New Von Schweikert Models

Efficacy

I own the 99's,,, black piano finsih. Here's how I feel about them. When they arrive, pitch the boxes,,, you're gonna own them for a long time!

At CES the 99's were powered by Opera(Cyber series). Personally,,, I'm loving and using VAC,, the Avatar. I spoke with Kevin from VAC at the show and they are releasing a new product,, the VAC Auricle Musicbloc(monoblocks). Its a design adapted from the premium Phi 110/110 model. Its a Class A, direct-coupled triode front end that should offer terrific balance.
Used with the Auricle Preamp,,, it should be a outstanding performer. BTW I'm also using Herbie Audio "combat boot" footers(wood floors) under the 99's and Robert Lee's Acoustic Zen Satori speaker cables and AZ's Matrix IC's.

Jack

Thanks for the post Jack. What is your opinion if I wanted to run them wih my present gear: Ayre V-1X amp, BAT 51-SE pre, Ayre CDP with Tara Labs (IC and speaker cable)? I have only read threads with folks running tube amps with these speakers due to their high efficiency rating.

Thanks,
Mark

Efficacy- I also own the DB99mkII's and have used a few solid state amps on them so far. They work great, but you don't need to use an amp with that kind of power, from my experience the less power=more musical, this is not a concrete rule, but seems to be fairly constant. I had a very highly regarded pair of SS mono's and just didn't feel I needed the power and I could get away with much less power and even get back into tubes(which is what I did). With the quality of tube amps of today its a breeze to use them and they are very reliable. I have been looking for a low wattage SS amp with balanced inputs and its pretty hard to find- I want a second amp for summer/background and possibly movies, I can't see wasting tube life on back ground noise. I am thinking of getting a Pass Aleph 30, maybe not the best, but it should suffice for back ground music.

I have run amps as low as 30 watts and as high as 400, the results are typically the same. The speakers are very dynamic and can produce enjoyable sound at levels lower then 60dB, but are also capable of CRANKING if you desire. From my listening so far I find that tube amps make a more natural sound with the db99's. Just make sure you listen only after broken in, when new they sound pretty bad, the tweeter even honks a little when new!

Of course this is just my experience.....

Efficacy, next week I'm going to inject a DK Design Group VS-1 MKII amp into my 99 system for a spin. I've been using this amp/preamp with a pair of VR4jrs over the last several weeks. The jrs have really opened up with the VS-1 like never before. I've tried the 100w Flying Mole mono amps to nice effect with the 99's. The recent Stereo Times review of the dB99's even mentioned the use of the big 500wpc Spectron MII.

I'd agree with Tireguy, the 99's seem to be a magic match with tubes.

An attachable ribbon supertweeter module will at some point be available for the 99's that will propel this speaker to even greater sonic heights. A small scale/poor man's VR 9 if you will, that should be dynamite!

Jack

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will continue to monitor feedback on this speaker (along with their newly released VR4SR), as I plan on upgrading my present B&W N805 speakers later this year.