I spent the evening comparing my Virgo III's to the my Kloss table radio. Being a true point source, crossover free design the Kloss was able to throw a very beguiling sound propelling a coherent sound throughout the room. I love that little thing.
In all seriousness and as a past owner of the Virgo II's I can say that the new model far surpasses the old in every regard. The speaker has only been available for about a month. I have heard them in a couple of dealer showrooms one of which was running the above mentioned MF cd player with Classe amps, the room was large and incredibly overdamped and the speakers clearly not broken in. In that situation I was impressed with the transparent midrange and wnderfully extended highs.
At home in my system in a "real" room and broken they sound nothing short of fabulous. The bass is slightly depper than the previous model but with infinately more detail and excellent pitch accuracy. Now I'll be honest I am not a rock listener and I would point those who are to pro-audio PA systems with kilowatt subs. For me with Jazz and Classical and other acoustic music I find the bass response to very honest in represnting the tone and scale of these instruments.
These are very special speakers with astounding detail and soundstaging, but they do not suffer infereior source components nor do they warm things over and boom up the midbass like the II's did.
I would wholeheartedly disagree with above statements that they are extremely thin on the bottom(compared to what, and in what size room? and with what recording) there are many factors which contribute to percieved bass response the most important being the listeners perception valid or not of reality. I also strongly disagree that the II's with a matching mediocre sub like AP's or even one of the great REL's would best the new II's in every regard. In fact the only improvement would be in the deep bass and due to the REL alone.
The search for High=end speakers need not be frustrating, listen for yourself the Virgo III's are untouchable at the price.
