New Von Schweikert VR SR4 mk11 Cream or Crap ???

I have the VR SR4's without the mkII. The factory describes these as very similar to the mkII. They only changed becuase the Aerogel mid was discontinued. Here's a mini review of the SR4. I hope this helps.
My musical taste favors classical, pop and rock. I play classical piano and sing. The most important aspect of sound in descending order for me would be natural and non-fatiguing, excellent portrayal of timber, detail, ability to convey instrument and hall decay, accuracy, fast dynamics, bass fullness and slam, and stage width. Less important for me is stage depth and height. The worst thing a system could do is to be strident, harsh, cold, or muddy.

I have now had my pair of VR4Sr's for nine months. They are gorgeous in African Hazelwood. My wife and I are super pleased with the fit and finish. The separate base and mid/high modules create a sense of lightness, avoiding the large box feel. The available cherry finish looked smeared, but the poplar looked great as well. After break-in a few things are obvious: 1. They can easily fill my 38X22 room with no efforting or shout. 2. They are seamless to my ear across the spectrum, measuring flat at near field listening position except a small hump at 60-80 HZ. I have a concert grand piano in the same room and the sound quality, micro-dynamics, and note decay from the speakers and the piano are quite close. Piano pieces are captivating in detail, depth, clarity, and accuracy. 3. My concern that I did not have a high enough quality front end to do them justice was unfounded. In fact I talked to Von senior himself and he said that they were designed to perform well with an affordable front end. 4. I seem to be sacrificing only sound stage depth and a bit of instrument position with near front wall placement (about 18 inches from the back of the speaker) and they were not too particular about sidewall placement and distance apart. 5. The company has been exceptional to deal with and the packing was intelligent and secure.

Details: Bass, spiked on wood flooring, is tight, articulate, fast and full. Mids are excellent, natural and detailed. Highs are sensitive to quality of the recording, cables, and front end - when all is right, it is detailed, neutral, and sweet in the good sense. For example with silver speaker cables the highs were painfully strident at loud volume, with copper the highs are wonderful. Soundstaging in terms of precise instrument localization has been a challenge with my setup with a TV recessed between the speakers (a blanket over the TV helps). Stage width is fine, extending beyond the speakers and the sweet spot is wide and deep. I like the speakers on all material but they seem most exceptional on solo instrument, voice, small ensemble, jazz, and pop. Orchestral is very good. Heavy, dense rock is only good (too revealing of defects) unless the recording quality is exceptional, such as Dire Straits, then the speakers shine.

In comparison to the VR4’s, the Wilson Sophia’s auditioned with all Marantz equipment sounded a bit sterile, very accurate, and less musical to me. The Krell’s Resolution 2’s sounded less satisfying overall, partly because of bass response.
The VR4SR’s replaced Polk SDA-SRS 2.3’s I had used for ten years. Sounds changed to much closer to live music with more detail and ambience conveyed. The VR’s have renewed my interest in music and I listen almost every night, discovering new beauty in all my favorites. I can able listen at lower volumes and still experience the “That’s fabulous” grin. I know myself well enough to know that if I won the lottery, I’d go out and audition ultra high-end equipment starting with VS products, but short of this I feel that the speakers will satisfy me for a decade. Overtime I may improve my front end and I think the VR’s will handle it. I am very pleased and would recommend that they be on the short list of anyone looking in the under 20K range.

Music used to audition the VR4SR’s plus the Wilson’s and Krell’s
For female vocal Jennifer Warnes, The Well, Famous Blue Raincoat,
For male vocal Bruce Springfield, The Rising, Crosby, Stills…Déjà Vu
For rock Led Zeplin, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits
For classical Bach Fugue in C minor, Rimsky Korsakov Scherazade
For choral Rachmaninoff Vespers
For Jazz and brushes against cymbals, Missouri Sky
For piano Kissin Liszt Transcendental Etudes, Horszowski and Ohlson Works
For violin Scottish Fantasies, Vivaldi Four Seasons
For flute Galoway Christmas

Associated equipment: Aragon 8008BB 200Watt per channel dual mono SS amp, Aragon 28K SS preamp, NorthStar 192 DAC and CD Transport, Guerrilla Silver IC and woofer cable, copper to the mid/tweeter biwired.

