One Amigo Visits South East Asia and Hears Some Amazing Systems

[JackD201]

The reason those of us that go with big systems is not to play loud but rather to get the advantage of being able to play with less stress on the individual transducers to reach normal sound pressure levels. In Jim's case his system has almost no stress at realistic sound pressure levels. Add a room where you have full wave development at 20 Hz and low RT60 and you get that over the full spectrum. Now this is not to say it will turn crap into gold. This is where Jim's software comes in. Pristine LPs and great tapes of great music recorded well, enough of them where you could play non-stop for maybe two weeks without repeating a track and things get really scary.

Unmentioned by anybody is the heroic efforts that have gone into the power for the room. Not just audiophile stuff but the back room. The AC power supply uses filtration normally used for industrial security printing machines and other devices that require extreme stability at overkill KVA.

The 11s and 111s share the trait that they create coherent pressure waves. The difference is that Jim's pressure wave is so large and enveloping that they extend past field of view. Think I-Max. This is what live music is like that most systems fail at. Now think huge Soundlabs or huge Maggie allowed to breath and without the constraints of running out of gas ever and without the inherent limit of artifacts that show up at the point where the crimped edges from the frames reflect back into the panels at the rare but important peaks/climaxes in classical pieces . As Jerry puts it there are peaks in some material where we've been conditioned to anticipate the inevitable cringe but here and if I may be allowed to brag a bit and at home, when those moment come, there is no break up

There is no magic going on here. It's care for the small signals, consistency throughout the spectrum and low distortion through good basic design and the provision of more than sufficient headroom. Those are the baseline performance parameters. As for tone color that's where Jim can do his salt n peppering to taste by choice of tubes, carts, headblocks, tensioning etc. Of course we all have different tastes and Jim and I have our own preferred "sound", mine being more sloped and Jim being more linear. Our difference however is more in our bass response preference. I prefer slightly looser and softer bass and more of it. Jazz club upright bass feeling as I don't listen to classical music as much as he does. That said either system can be set up accordingly as Steve witnessed in a mater of a couple of minutes to get in the ballpark. This flexibility is what drew us to these speakers. In the early years our purists friends said we were cheating LOL. These days where powered subs and even DSP are now very much accepted we no longer get accused of that!

 

[jadis]

The reason those of us that go with big systems is not to play loud but rather to get the advantage of being able to play with less stress on the individual transducers to reach normal sound pressure levels. In Jim's case his system has almost no stress at realistic sound pressure levels. Add a room where you have full wave development at 20 Hz and low RT60 and you get that over the full spectrum. Now this is not to say it will turn crap into gold. This is where Jim's software comes in. Pristine LPs and great tapes of great music recorded well, enough of them where you could play non-stop for maybe two weeks without repeating a track and things get really scary.

Unmentioned by anybody is the heroic efforts that have gone into the power for the room. Not just audiophile stuff but the back room. The AC power supply uses filtration normally used for industrial security printing machines and other devices that require extreme stability at overkill KVA.

The 11s and 111s share the trait that they create coherent pressure waves. The difference is that Jim's pressure wave is so large and enveloping that they extend past field of view. Think I-Max. This is what live music is like that most systems fail at. Now think huge Soundlabs or huge Maggie allowed to breath and without the constraints of running out of gas ever and without the inherent limit of artifacts that show up at the point where the crimped edges from the frames reflect back into the panels at the rare but important peaks/climaxes in classical pieces . As Jerry puts it there are peaks in some material where we've been conditioned to anticipate the inevitable cringe but here and if I may be allowed to brag a bit and at home, when those moment come, there is no break up

There is no magic going on here. It's care for the small signals, consistency throughout the spectrum and low distortion through good basic design and the provision of more than sufficient headroom. Those are the baseline performance parameters. As for tone color that's where Jim can do his salt n peppering to taste by choice of tubes, carts, headblocks, tensioning etc. Of course we all have different tastes and Jim and I have our own preferred "sound", mine being more sloped and Jim being more linear. Our difference however is more in our bass response preference. I prefer slightly looser and softer bass and more of it. Jazz club upright bass feeling as I don't listen to classical music as much as he does. That said either system can be set up accordingly as Steve witnessed in a mater of a couple of minutes to get in the ballpark. This flexibility is what drew us to these speakers. In the early years our purists friends said we were cheating LOL. These days where powered subs and even DSP are now very much accepted we no longer get accused of that!

