VAF Signature i66 MKIII Floorstanding Speakers

VAF Signature i66 MKIII Floorstanding Speakers

HANDMADE IN ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA.

Made by hand in our own manufacturing facility in Adelaide, every speaker is taken through an extensive process only begun when you order. Your speaker, uniquely made for you.

• 10 Year Guarantee
• 30 Day Home Trial
• Ships Worldwide

All speakers are built to order with an approx 12 week wait time.

SOUND AND BUILD QUALITY

The much loved and highly popular Signature i66 has undergone a refit with the same technical advancements as its larger sibling the Signature i93.

Our design team have been hard at work developing a completely new electrical cross over topology and incorporating a new Norwegian proprietary Magnesium Alloy tweeter. The result is a level of accuracy and performance rarely seen in a loudspeaker at the price. This accuracy results in transparency, imaging, detail, sound staging and dynamic subtlety that convincingly convey a realistic and true-to-life listener experience.

The Signature i66 speaker is beautifully crafted to the highest standard in finely finished genuine timber veneers and weigh in at an impressive 60kg.

Featuring a time-aligned partially vertically symmetrical driver array, the VAF Signature i66 is a large, floor standing four driver, three way speaker. Each cabinet contains one 210mm woofer and two 130mm magnesium alloy cone midrange drivers symmetrically arrayed about a single 25mm double chamber Magnesium dome tweeter.

Each woofer cone is constructed of composite hard paper pulp embedded with carbon and kevlar fibres which are individually treated with an anti-resonant natural fibre. Each midrange cone is precisely and individually machined from forged magnesium alloy for the most detailed resolution and midrange performance of any loudspeaker driver manufactured.

Both the woofers and the midrange drivers have low distortion, long linear throw motor systems. They employ precision engineered copper shorting rings, both in front of and behind the forward magnetic pole plate. Solid copper phase correction plugs are embedded within large, double layer voice coils. Copper coated magnetic circuits are also used to eliminate induced eddy currents, so that even these often ignored minor effects do not intrude or contaminate the sound.

The tweeter is also unique, comprising a 25mm pure silver voice coil driving a proprietary Magnesium dome backed by it’s own anti-resonant acoustic chamber. All drivers are time aligned to optimise phase and impulse responses, and therefore maintain exact spatial recreation of the original sound wave front as it was recorded.

Optimised internal damping is provided by VAF’s advanced HyperSoft material, to effectively eliminate internal cabinet reflections and standing waves. An obvious and integral design feature on every VAF loudspeaker is natural, acoustically absorbent fibre pads. These are fitted around each tweeter and midrange driver to accurately control dispersion and effectively eliminate diffraction effects.

Manufactured from only first grade MDF up to 48mm thick, cabinet construction is highly detailed. Precisely fully mitred joints and substantial internal cross-bracing characterise the superior quality of these loudspeakers.

Finishes include very high quality piano gloss or satin lacquer on crown cut, book-matched, genuine timber veneers including Australian Jarrah, Cherry, Black Oak and American Oak. A black lacquer in satin or piano gloss finish is also offered at extra cost. All of our speakers are made here in Australia, as such custom and bespoke finishes are available on request.

The VAF Signature i66 is at home in the highest fidelity stereo system. Uniformity of design process across the entire VAF Signature Series also ensures that other VAF Signature Series models can be used in harmony with the VAF Signature i93 to create a multi-channel surround sound theatre system without peer.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Frequency Range: 25Hz ~ 21kHz
• Frequency Response: 35Hz ~ 20kHz (±1.5dB)
• Phase Response: ±15° (100Hz ~ 20kHz)
• Impedance: 6 ohms (nominal)
• Sensitivity: 89dB (2.83V / 1m)
• Amplifier: Power up to 200W (recommended)
• Dimensions: 250mm (W) × 1125mm (H) × 392mm (D)
• Weight: 60kg (Net) each
• Finishes: American Cherry, Australian Jarrah, Black Oak, Piano Black and Tasmanian Blackwood
• Sold As: Pairs

TIME ALIGNMENT

Time alignment is achieved by stepping the various drivers (Woofers, Tweeters, Midranges) on the front of the speaker so that the acoustic centres are the same distance from a listener. For this to be effective a special kind of electrical crossover must also be used. All VAF loudspeakers are time aligned.

