Have you seen the VR9SE Review?

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).

Wow, so interesting! That is one of the most thoughtful reviews I have read. Makes me wish I could afford to spend that much money on speakers. Maybe if I pinch my pennies I can afford to buy a pair off of http://higherfi.com/index.html#anchorspkrs, looks like they are selling all the VS speakers at 40% off!!!!

Thanks for your hard work and excellent review Mike. Thanks to Jtinn for bringing it to our attention too.

Some day I am going to visit Mike and give these a listen, perhaps when work slows down.

i'm not sure what you would call my collection of thoughts either......as my first paragraph states.

i agree it is not a review in a strict sense.

likely a better title may have been; "Adapting the System to the new room.....featuring the VR9's"......as the focus is on the VR9's in the context of the room and the changing components as opposed to the VR9's by themselves.

to be clear; the review did not take a year to write. there simply was no conclusion to express until things sorted themselves out......which took a year. then i wrote the article in a couple of nights.

as i stated a few times in the article; the adjustability of the VR9 had it's dark side; but once mastered it is IMHO far superior to any 'one size fits all' design......in the same way that some talk of the very best audio components they have yet heard are not commercial products. there is nothing like properly executed truely custom built stuff.

there was a time that i did adjust the settings for different friends and even different software. but that was when i was lacking confidence in where i was at......and you do run the danger of getting caught up in adjustments for adjustments sake. i'm past that point now and now only in vary specific situations i will make very small adjustments when i know the musical involvement gain is significant.

over on my system thread i have detailed many of the design decisions that i went thru in the last year with component changes that i glossed over in the article as i felt that more detail about those would just get tedious (or more tedious:)) if you have questions regarding the room design itself please follow the link provided in the article to my previous room design and construction article.

i have done a good bit of listening to other 'Statement' speakers but felt that (other than the Kharma Exquisites) i really did not want to get into that. i will just say that i state at the beginning of the article what my target speaker performance was.....there are ZERO other speakers that i have heard that fit that bill in my experience.....particularly after my experience.....but i have not heard everything.

yes; i could have got into particular cuts of music; but i think i made my opinion clear on the sonic attributes of the VR9 in my summation at the end. the VR9's sound like music if your system does.

you need to understand that you can actually choose how you want things to sound......almost without limit. so what characteristics do you then assign to the speaker? the only valid characteristic is that the VR9's serve the music in your tastes.

to my ears voices sound like voices; pianos sound like pianos; trumpets sound like trumpets......to the degree that the software can render them.

the VR9's are limited by software, the characteristics of the supporting gear and little else.