Well said, Jack. The clearest explanation I've heard so far. Now, I really don't know if home music is art or science anymore. LOL

 

[Steve Williams]

The difference is that Jim's pressure wave is so large and enveloping that they extend past field of view. Think I-Max. This is what live music is like that most systems fail at.

The bolded is from me but this was my point that I was trying to make before that we can all play loud but getting it to sound like the symphony hall seems to be a whole lot easier with Jim's due to the size of that pressure wave. We talk about first reflections as well but this is IMO a non issue in Jim's room based on size as well as extremely well hidden acoustic treatments.

When Jack and I talked about the difference between the sound in his room versus that in Jim's, Jack said his is the jazz club and Jim's is the symphony hall. Then when he described how the subs could be adjusted to alter that wave is what I found fascinating about the speaker and in that room as Jack described I thought jokingly really was exactly the way they were tuned.

Rudolph I am not that easy to convince as you suggest. I can tell you that Jim's system is like none other I have ever heard and with the music he has to play and in the manner in which he can play it and at levels that are effortless but nonetheless convincing, it for me is my reference. I have heard many great systems and all of the ones that i have heard and described here are unique and superb in their own way. Jim's however is so meticulously planned from a dirt lot beside his house to what I heard and described hear. Other things should not go unnoticed such as the 1-2 degree temperature max variance in his room on any given day 24 x 7 x 365. Can you imagine doing this in the USA let alone in Manila where the temp is so high as well as the humidity, things which aren't good for tape.

Also the over 200 feet of top of the line Master Built cable inside the speakers and probably the same or more used as interconnect in Jim's system.Please read Albert's description of that wire. Also talking of cables I can say that they were all but mostly invisible unless you look behind his racks. Much of it is under the floor.

The other thing that is noteworthy is that a speaker of this size can produce human vocals in lifelike size and small groups just as easily. There was nothing the speaker was lacking

 

[fas42]

Unmentioned by anybody is the heroic efforts that have gone into the power for the room. Not just audiophile stuff but the back room. The AC power supply uses filtration normally used for industrial security printing machines and other devices that require extreme stability at overkill KVA.

This is another natural advantage, . The circuitry working with clean power supplies is a major consideration, and at realistic - not loud - volume levels this becomes extremely important; every ounce of effort expended in improving this area, and in my case this is done on the equipment, not mains side, will be rewarded.

 

[Albert Von Schweikert]

Hello Fellow Audiophiles,

I'm glad that there is such excitement in this excellent audio forum; this is truly a group of like-minded individuals! After 40 years of seeking the Holy Grail, I can just see it, through the mist. We're getting close, friends! Several of you had asked questions which I will try to answer without excess verbiage.

First, Steve had asked why we built a single nine-foot tower instead of the easier-to-ship multiple stacking cabinets like the VR-11SE Mk2. The simple answer: we were asked to design what we felt would be the ultimate speaker in terms of theoretical performance and sound quality. Even though we do not hear or measure any "wobble" when playing the stacked cabinets of the three-cabinet VR-11SE Mk2, theoretically there must be an extremely small amount of vibration and/or rocking ("wobble") when the bass is playing at extremely high volume levels. A single, massive cabinet solves that issue. Each of the four subwoofer and main towers are nine-feet tall and weigh around 1,000 lbs. The cabinet walls are 3" thick, consisting of resin-impregnated compressed wood dust (a 12" thickness is pressed with heat and 20 tons of force when the resin is injected, resulting in a 1" thickness), lined with a 25mm stone slab inner wall, all bonded together with a very sticky damping material that looks like semi-soft tar. That substance is made to damp nuclear submarine hulls and has one of the highest coefficients of vibration absorption in existence. The front baffles are 4" thick in total, with a 30mm sheet of aluminum drilled to accept the bolts used to attach the drivers. If you've read "Robert Harley's Visit to Albert Von Schweikert's Design Studio" last year in The Absolute Sound (both the print and on-line versions), you saw his photographs where you can see the build up of the cabinet's various layers and the submarine damping material. By the way, since the three layers of materials are vibrating at different frequencies, based on their "Q" factors, we call this an "active noise reduction design" since the vibrations cancel each other out, similar to this simple equation: +1 and -1 = 0. See my White Paper in our Audio Circle forum for more information on this patent pending technique.

