Anyone heard the new VMPS RM30?

The midrange on the VMPS 626 is not a ribbon but a planar. It sounds very good to my ears: fast, transparent, detailed.

The RM30's sound is quite reminiscent of the 626s, with lots of delicacy, transparency, speed, and naturalness. The sweet spot is a bit small, but even outside the sweet spot the speakers sound good. Inside the spot, these speakers are very hard to beat in the price range; I have not yet heard anything comparably priced that I would rate as its equal.

The ribbon/planar midrange drivers as Calanctus states are very fast and detailed. They allow you to hear that last bit of shimmer on the cymbals.The plucks of strings are extremely vivid.A basic cone midrange driver seems to lag a little in comparison. There's a definite loss of information with the basic cone driver IMHO. At 1/10 th the thickness of a human hair a true ribbon driver can do some awesome things. A 50 inch midrange true ribbon verses a 6 inch midrange cone driver..you do the math.

Most ribbons(except Apogees) can't do the the lowest octaves like cones but far exceed them in responsiveness IMHO. They are very revealing and some audiophiles can't deal with that.

I heard it at CES, and wasn't that impressed.

I've heard the bigger brothers and like them better.

Haven't heard them yet but if they approach the RM40s, well... they will be very good indeed!

geoh

I have auditioned the VMPS RM30 and the Gallo Reference 3. Both speakers are in the same price category and IMO the VMPS wins hands down due to the following:

1) Crystal clear and detailed midranges. The midrange on the Gallo's was comparable to my current Linn speakers.

2) Better musical resolution over the frequency spectrum. This is probaby due to the fact that the VMPS employs 7 active drivers per a channel while the Gallo only employs four.

3) I found that in order to make the Gallo speakers sound their best they need to be placed onto stands. Third party stands designed specifically for the Gallo speakers are available, but they cost $500 [1/5 of the total speaker cost].

One advantage of the Gallo is a wider sweetspot. The VMPS has a narrow sweetspot (due to the planar drivers), but with proper setup this should not be an issue.

Hope that this information helps.

Actually the small sweet spot with the planars is no longer. The RM 30's now come with Constant Directivity waveguides that give the RM 30's 180 degrees of dispersion from 280hz on up. You can walk around the room and the image will remain the same! There's going to be a couple of reviews coming. Also Constant Directivity feature
had been a big hit at CES.

Warnerwh is absolutely correct. I have not heard the RM30s with the CDWG, but I've read that it does eliminate the sweetspot issue.

Warnerwh have you heard the RM30's with the CDWG? If so I would greatly appreciate your feedback. I am looking to purchase a pair of RM30's in March 2006 and the pair that I heard did not have the CDWG. I've read that the CDWG causes a -6 db/octave rolloff above 10 kHz.

Thank you.

I have many hours listening to the RM30s w/CDWG since I worked the VMPS room at CES.

They amazed me and were significantly better than the "prototypes" I (as a dealer) had been playing with.

While I have never found a limited "sweet spot" an issue for the serious listener, the CDWG does more than just create a "Soundstage" that is not dependant on sitting equidistant between the speakers.

It creates a smoothness of frequencies (from top to bottom) that make sound resemble reality more accurately.

In the real world, frequencies are not divided amongst multiple drivers from different locations. Sounds are also not "crossed over" to these drivers creating various anomalies.

The CDWG has a tendency to more accuratly "smooth" and "shape" these sounds to sound natural from most any room position.

This not only gives you a "soundstage and imagine", but achieves a palpable 3-D quality to the sonic that is rather hard to describe.

The "rolloff" you have heard about was not noticable in application and has not been measured, but theorized (by Brian)due to the position of the WG in relation to the tweeter.

He has decided to use a simple and elegant solution to defeat such, if it is the case. That is, he will remove the "horn" that the tweeter is loaded into, to "reduce" its response over 10kHz, to "theoretically" bring it back to spec'd flatness.

But back to how it sounds?

You simply have to hear it. I played every reference cut I had (I arrived each morning at CES 2-3 hours early and played with the equipment and set up)several times and the effect is an great step in audio reproduction.

Wave Guides are not new,in fact a simple horn is a wave guide, but this application to a speaker driver that is generally thought to be extremely "beamy" and frought with "hot spots" is now living up to its potential.

The responsiveness of ribbon and planar drivers, in a now "smoothed" delivery system is a very special sonic, and should not be missed.