First round of auditions disappointing

Seadweller,
I remember occasionally being irked and not finding the holy grail (for me only, others may disagree) for a long time. The old, three box version of the Audio Physic Caldera sounded phenomenal, and retailed for 20K. I couldn't afford them at the time even at the discounted price of 10 K. The culmination of my approximately 15 year (intermittent) search was the Intuitive Design Summit, which I love. Perhaps worth a listen.

Seadweller,

You weren't satisfied with your previous VR4's, yet, many would consider this speaker as excellent value for money and a great speaker in its own right.

I suspect you are in a tough situation for a highly dynamic but not boxy full range speaker, at the $5K price point (new). I am not at all surprised by your disappointments, so far.

I'll refrain from any more advice and watch with interest your selection process....G'luck!

Fair questions, which I'll be happy to answer if it will help narrow things:

Room Size: Approximately 14 x 20 (shorter than I thought)
Amplifier: 250wpc solid state
Music: From Bach to Prong, mostly jazz
Size Res.: None within reason, floorstander preferred
Source: Currently CD, but vinyl as well in the future
Budget: I'd like to stay below $5K if possible

Now, about my prior VR-4's:

Likes: Excellent imaging and soundstaging, wide response, pretty darned good midrange, fairly good highs.

Dislikes: Excessive midbass warmth, slow presentation lacked pace and transient attack, loose bass, total lack of dynamics and punch, compression at higher levels.

The system may be moved to a much larger space, so I don't want to limit my choices based on the current room size. As I've said, I like a good detailed presentation with excellent soundstaging and imaging, but I'm dying for that fast paced, transient, dynamic, punchy, lively sound that doesn't change character as you raise the volume.

I had the first generation VR-4's, so it's quite likely that Von Schweikert's new designs are quite different than mine, which was some 10 years old. Even the VR-4.5 was supposed to have been a marked improvement over the VR-4, and it came less than a year after the VR-4 was introduced. I believe the VR-4.5 went to 9" Eton woofers with cast frames, whereas the woofers in my VR-4's were 8" polypropylene with stamped metal frames. The cross-over point was also evidently changed to cure what was a common complaint, lack of mid-bass punch and dynamics, which slowed the overall presentation of the speaker and made the bass sound tubby because of a "hole" in the spectrum.

I liked the VR-4's enough to keep them for 10+ years, so believe me, they did a lot of things right. I was able to overcome many of the bass issues, but the system still lacked dynamics and impact. They were a very laidback speaker system, and I knew that going in, but I felt their other charasterics outweighed the lack of dynamics.

Eventually, I got bored of the lack of excitement the speakers generated, and found that I no longer listened to the system. That's primarly what prompted me to sell them and start the search.

I'm in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, and the selection here is terrible, so it's very, very unlikely I'll have the luxury of auditioning a speaker in my own home, let alone within 100 miles!