The front baffle has a 30mm thick aircraft-grade anodized aluminum plate that is drilled to accept the driver's bolts. This aluminum driver mounting plate "floats" on a 12mm thick layer of the damping material placed on top of the existing 3" thick sandwich of resin-impregnated HDF with the stone slab lining. The damping material locks the aluminum plate into place and serves to damp the ringing of the raw aluminum. I asked Robert Harley to try to move the front baffle around on the damping sheet, and he could not; the damping material has such a strong bond that we have to use a crowbar to remove the internal stone blocks or the front baffle. Naturally, as a fail-safe, we also use bolts inserted from the inside of the cabinet in the event that the cabinet is dropped more than ten or twenty feet by the crane at the shipyard. Just kidding!

Next, dds asks how our Ambience Retrieval System derives its signal. Great question! Does anyone here remember quadraphonic sound from the late 1960's and early '70's? The Japanese brands all invented their own types of "matrix" decoders (Sansui's QS, etc) that would extract the rear channels from phase information encoded in the recording. Some of these matrix systems could even simulate four channel sound from a stereo source. In 1969, David Hafler had simplified the matrix decoder and designed a version to extract the ambiance signal from a conventional stereo signal. As I had owned several of these systems and had experimented with augmenting the depth of the stereo field by placing all four speakers in the front of the room, I decided to incorporate this idea into my original VR-4 speaker system of the 1970-80's era. To fully describe how the circuit works and why we use it, please read some of my White Papers, published a few years ago on our Audio Circle forum.
All of our company's Virtual Reality (VR) speaker systems incorporate the dipole radiation pattern, using tweeters driven by the extraction of depth from the stereo signal. Although we have built full range dipoles, they need to be placed very far into the room, and in addition, the wall behind the speakers will affect the sound in either a positive or negative way, depending on the wall material - be it plaster sheet rock, wood paneling, glass windows, and so forth. We decided to make the rear dipolar sound wave adjustable so that the room would not need to be modified; many people have "significant others" that hate the look of foam panels on the wall (including my wife). There are yet other audiophiles who do not wish to use the depth enhancement, based on their very "live" room conditions. That is why an adjustable ambience dipole system is a desirable feature.

For my last topic, I would be the first to agree that it is theoretically impossible for a stereo system to "exactly" reproduce any live source, especially a huge wall of sound like a symphony orchestra playing in a huge concert hall. However, that being said, technology is rapidly advancing in every single stereo component and limitations that ten years ago seemed insurmountable, have now been conquered. Man did reach the moon, did he not? Artificial intelligence is right around the corner, and the Higgs boson particle has been discovered by CERN's engineers at the Large Hadron Collider. We are in the Golden Age of science, my friends! What was thought to be impossible just a few years ago has now been revealed to be just another engineering problem.

Here's the crux of the situation regarding whether or not a stereo system can sound like "the real thing:"
1. Distortion and coloration in speakers (at the high end) are now things of the past. Yes, there is still residual distortions that can be measured, but we're at the point where the slight audibility of these colorations do not spoil the illusion. Just a few years ago, every speaker on the market was highly colored and/or distorted compared to today's offerings, so this misconception is still lingering. There are also feelings that a cone speaker system cannot compete with an electrostatic speaker on a transient or coherence level. As I have owned more than ten pairs of Quads, Magneplanars, Martin Logans, and amp-busting Apogees (1 ohm load!), I routinely compare our prototypes during the R&D stage with planar speakers. Ten years ago, the comparison disheartened me, but in the past few years, I'm extremely happy with our performance level. However, I digress....

2. If you really want to reproduce the sound of an orchestra, many of you correctly stated that the room and speakers must be very large; the ear cannot be fooled by a mini monitor in a bedroom (unless you're playing small scale music, which I also love). However, we have heard our mid-sized VR-55 Aktive sound fantastic in an average sized living room or den; the room treatment in that case has to be very well designed and installed, and the equipment has to be powerful, clean, and rich in tone quality. I believe that the scale of the music has to be mirrored by the scale of the stereo system and room; I think we can all agree on that.