SHAPED VERTICAL & HORIZONTAL POWER RESPONSE

VAF engineer the power response of all its loudspeakers to radiate sound as evenly as is possible for each model. In this way the proportion of bass, mid and treble in the direct sound correlates more closely with the proportion of bass, mid and treble in the reflected sound and the listeners brain can correlate the two making the speakers less effected by a rooms acoustics and easier to place in a room.

STORED ENERGY DAMPING

All speakers take a moment to stop making sound (decay). The faster a speaker stops making sound the less that sound ‘blankets’ sound which follow it, or finer details in the sound. The more evenly the bass, mid and treble decay the more consistent the ‘pitch’ of the speaker. VAF loudspeakers are among the very few in the world that engineer for fast and even decay in all its incarnations. This includes diffraction, cabinet resonances, internal cabinet sound reflections, stored energy in electrical crossovers and more.

DIFFRACTION CONTROL ABSORBERS

Double Layer Diffraction Control As sound moves across the speaker baffle, it reflects or diffracts off the baffle and baffle edges. Twin layers of diffraction control material effectively stop these destructive reflections before they even happen.

DIFFRACTION CONTROL CAVITY RESONANCE CHAMBERS

Along with Diffraction Control Absorber, larger VAF Signature speakers feature the addition of resonant cavities in the diffraction absorber which significantly increase the frequency range over which the absorber operate.

STEERED REAR WAVE ATTENUATION

VAF loudspeakers are designed to steer the rear energy in a way that transmits it as far away from the driver as possible while also ensuring that energy passes through internal cabinet damping as many times as possible before ultimately returning to the driver. In this way much more rear energy is damped and hence does not re-radiate into the room. The result is a more pure sound.

OPTIMUM Q FILTERS

As no driver is perfect good crossovers also equalise and shape the response of each driver as well as the overall response of the speaker. VAF use a particular type of design approach which minimises the unnecessary stored energy in crossovers, and as a result produce a much more pure and natural sound than conventional crossovers.

HYPERSOFT DAMPING

VAF have performed exhaustive testing to find the most effective damping materials. This generation of Hypersoft offers the best performance yet. Accurate placement within each cabinet ensures maximum attenuation of any internal standing waves.

PURE COPPER WOOFER HEAT SINK

The voice coil of a woofer or midrange driver takes power from an amplifier and converts that to a magnetic force which drives the cone forward or backwards to create a sound wave. Heat is also generated by this process. The electrical resistance of a voice coil increases as its temperature increases. As its electrical resistance increases its efficiency decreases. This results in thermal compression which compresses the sound reproduced, robbing it of the ability to fully express the dynamics of the music it is reproducing. The use of a large copper heat-sink inside the voice-coil that projects forward of the cone into the fresh air of the room the speaker is placed in results in two things.

Firstly, copper is an exceptional conductor of heat, and as such can extract heat from the voice-coil to transfer that heat into the air in front of the cone cooling the voice-coil in the process. Secondly, the mass of the copper is significant and requires a great deal of energy to raise its temperature. As a result the fluctuations in temperature of the voice coil are suppressed. This is particularly useful in minimising compression of sound with big dynamics such as drums and other percussion instruments.

PURE COPPER DOUBLE INDUCTION RINGS

Conventional loudspeakers have relatively high distortion in comparison to the amplifiers feeding them. One of the reasons for this is that the electrical load they represent to the electrical crossovers inside the speaker and the amplifiers feeding them changes with the position of the woofer or midrange voice-coil. A voice coil is not only a motor, like all coils of wire it is also an inductor. When a ferrous metal is inserted into an inductor its inductance increases dramatically. And when removed the inductance reduces dramatically. As a result on every motion of a voice coil forward and backwards into its magnetic system, its inductance constantly changes. This makes it impossible for the electrical crossover to deliver stable performance, nor an amplifier connected to it. By employing large pure copper induction rings both in front of and behind the front magnetic pole piece of a woofer or midrange drivers motor, the inductance of the driver becomes far more consistent and distortion levels are reduced 5-10 times lower than conventional speakers.

We recommend the matching i66 MKIII Centre Speaker