Seasoned ears only

had VR4 for about 2 year, and I'tell you, those where the only speakers, that when people came to my house for audition, they look like they have seen a ghost, in total disbelief, at one point whent to audition a pair of proac 3.8, just listened the first track, and walked away, my set up was day and night, my system with the VR4, sounded much better, remember when listened the first notes from a track I'was very famyliar with, I' just smile and whent back home a happy guy,
eventually the VR4 where replaced by, Merlins VSM mme, lost half the Bass, and had to spend a tone of money on cables {cardas GR} to make them sound right,
still miss the VR4s, nothing in the $8000 range, cant' compete, they are ugly, bulky, but, Boy, do they make music,
if you have the room, dont' waist your money on anything else, they sound the best, with tube gear,
my new spekers cost three times more than the VR4, and to this day I' believe I' made a step backwards:

Cheers:

I still own Spendor BC1---which was the best speaker I could afford many, many moons ago after determining there was no way Quad ESL's were going to fit in my space.

Sure, I have heard meaningfully better speakers since, but never for anything but an astronomical price difference.

@willieva, Roger Modjeski of Music Reference has developed a mod for the 121 Interface (he studied it, and found faults he could eliminate), as well a direct-drive tube amp for ESL’s. Modjeski designed and built the direct-drive tube amp used in the legendary Beveridge ESL.

klipschking

As a former owner of Quads and VR4 Gen 2 speakers I totally get where you are coming from.

In the 90s I had Quad 63s stacked on the famous Gradient dipole subwoofers designed specially for the Quads.  It still is probably the most seamless match of stat and subwoofer I’ve ever encountered.  It produced such a huge, midrange - centered wall of transparent sound.  Ot never failed to wow me and guests.

When I began to find the palpabily and body lacking in the electrostatic sound (I continue to find this the case with every stat I’ve heard) I searched long and hard for a dynamic speaker to replace the Quad/Gradients.   It was only upon encountering the Von Schweikert VR 4s that I found something comparable.  And when the Gen 2 version came out the form factor was better and the sound further refined so I bought a pair.

The strengths of the VR speakers were they sounded like a dynamic version of the Quads/Gradients - transparent, boxless, big and rich in the midrange, startlingly 3 dimensional imaging and soundstaging, but with the punch and body of a dynamic speaker.

I definielty had many guests looking like they had seen a ghost when those were played properly set up.  Friends used to refer to them as if I had some sort of magic speaker :)

Its hard to know for sure how much is nostalgia or those early blown-away moments when you begin this hobby.  But I have long had the sense that it has been tough to equal the Quad/Gradients or VRs in the sheer spectacle they conjured.
The VRs were particularly dramatic given they were rated down to 20Hz and I believe measured fairly close to that.  They could do live concert recordings like Earth Wind and Fire with a massive sense of scale!

I’ve owned many speakers and auditioned many others in my home and I think it wasn’t until I got the Thiel 3.7s that those systems were finally trounced.   The Thiels did scale similar to the VRs, imaging as well - better even in terms of focus/density - even better tonal bass, but with more accuracy, transparency/detail and a more realistic tone.

Stlll, I’d love to travel back in time to my listening sofa just to experience my old Quad and VR systems again!