaker coil inside its linear response area
even at high sound preassure levels. Even at high bass levels, the
mid-frequencies are detailed, crisp and open-sounding.
The
no-compromise original loudspeaker kit, HSV-1E.
The
perfect
match for the VH-1.
(The
VH-1 cabinet was originally designed using exactly these
components)
Click
here.
How
much have you spent on loudspeakers so far?
Building
your VH-1´s will be a long-time investment.
We
designed and built the first VH-1´s in 1986.
After more than 16
years, when the picture above was taken (January 1, 2003), the sound
was still better than those commercial loudspeakers our friends and
acquaintances had bought and replaced over and over again during that
period.
The
drawing, list of materials and building instructions are completely
free for
personal use.
Click
here to get them.
Then print them on your printer, and you are ready to go.
You
can test different bass drivers yourself, but it won´t be easy to
find drivers of this quality, so we strongly recommend the
no-compromise
original loudspeaker kit, HSV-1E (click
here).
It´s a complete kit for one stereo pair.
After
listening to the VH-1 / HSV-1E combination, you will not want to go
back to the ”boxed in” sound of ordinary speakers!
*Copyright
notice: You are not
allowed to copy our material for any other purpose than to build your
own speakers. Publication of our drawings is a violation of copyright
laws. However, it is
allowed to put a LINK to this page (www.valutronic.se/vh1e.html) or
even directly to the drawing (www.valutronic.se/VH1_drawing.html).
We plan to keep this site up and going as long as these
loudspeakers exist. We have our own domain name, so the address won´t
change even if we would choose to change ISP. Putting a link to this
site on your own page is safe.
We will search the web
once in a while, and may take legal action without prior notice if we
find any copy of our drawings on other sites on the web, be it
personal or corporative sites. The VH-1 and VH-2 are our own designs,
and we will keep them that way.
What
are the special VH-1 features (using the original driver)?
1)
The sound is extremely lively. You don´t listen to
a recording. You listen to musicians.
2)
They can be compared to much more expensive speakers. One young
person who built them using the HSV-1E speakers wrote us an email
saying:
”I
got the speakers yesterday and was mighty impressed with the sound...
completely in the same league as daddy´s 10000 kr (1100 Euro / 1350
USD) Polk Audio” and when we asked him if we could print
his email where he compared the VH-1´s to his fathers several times
more expensive speakers, he wrote: ”Sure,
that´s completely excellent... in fact, he was so impressed that he
is thinking about building his own.”
3)
The VH-1 with the original speaker kit delivers a sound quality that
brings new life to your old recordings. One customer wrote:
”I
am sitting right now listening to the Esbjoern Svensson trio, and the
grand piano sounds simply wonderfully clean and clear, and the snare
drum and cymbal are stingy, yet at the same time full of air and
clarity!”
4)
The drivers are placed high up.
Your furniture won´t block the high frequencies reaching your ears
when sitting in your favourite armchair or sofa enjoying your music.
5)
The VH-1 is easy to assemble. Exponential horns are almost impossible
to get right if you are an amateur, and many other horn designs use
lots of small bits and pieces, sometimes even made from different
materials.
The VH-1 only has rectangular pieces, all cut out from
the same material and thickness, they are easily glued together in a
very short time. Start on a sunday morning, and you will be ready by
lunch.
6)
The VH-1 is not a compromise. We didn´t have to make any changes to
the original idea. Many ”Voigt” horns are re-designed to fit
speakers with other data, leaving the original concept (and sound!)
behind.
We went the other way. Before designing the cabinet we
decided to search for a bass speaker with the correct
charachteristics. A no-compromise speaker. It took quite some time,
but finally we found one. Then we could finally design a Voigt horn
using the original concept:
Closed
end area = active area of the speaker cone
Length = ¼ resonance
wavelength of the speaker
Expansion = linear all the way
Open
end area (mouth) = 3x closed end area
Position of center of
bass/midrange speaker: 1/3 from closed end of the horn
We
have already sold hundreds of speaker kits, and the customers who
have emailed us after building the VH-1´s with the HSV-1E speaker
elements, no matter what music taste, have congratulated us on a
brilliant design.
But
to be honest, we shouldn´t take the credit. Voigt did his extensive
research in the 1930´s, and we just followed his design principles.
Our part of the work was to find the perfect speaker elements, and
design the cabinet so that it would be easy to build and still fit
into most homes.
More comments: In 2001 a big ”DIY(Do it
yourself)-blast” was held in Sweden, and many different home made
loudspeakers were tested. The VH-1, built with Valutronic´s original
speaker kits, was one of them:
”Ljudmässigt
hade dessa högtalare inga som helst problem att fylla den relativt
stora lokalen, lättdrivna med ett mäktigt ljud, bra och snabb bas,
även om Lennart berättade att han hemma dessutom har en Subwoofer
till.
(Här tar man lunchpaus, varefter lyssnandet
fortsätter.)
Lennarts
VH-1: bra pondus i basen och bra separation mellan bastrumma och
elbas. En given kommentar efter första låten som demats på
VH-1:orna: -inte behöver dom där nåt basstöd! ”
You
don´t understand swedish? Here is a translation:
Sound-wise
these loudspeakers had no problems whatsoever to fill the relatively
big premises, easily driven with a powerful sound, good and quick
bass, even if Lennart told us that he at home also used a subwoofer.
(Here
there is a lunch break, after which the listening continues)
Lennart´s
VH-1: Good authority in the bass and good separation between bass
drum and electrical bass guitar. An obvious comment after the first
tune demonstrated on the VH-1´s: those certainly don´t need any
bass support!
Do
you like the more exclusive loudspeaker design to the left? One of
our customers built the VH-1, and then added his own outside design.
Nice work! This
page
is in Swedish, but you can probably see how he did just by looking at
the pictures.
...And
this is not all.
Click
here
to see a selection of VH-1 cabinet designs that our customers have
made. (This page is in english.)