Reference 3A upgrades!
Posting this as both a thank you to Mr. Tash and as information for anyone who’s contemplating upgrading their Reference 3A’s. I just received back my Royal Virtuoso monitors with every viable upgrade option and what I have here before me is a VAST improvement over the original. I’m running them 24/7 to break in, the beryllium tweeter is pretty badass, superb definition with apparently zero fatigue. Communication was good and turnaround time was about 2 weeks after all the options were decided. Bonus points to Tash for tolerating my relentless questions. Exemplary customer service from Divergent Technologies, I couldn’t be more satisfied.
Here’s the work order:
This replaces existing old paper in oil capacitors (also excellent but a little too slow for the new beryllium dome tweeters).
@theedge I’ve been throughly enjoying the Royals. I currently have a Rel S510 with them and it’s a fantastic pairing. The imaging and soundstage is amazing and the beryllium tweeter is completely non-fatiguing. Thankfully I’ve not had any issues with mine. In regards to the wiring, I was looking at the work order and it states: Internal Wiring- High Purity 6N OCC copper with Teflon Dielectric, continuous cast single crystal cryo treated. Appropriate thickness of wires used for each driver. |
It’s such a great speaker, I’m glad you are enjoying yours. I ended up trading the RV’s toward a pair of La Suprema II’s and I really do think the Royal Virtuoso’s with the upgrades are very compelling compared to the stock La Suprema II. I’m hoping to be able to do an extended head to head comparison at my place soon. If and when it happens, I will report back. |
@theedge Wow! Didn’t know about the La Suprema II, are they RV’s on top of a Bass module? |
Sorry I took a while to reply. The La Suprema II is basically the Royal Master (Corian sides) sitting on top of twin unpowered subwoofers. It takes some extra power to drive these of course, but you get additional bass. As my room is large, it is appreciated. They were made in the late 90's in Switzerland by Daniel Dehay, before the company was sold to Tash and moved to Kitchener, Ontario. Very musical speakers. In comparison (not head to head), I think that post-upgrade the Royal Virtuoso's had more speed, finesse and resolution than the stock Suprema II's, which is high praise as the Suprema is excellent. There is something very special about the Royal Virtuoso cabinet. |
Thanks for your thoughts. The RV full Corian cabinets are incredibly inert, the only issue is maintenance. While polishing the speakers one day I noticed that the l left speaker had a verrry fine hairline crack running right along side the top edge of the cabinet. I had a couple of Corian fabricators take a look them. They told me that repairing a structural crack requires routing out a channel and re-filling it with a composite ($$$). Thankfully the hairline is only cosmetic and could be sealed with a Corian epoxy (a rather expensive and difficult to find epoxy) to prevent it from spreading. When the speakers went to Divergent for upgrade, I had Tash inspect the cabinets and he verified that they were fine. Btw, Divergent does not stock replacement Corian cabinets so ownership runs the risk of a costly repair if ever needed. Anyway, I’m still fascinated by the RV’s luxurious sound and their ability to completely vanish from the room regardless of the recording…magnificent. |