3. Most importantly, the dynamic range is one of the keys to the illusion that a huge orchestra is playing in front of you. Think about this: what if you had 26,000-watts of peak power for reserve, 44 drivers of the highest quality level, and speakers that have a sensitivity of 94dB? That is what Jimmy has in his system! Most of the power in an orchestra is located from 16hz to 150Hz; this frequency range is where 85% of the power is required. Each of the eight plate amplifiers that drive the eight 12" subwoofers have 1,000-watts r.m.s. and nearly 3,000-watts of peak power on transients, like bass drum whacks. When you add in the VTL Siegrieds at 650-watts r.m.s. x 2, with a total of 1,300 watts driving the 16 pcs of 7" midbass drivers, then add in the 450-watts per channel, 900-watts total power of the VAC Statement amplifiers that drive the 8pcs of 5" midrange and 12 tweeters, you have a vast amount of air motion, pushed by 26,000-watts peak and 44 drivers. That is an extreme dynamic range, but is absolutely required in a room the size of Jimmy's. As Jack just mentioned, they don't play the music at PA rock concert levels, but they are looking for that sense of ease and lack of distortion on peaks. You can feel that the speakers are eager to "jump" to a very high s.p.l., it is a quality that you can sense. This is an important part of the illusion, and when combined with the VR-111XS ULTRA's radiation pattern which promotes a highly realistic feeling of being in the same hall with the orchestra, the illusion is nearly complete. Your mind does the rest....

Happy Listening, my Friends!

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I am reading this above post with a smile on my face I have been repeating in this forum that authentic reproduction, something that can fool you in a consistent fashion requires power. I was brought to this line of thinking when another great designer Tom Danley mentioned that a simple key jingling had peaks of 120dB at 1 meter !! It became clear to me to reproduce music in a lifelike fashion requires power,lot of it. Reading this post by Albert Von Schweikert another person whose speakers have impressed me, I know that for me the road is high power combined with high efficiency speakers. THere is much more to what Jim's system than power but it is clear that the system realism has a lot to do with the power available and of course the quality of that power. It is a given that the speakers and the room are up to the task too but IMO Power is key to realistic sound reproduction.

 

[Audiocrack]

"

"Hello Fellow Audiophiles,

For my last topic, I would be the first to agree that it is theoretically impossible for a stereo system to "exactly" reproduce any live source, especially a huge wall of sound like a symphony orchestra playing in a huge concert hall."

Thanks much for your contributions to this forum, highly appreciated!

In your quote you (only) mention that it is THEORETICALLY not possible for an audio system to fully duplicate a live source, in particular a symphony orchestra playing in a fine and large music hall. Are you implying, as some of our members are doing in this thread, that in your view it is PRACTICALLY possible?

 

[jadis]

Way back, didn't HP start the term and named his mag The Absolute Sound? And wasn't that absolute sound THE LIVE hall or musical event that all audio components or systems were to be pinned against? Illusory and subjective, the result will always differ from one person to another, then or now, but now, I can say it gets much much much closer, if not the same as the Absolute Sound itself, in the form of Jim's music palace.

 

[JackD201]

"

"Hello Fellow Audiophiles,

For my last topic, I would be the first to agree that it is theoretically impossible for a stereo system to "exactly" reproduce any live source, especially a huge wall of sound like a symphony orchestra playing in a huge concert hall."

Thanks much for your contributions to this forum, highly appreciated!

In your quote you (only) mention that it is THEORETICALLY not possible for an audio system to fully duplicate a live source, in particular a symphony orchestra playing in a fine and large music hall. Are you implying, as some of our members are doing in this thread, that in your view it is PRACTICALLY possible?

In what sense do you mean "practically"?

I don't think any of us here have ever claimed it is a full duplication Rudolph. All we are saying is that is a closer approximation than any we have heard before. That is a very big qualifier. I think we all said in a nutshell that is very lifeLIKE in terms of the totality of sensations and emotional connection and not LIVE per se. Jim has opened up his home to very few people. I am probably the only one that comes close to knowing his system intimately. I wish I had pictures of facial expressions for those that have come by. They are all the same. It is a look of disbelief.

I for one have come to humbly accept that I cannot reproduce the actual experience but I have come to know that I can create an experience in and of itself that is also thrilling and satisfying to a very high degree. I also know that I am not alone in this as I count you as another kindred spirit, among others happy members, who have found exactly such satisfaction.

 

[Audiocrack]

In what sense do you mean "practically"?

I don't think any of us here have ever claimed it is a full duplication Rudolph. All we are saying is that is a closer approximation than any we have heard before. That is a very big qualifier. I think we all said in a nutshell that is very lifeLIKE in terms of the totality of sensations and emotional connection and not LIVE per se. Jim has opened up his home to very few people. I am probably the only one that comes close to knowing his system intimately. I wish I had pictures of facial expressions for those that have come by. They are all the same. It is a look of disbelief.

I for one have come to humbly accept that I cannot reproduce the actual experience but I have come to know that I can create an experience in and of itself that is also thrilling and satisfying to a very high degree. I also know that I am not alone in this as I count you as another kindred spirit, among others happy members, who have found exactly such satisfaction.

