So today I had the pleasure of listening to these on a nice system at person's home 20min away. The system consisted of the following:
Music Hall MMF-7 tunrtable
HK DVD/CD player (weak link)
Rotel RSP-1068 Pre/Pro
Bel Canto eVo 6 Gen II
Acoustic Zen interconnects
Acoustic Zen Epoch speaker cable
Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen III SE (bi-wire)
Von Schweikert LCR-15 (center)
Von Schweikert VR-2 (rears)
Mike was quite the host! His sister was in town from India and got me a glass of lemonade when I first arrived. We began by talking about the system and how he ended up with what I was drooling over as well as were he was from in India since I work with many from his country. Made for good conversation. Previous to this system his family was using a HTIB (brand unknown) and wanted to go out and spend a few grand on a decent system. As you can tell from the above he went a little over budget!!
He didn't give himself enough credit for what he had learned while doing all the research and listening. He wanted to talk about placement, room treatments, and which CD player/transport he should look at. I was all for talking about all of this. I then went and loked at the speakers and felt the web doesn't do these justice at all. The cloth is much more elegant than I would have thought based on what I see on the web. The caps look like a stained MDF (which they are), but nice overall. I would have chosen real wood if I were Albert, but I'm not. Did I mention they were HUGE! Very large speakers and I knew as soon as I saw them they would not be in my system in the near future as I don't have the space or cash for them ($5995 -10-15%). His room is on the medium to large size as the dimensions were 14'(w)x22'(deep) with 8' sloped ceiling and open to the kitchen in the rear. The speakers filled this space with ease. On to the sound.
He was playing an older Police LP when I arrived and it was at very low volume when we were talking so when we turned it up to normal listening levels a big smile came to my face. I knew right then there was something special about these speakers and I've never heard something so neutral ever before. The sound was very open with no coloration. I was surprised to see that although they are phase aligned, they are NOT time aligned like the VR-4jr. I will say that hearing a phase coherent speaker really makes it! While I don't currently have this in my system there will be a day when I do. They are also a very "big" sounding speaker if that makes any sense. The soundstage was so very wide an the image was spot on. I did bring some of the insulation I am using for acoustic treatment as he mentioned he had none. I say this because once I listened to a few tracks I noticed some reflection issues that were degrading the soundstage. Once I put up some 2'x4' panels at the first reflection points the stage and imaging got that much better. He noticed this as well and is on his way over for more in the morning. I'm not going into all the normal comments on how they "disappeared in the room" and "I checked the center channel to see if it were on" comments as I simply have to say they are the most realistic sounding speakers I've heard to date!
Second half coming soon.....wife just pulled in from her trip!
OK Part 2
With this very neutral sound characteristic I think it is both a positive and negative to these speakers. It is a positive because there is no midrange boost or added highs. The sound is very smooth from top to botom. I think the negative to this is that they are very revealing of the source components. I could see much time spent on matching our oher components to these speaker as they will take on those characteristics. For instance, if you put a nice tube amp/DAC/transport or any "warm" component I'd think the system would then lean to the warm side. You can only imagine what a "bright" source may do. The only other negative is that poorly recorded material would sound quite poor as these speakers are revealing.
BTW, I could see the drivers as they are wrapped in cloth. Mike went on about how great this tweeter (Vifa ring radiator) is and what the sales guy had said about them. I guess they only use this driver in the "custom" line of VSA speakers (VR-4 GenIII SE, VR-7, etc). When I mentioned all of my Rockets use the same tweeter he was quite surprised.
Over an hour after beginning the critical listening I had heard enough. I don't have the room for these nor the cash, but I'll remember this experience fr when I do. I asked if we could then hook the VR-2's up. The VR-2 is a much smaller speaker and very similar in size to my current Onix Rocket 750.
Right off the bat you could tell the differences. While the placement was different. The ratio from speaker to speaker and from listener to speaker was the same however. The VR-2 sounded like a much smaller speaker (makes a lot of sense) and sounded a tad thin after hearing the others. I asked if they hadn't been broken in as they were used as rears, but he said he set them up first and played them for 2 weeks while waiting for the Acoustic Zen cables to arrive. They were a good speaker and very neutral as well, but there was something missing for me. After a half hour or so I wasn't so sure these would be a significant upgrade from my current setup.
Finally it was time to head out, but not until we watched a couple movie clips. When I saw the center channel I thought it to be very very small as my current center is easily twice its size. We watched the beginning to Top Gun (which the new release looked and sounded great) and everything sounded fabulous. I thought the LCR while it did a good job wasn't at the same level as my current. I'd think for MC music this may be an issue. Mike noted this and has plans to get the matching center, but the cost is nearly $3K so it has to wait a year or so.
The experience while great, has left me in wondering what I will do next. I've mentioned twice before that the space I have can't handle the VR-4's and I'm not sure the VR-2 would be that significant of a sound improvement. I think I would be giving something up in the center, but moving to a phase aligned speaker would be nice as it is noticable throughout the lows, mids, and highs. I plan on listening to the VR-2 a few more times and will also A/B them with my curent setup with the P-tech SOCS. I'll give the results of that once it happens.
later
scott
Topic: Von Schweikert VR-4 GenIII SE Review (Read 4516 times)