Hi LL21,
There is no brief explanation lol
I was going to refer you to this post that covers most of what you are asking but you have read it.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...eries-and-ULTRA-Series-Reference-Loudspeakers
We have been highly focused on doing everything possible to lower the noise floor. Eliminating distortion that many of us have been used to for so long. The VR-11's were a little more efficient than the ULTRA 11's but not by much. Adjust ability is pretty much identical as well as scale. But the difference in sound quality is "HUGE"
I won't speak for Albert or Damon but for me I found the ULTRA 11 and ULTRA 9 to be the most difficult speakers to design due to the lack of distortion. There is a very fine line that can separate musicality from analytical. I do not like analytical. You can have a speaker that is extremely musical without losing accuracy. Analytical speakers become very sensitive to electronics change and limits you to certain electronics in order to achieve synergy. We wanted the ULTRA 11's and 9's to be open to many different amplifiers and we have many amps we use throughout the design process.
One of the major differences between the VR and ULTRA is the rear ambiance retrieval system. The ULTRA 11 has 2 horn loaded tweeters as well as a ribbon and covers a much wider frequency response.
This is difficult for me because I'm fairly certain I'm highly biased lol.
Hopefully Jack will be posting up comments as he settles in with BIG BLUES. And since he had the VR-11's he will be a perfect candidate for describing his experiences between the two models. I know I will be on pins and needles until we get to hear Jack's system when we visit as well as Jimmy's system.
I will say this though, I have always loved the VR-11's and felt they were a SOTA Flagship. But when we built the ULTRA VR-111's and A/B'd them against them against the VR-11's, it took all of about 2 seconds for us to realize that we were going to redesign our entire flagship line. And there are more ULTRA models to come.