Vandersteen 3A Sig vs. Von Schweikert VR4 Jr.

So many criticisms of the Von Schweikerts, I have to say something. The VRjr is so revealing, it revealed blatant distortion in tube amplifiers that my B&W 802's never revealed. This shocked the heck out of me. I hear details in recordings never heard before. I hear complex musical threads unraveled so I can hear every element.

Listening to speakers in stereo stores often brings disappointing and misleading results. Unfortunately, many stores have dreadful setups where nearly everything sounds awful. There are dealers, as well as audiophiles, who lack the discernment and discrimination to know what truly musical sound is.

As far as speakers disappearing, the VRjr has done this more than any speakers I have had or listened to. The transparency and see-through quality was shocking, even when I first hooked them up cold, with no break-in. They are truly serving as a reference quality device to zero in on the character of every component in my system. I never heard such differences in power cords on every component in my system as I do with these speakers.

Albert Von Schweikert is a speaker design genius, and has an impeccable engineering background and credentials. He has designed speakers for other major companies, including the famed Eggleston Andra. I have no connection with Von S., I'm just a happy VS owner.

It’s very sad how so many dealers dump as many speakers that are pushed against the wall and expect us to learn about the true qualities of a particular speaker. To qualify my point further, I was in a store looking at different amps and have stumbled across a McIntosh Amp/Von Schweikert VR-4jr demo. I was very disappointed with this set-up.

VR-4jr’s were not loaded with lead and didn’t have the spikes. One of the speaker’s was berried in the corner of a room and practically blocked by the other demo speaker. The M/T module was not sited properly almost falling-off of the bass enclosure. The other speaker was pushed against the wall next to the open door. A single run of MIT cables were incorrectly plugged-in into the bass input of the woofer module and the interlink cable was used for attaching M/T to this woofer module.

As cheap as my electronics is, my VR-4jr’s sound 100 times better simply because I’ve followed the instructions provided to me in the manual. Why should we pay extra dollars to so-called dealers if they don’t even understand how to properly set-up audio systems?

Obviously everyone has a taste for a particular sound, as far as my taste goes the VR-4jr’s sound incredible if properly set-up.

Best regards,
Alex

Don't forget about Meadowlark Ospreys, which are an easy and tube-friendly load. Tubes are the way to go for jazz and acoustical music, if your room allows for proper set-up. Meadowlarks are imaging champs, too.

I am as small a dealer as is possible, I sell nothing else and just started a couple of days ago. If you check my posts you'll see I've posted recommendations of VMPS speakers, along with many others for a very long time. It's out of my house and any income is pure frosting. I make the minimum and haven't even sold but one pair. I stand by my recommendation that the VMPS soundly thrash Vandersteen's especially for what this person is wanting. It's no contest. Magnapan 3.6's will also do it. For acoustic music go listen to some planars and once you do you'll find the speed and naturalness make cone drivers, at least that I've heard, sound wanting. It's NOT subtle. I will disclose I am a dealer in the future but like I said I owned the Vandersteens. I also have a friend who owned the Vandersteens sold them to buy some VMPS speakers. That said the Vandersteens can do well on some music at low levels but omit so much of the music as to be useful only for quartets and background music imo. That's my opinion only, I don't believe any speaker is for everybody but that people should listen to as many as they can before they buy anything.

"I stand by my recommendation that the VMPS soundly thrash Vandersteen's especially for what this person is wanting. It's no contest"

Well then I must be an idiot then cause what I hear and FEEL from the 3A Sigs, especially listening to jazz and acoustic music (a very large portion of my listening time)is nothing short of amazing! I'm not alone in this regard though, as many of my friends and even my wife are drawn in by the Vandersteen's.

"That said the Vandersteens can do well on some music at low levels but omit so much of the music as to be useful only for quartets and background music imo"

What a load of horse pucky! Omit what, they don't omit anything. Look at the graphs, listen to them. What possibly are they omitting. I must simply be an idiot and not know what I'm supposed to hear then. What confuses me though are the "chills" I get when say Eva Cassidy is singing Autumn Leaves off Songbird, or Ray Brown's Solar Energy has me glued to my chair for over an hour, or Amiee Mann's Lost in Space, or Jerry Garcia/David Grisman' Shady Road, or any jazz record from the Three Blind Mice label.........

Vandersteen's are alot like Volkswagon's (I drive two of them), the Oakland Raiders (my passion since age 7), the Grateful Dead (been a "Head" since age 15 - and the live Dead music through the Vandersteen's is great, great, stuff), and my new Apple Ibook - you either love them or hate them. With all of the above, there is a very passionate group who love them, and an equally passionate group who hate em!