Have you seen the VR9SE Review?

Right on Jaybo. You hit the nail right on the head. I have a 20 year old pair of Duntech Sovereigns designed by John Dunlavy while he was in Australia and there's not a heck of a lot of speakers out there that are as musical and dynamic. The big Dynaudio speakers are basically the same type of speaker as the Duntechs. You would have to spend $30,000 and up to possibly get a few improvements. Just my 2 cents worth from a lifetime audiophile.

"...a year to write, is like writing a review of a $200m movie that 20 people are gonna see."

Jaybo, good point. You may be right and here's how I see that: A year's worth of time and $200m reflects the value one places on those 20 people. What a world it would be if everyone was valued like that. A Heart felt Thank You to folks like Mike, Jtinn and Von Schweikert for caring enough to invest huge amounts of time and resource even if it makes a positive difference for only 20 people. I Think that's quite a thing.

Sincerely.
Robert
RSAD

While I thought it was a fascinating story about an audiophile's pursuit for high quality sound, it really wasn't a very good review. The was much writing about swapping equipment and tweaking settings, but very little about how the loudspeaker sounds. Sure there was talk about bass linearity, detail, air and depth, but was there a single mention of how a specific piece of music sounded? Although he mentions at several times that he has a custom designed room I wish he would have gone into more detail about the design goals of the room and its effect on the speaker's performance. I suspect one of the reasons he had so much trouble coming to grip with the speaker's sound was due his unfamiliarity with new room and the near total turnover of the rest of his system. Finally, I would have liked a comparison with other statement oriented speakers.

It's not really a review, but a story.

Jtinn,

Thanks for pointing out this article. Mike did a fantastic job of describing a wonderful journey to achieveing what must be absolutely amazing sound. I am in awe.

Two-thirds of the way through the article, however, I was troubled that all these adjustments seemed to be chasing something as elusive as the end of a rainbow.

Just as there is no perfect speaker, there is no absolutely perfect audio recording (which would be mixed and mastered with the same perfect equipment and room that you use for playback).

In fact, many recordings are mastered on systems in rooms far less impressive than Mike's, some on Yamaha NS10's, for example. Naturally Mike's fantastic set up should reveal the source for what it is....not only in all its glory but also the warts.

I could be totally wrong, but I feel that the over-abundance of speaker adjustments on these speakers might lead to a temptation to try to fix some of the warts...a worthy but elusive goal that ends up forever going in frustrating circles (given the warts are different on each recording).