Narrowing down to JM Reynaud or VMPS...Help

go over to audioasylum.com and ask this on the VMPS forum

The VMPS RM-2 is around $2800 new and is a fairly small floor stander. A list of VMPS dealers and owners can be found at the VMPS forum http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewforum.php?f=39.

Dave

Yeah go ask the VMPS forum on Audiocircles (actually) for their opinion. Hmm, wonder which one they will advise you to go with?

Seriously, though I have been an owner of JMR Offrandes for almost 3 years, and have found them to be incredible speakers, but just wanted to throw that out so you can take my opinions for what they are. I have also demoed the VMPS RM40's and RM-X Elixir on several occassions.

These two brands are very far apart on the sound spectrum, design spectrum, looks spectrum and just about every other category IMO, so I find it interesting that you have narrowed your choice down to these two brands.

The Offrandes are the only model of JMR speakers I have heard, but I guess my quick summary of their performance would be that they are very similar to the JM Labs Micro Utopia BE's but with better bass and dynamics. They are also close in presentation to the Avantegarde Duo's but the Duo's added a bass foundation that the Offrandes just can't match. The Offrandes do present very good bass for their size however, I have had them professionally measured in my previous room and they were minus 3dB down at 32HZ.

As for VMPS, IMO they do somethings extremely well, like soundstaging and imaging in particular, but I have found that not everything just comes up roses with their performance. The Offrandes are not perfect but their deficiencies match up with things that don't rank highly in my list of listening preferences, whereas with the VMPS speakers I could not live long term with their sound problems.

In conclusion since you have narrowed your choice down to two brands that are quite different, I think you will have to make the effort to go and hear both brands before coming to a decision. As I doubt that both brands would satisfy you long term, it is probably more of an either/or thing.

Larryb,

Tyler Acoustics is about 100 miles from you & if I were that close, I'd go there in a minute. You can check out pictures of Ty's facitilites on his website. I haven't heard the other speakers on your list so I can't comment. Good luck.

I thought about going to Tyler Acoustics, but someone here mentioned they were about a 4 hour drive from here. I'll have to look into it more..

As to the Reynauds, does anyone here know if their floorstanders will be up to the demands of larger rooms?

Dave - what were the qualities of the VMPS's that you thought you couldn't live with long term? Are they to hard in certain registers or too aggressive?

Thanks!

Hi Larry

I think that was Soliver that had that opinion, not me. I did not offer an opinion because I have not listened to the speakers you asked about. My link was to a dealer or user whom could give you a listen..there are several listed at the top of the forum page.

I do however own some Vmps speakers (Supertower/r and Qso-626) that were my old hometheater speakers..I have kept them for other uses.

I did mention the RM-30's (I've never listen to them) because I thought you may like their use of ribbon technology for mid/high somewhat more than the model you were thinking of in that line.

I'm a planer guy myself (Apogee Duetta Signatures and Centaur Minors) so can only guess that I may like the Hi-bred Vmps more if I were to listen? Maybe not.

Dave

I can tell you about the JMR Trentes. They are excellent speakers! I use them with the JMR Magic Stands. But you may prefer floorstanders for a larger room, plus IME floorstanders have better WAF than monitors because the stands usually look kinda clunky. The Trentes are thoroughly enjoyable speakers with an open, dynamic sound, smooth and resolving. Great with acoustic material and solo works, but also nice with Keb Mo or Wilco. But the Trentes do seem to prefer tubes, though I'm using them with SS just fine. they are warm sounding speakers. Look very nice too. They sound best bi-wired.

I've heard good things about the Trentes, but as you say, the larger room probably needs floorstanders. In fact my current speakers are B&W 804's (matrix) which I never thought had a problem with room filling sound, but in their current placement they can sound a bit strained. Even with my excellent Cary 200WPC amp.

Its a large room, 20X35, with the speakers oriented to project through the 35' space. Not optimal, but the only way I could rig it with the projector.

What I guess I'm looking for is a speaker that will move some air and sound effortless in the larger room they're in now. My tradeoffs of choice are 1) prefer better bass to ultimate resolution, and smoother top end to same; 2) prefer warmer and expressive to analytical; 3) prefer darker to brighter sound 4) prefer more natural presentation to trumped up high's or midrange 5) prefer hearing room ambience to micro-imaging or high transients - which you get with naturally bassier speakers.

I guess you could sum up to say warm and smooth, and good with many styles of music - from Zeppelin to Mahler, Bill Frissel to MahaVishnu, Nine Inch Nails to Alison Kraus.

It's no easy task, especially without many speakers locally I can audition. Any other ideas?

From what you've described above, get the JMR Trentes. It does all those things well. Like "Budrew" mentioned above, JMR speakers matches better with tube amps. I have the Trentes with Air Tight ATM-2 and it sounds awesome, very dynamic. In the past, I had an Audion tube amp with the Trentes and the combo was amazing!!!

I heard good things about the Taylo also, you should go check them out!

I should have mentioned that even though I'm using an all Cary system, it's also all solid state. Basically home theater seperates that also sound great with 2 channel audio.

I would look into the Trentes or the Evo 3s (basically a floor standing version of the Trentes). I can tell you that Bill Frissell sounds spectacular on the Trentes!

I'm a big fan of Reynaud speakers too...although they are certainly not represented well in the U.S. They have a "wide open" sound and they really sing with Class A and/or tube amps...
I've had my Trentes for about three years... With a 100w amp, they nicely fill an 18'x25' room, but at the size you describe, I'd bump up the ladder to the Offrandes (Reynaud's bigger monitor). The Offrande is very similar to the Trentes in sound, but "more so"...It can be a bit more forward, but your large room might require it...