Wise words Jack. Fully understand what you are saying and yes, I am one of those that derives tremendous satisfaction from both my systems. Happy listening to you my friend, Jim and all our esteemed members.

 

[Audiocrack]

And I totally forgot: with practically as opposed to theoretically I intended to say: do you, Albert, believe that notwithstanding theoretic hurdles we are actually capable of implementing a great audio system in a home environment in such a way that the recorded sound resembles very accurately the live/recorded performance? In my view that is impossible due to all kind of reasons such as the harm done by the microphone being used for the recording, the scale and dimensionality of a symphony orchestra performing in a great music hall, etc.

 

[Steve Williams]

I wish I had pictures of facial expressions for those that have come by. They are all the same. It is a look of disbelief.

I for one have come to humbly accept that I cannot reproduce the actual experience but I have come to know that I can create an experience in and of itself that is also thrilling and satisfying to a very high degree. I also know that I am not alone in this as I count you as another kindred spirit, among others happy members, who have found exactly such satisfaction.

It is indeed a look of disbelief but as you suggest Jack we all have our own sense of reality with our own systems. It was for me at least that Jim's system stretched that reality to a place I have never heard in an audio system especially when it comes to classical music.

 

[dafos]

Jack when I requested Jim to play the old warhorse "Cantate Domino" you should have had my heart rate monitored in anticipation, specially as Jim uttered, as he was removing the lp from the sleeve, as this being "the BOMB." After the tough "oh holy night cut" where I've heard many super systems fall flat, it's my facial expression that you most certainly refer to. I have to admit that the Brahms violin concerto (did I get that right) did sound fantastic but not being a heavy classical music aficionado, it was after hearing For Duke and Cantate in the center sweet spot that I can now imagine the endless nights of musical bliss Jim enjoys without having to "anticipate" where the music ends and becomes a mangle of sound being stressfully reproduced by a system that has reached its limits. Now why the heck didn't you tell me that Philip requested the Brothers Four just before I left???? You owe me one for that!

 

[JackD201]

And I totally forgot: with practically as opposed to theoretically I intended to say: do you, Albert, believe that notwithstanding theoretic hurdles we are actually capable of implementing a great audio system in a home environment in such a way that the recorded sound resembles very accurately the live/recorded performance? In my view that is impossible due to all kind of reasons such as the harm done by the microphone being used for the recording, the scale and dimensionality of a symphony orchestra performing in a great music hall, etc.

I totally agree. I just love it that there are so many people still working on and working at getting there. These are some crazy, wacky dudes but boy do I love'em.

 

[JackD201]

Jack when I requested Jim to play the old warhorse "Cantate Domino" you should have had my heart rate monitored in anticipation, specially as Jim uttered, as he was removing the lp from the sleeve, as this being "the BOMB." After the tough "oh holy night cut" where I've heard many super systems fall flat, it's my facial expression that you most certainly refer to. I have to admit that the Brahms violin concerto (did I get that right) did sound fantastic but not being a heavy classical music aficionado, it was after hearing For Duke and Cantate in the center sweet spot that I can now imagine the endless nights of musical bliss Jim enjoys without having to "anticipate" where the music ends and becomes a mangle of sound being stressfully reproduced by a system that has reached its limits. Now why the heck didn't you tell me that Philip requested the Brothers Four just before I left???? You owe me one for that!

Ooops! I do owe you one Jerry!

 

[dafos]

Just kidding. I really had to leave cuz my son was scheduled to leave the next day. Actually it's philip's fault for not whispering to me "don't leave yet I've requested the Brothers Four!" For that he should sell me his "own" promo copy!

 

[Audiocrack]

I totally agree. I just love it that there are so many people still working on and working at getting there. These are some crazy, wacky dudes but boy do I love'em.

Yes, there certainly are a lot of (totally) crazy audiophiles out there chasing their ultimate audio dream. Do not have to tell you that this circle of weird audio birds is probably one person larger than you actually hope it to be (my wife definately thinks so anyway).

 

[analog brother]

thank you for sharing this wonderful trip to manilla.
it was like being there!
great systems indeed - run by people who are evidently so passionate about this hobby, and life as well.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

yes, there certainly are a lot of (totally) crazy audiophiles out there chasing their ultimate audio dream. Do not have to tell you that this circle of weird audio birds is probably one person larger than you actually hope it to be (my wife definately thinks so anyway).

+1.

 

[bonzo75]

"Crazy Audiophiles" is a tautology