Floorstanding loudspeakers — Venture Audio Ultimate MKII

Venture Audio lists the Ultimate MKII as a passive three-way tower of its Ultimate Series, fitted with the C-shaped cabinet and a newly designed crossover compared with the earlier Ultimate. In the current series it is placed below the Grand Ultimate, the Ultimate Reference and the Xtreme, and above the slimmer Encore tower. Venture has produced the internal wiring for its own speakers since 1987 and has made its own drive units since 2001, so the drivers, the filter and the cable inside this cabinet all come from the same company.

Key specs that matter

A 1.5 inch AGC dynamic tweeter sits above a 5 inch CFGC midrange, and three 7 inch AGC woofers handle the low end. Venture gives the frequency range as 26 Hz to 40,000 Hz, with a sensitivity of 90 dB and a nominal impedance of 6 ohm. The maker states the speaker takes up to 400 W from an amplifier without clipping. The enclosure is 115 cm tall, 33 cm wide and 45 cm deep, and one speaker weighs 75 kg. The veneer is Makasar Ebony under polyester high gloss. Venture asks for a minimum of 100 hours of playing time for break-in.

Engineering and use context

All Venture crossovers are first-order types with a slope of 6 dB per octave, and in passive models such as this one each network is hand built and its parts are joined point to point. Every part is measured before assembly and the finished network is tested again. A first-order slope keeps the phase shift between neighbouring drivers low, but it asks each driver to behave well far outside its main band, which is why Venture designs its own units for this purpose. The woofers use a voice coil developed for this model. In a C-shaped cabinet the side walls curve in toward a narrow front baffle, which reduces the flat area around the drivers where reflections can form. The walls themselves alternate high-density fiberboard and solid hardwood, with internal braces forming separate compartments, and the veneer is covered with a polyester coat about 1300 microns thick that also adds damping.

Pairing

Its moderate load and good sensitivity place no unusual demands on solid-state amplifiers, so a design of modest output can drive the Ultimate MKII. The high power ceiling allows larger amplifiers to be used without risk to the drivers. Venture also builds its own amplifiers, among them the V200A+ and the V120S.

Alternatives

The Venture Audio Encore is the smaller V-shaped tower of the Ultimate Series, with two AGC woofers instead of three and a 112 cm tall cabinet weighing 60 kg.