Calling all Von Schweikert VR-9 owners

May I ask who your dealer was please?
It is true all products can be defective at any price point. Looking for a forum solution to an enduser problem with a $60K speaker makes me feel for you.

Rumney

I was just at the factory and saw vr-9's. they dont maufacture many and I bet they might not have replacements for yours on hand, contact the B&O comapny. Heres what I picked up while I was at the san marcos plant. http://home.comcast.net/~jtgale01/andys_room.htm

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'll contact B&O to see what they have to say, but I'm starting to think that the buzz is just normal transformer noise. I'm just over 7' away, and combined with the speaker's high sensitivity and my bat ears, maybe I'm being hypersensitive. And, Larry, I agree with you 110%--for what VSA charges, they SHOULD fly someone out. Even Kevin at VSA agrees with me. Thanks again, guys. Merry Christmas!

Hooper; are you describing an 'electrical buzz' (a kind of hum) or a 'vibration buzz' (something loose that rattles)?

i assume that you have turned off the subwoofer and the noise went away to isolate the noise to a subwoffer issue. btw, i get zero transformer noise unless i actually put my ear on the back plate. i'm sitting about 10 feet away (plus the depth of the speaker)....my room is dead quiet.

one of my VR9's did have that transformer nut you mention not fully torqued down; which i was not able to diagnose until i had resolved some other issues. at first i thought it may have been a bad subwoofer driver. i finally was able to play a 25hz tone continually and then push on the amplifier cover plate and the noise disappeared. so i disassembled the amp module, torqued down the bolt, and all has been perfect since.....and these speakers are regularly challenged with very low frequency music.

i would see if while playing a test tone that causes the noise, you push hard on that amp cover plate (which the transformer rests against) to see the effect. you may not have torqued down that nut a sufficient amount.

as you already know; it is quite easy to do this fix yourself.

one could criticize VSA but after seeing how much i needed to torque down the bolt to stop the vibration; it is understandable that it likely seemed to be ok at the factory. mine were fine for the first month or so.....and i was playing torture tracks 24/7 for breakin......in fact; i may have caused my problem by getting carried away with the break-in. i would never listen at anywhere like the volume i used at breakin for more than a brief moment.

Hooper's VR9's were within the first three or four sets built and mine were about the fifth set built.....so the feedback on these speakers was limited at that point.

My hunch is that the electrical is the culprit.

You make no mention of having dedicated circuits/lines. I will assume you do.

Some to many of your dedicated circuits, lines, and/or outlets may be sharing the same phase / leg at the service panel with major appliances, furnaces, microwave ovens, refrig., and/or dimmers. Have you tried listening with all lights in the entire house turned off and perhaps most appliances off?

Considering that each of your components (including your high current drawing active speakers) should all be on their own dedicated circuits/lines and it appears that you only have two line conditioners, I’d venture a guess that you may either be lacking enough dedicated circuits / lines and/or proper line conditioning for some to many of your components.

-IMO