Von Schweikert should be able to direct you to the nearest dealer Thier number is (760) 410-1650 email albertvonn@aol.com. Perhaps start new post asking if anyone owning VS is near your location. You would be welcome to listen to mine but I am in NC

Audioblazer - Yes, there is definitely a difference in what I was told at the factory and the written description in terms of degree of performance improvement. I think that the marketing department got a hold of that one :). I am sure that there are improvements but the original Aerogel mid which was also used in the VR7 I believe is no slouch. I have not heard one speaker directly compared to the other but I would guess that the truth is somewhere in between and at this point spending the money elsewhere in your system might yeild more bang than doing the upgrade. That is what I have done - Changed out my preamp which I felt was the weakest part of my system for a Audio Horizons and loving it. Please let me know if you upgrade and the results, becuase I have had the same debate.

audioblazer, I immediately dropped the data link in favor of biwiring as the company recommends. I used Guerrilla Audio silver cable on the bass and copper on the mid/tweet. If you are still using your datalink you are in for the pleasure of a dramatic quantum jump in sound quality if you biwire.
Yes, the ebony was an upcharge of 2K but the original was priced at 8K retail plus the upcharge = 10K. The new version is priced at 12K, so you still got a deal. Hopefully you paid a bit less than list.

Audioblazer. Perhaps you could use your current cable on the mid/tweet which is most sensitive to nuance, and borrow a cheaper cable for the bass and see what you think. The silver VHP Guerilla cable I mentioned was $899 for a 3 meter pair with a 45 day trial. He has many other models that are cheaper. Jason at Guerrilla is wonderful to deal with. His phone is (800) 253-0939 or www.guerrillaaudio.com. I really do think you might be seriously degrading the preformance of your excellent cable by using the data link.

Blindjim - best I know the MKII VR4SR was a change in the midrange driver, necessitated because the Aerogel mid was discountinued by the manufacturer. This mid change required some changes in the crossover.

Mine are on wood floor with spikes provided which are quite nice. The spikes include floor protector buttons. It sounds a bit better than directly on the floor. And you can slide the speaker on the buttons.

Ozzy Congradulations. I hope you will be very happy with them and agree that you really can't tell till you get them home. They do take some time to break in, so be patient in your assessment. Please post your impressions. what finish did you order?
Joe

The bass module of the VR4Sr's already have jumpers between the two sets of bass inputs. What is recommended is that you take one set of speaker cables from your amp and connect to the lower termials of the bass module, leaving the jumpers in place. Then take another speaker cable and run it from another set of amp outputs on the same amp to the midtweet module. I hope this is clear. You can bire using one cable with four terminations at the speaker end but with the Vr4's you are going to need to have the wire split into two pairs (one for the top module and one for the bottom) in a way that will extend the distance (aproximately 28 inches) between the two modules binding posts.

Audioblazer
What kind of changes in sound did you hear with the different jumpers And about how much do they cost?

Ozzy
Congradulations and I am glad you like the fit and finish. Let us know about the sound after breakin. The manual I recieved last spring was unclear about removing the jumpers between the two sets of posts on the woofer module. I called Von S and he said that he was going to rewrite the manual for better clarity so yours may be different and I was told to leave the jumper in place when biwiring direct from amp to mid/tweeter, and from amp to lowest posts on the woofer module. This sounds great to me. Do you have good reason to remove the jumpers?

There was a thread about service about 4 months ago. At that time I talked to them and they were very apologetic, promising that they were hiring some new service agents. In the past (as recently as a year ago) they were so small that Von or Jr himself handled almost all calls. Back in those good old days Von or son would talk to you for a hour at a time if that is what it took. Then they were overwhelmed with volume as they had some hits such as VR JR. I know they were trying to have thier dealers handle most inquires about set up etc. But they should have at least indicated that your email is being forwarded to your dealer so one would know if it even was recieved. For now I would use the quote "Never attribute to malace what you can account for by stupidity". And let them know. They really do seem sincere about making a good product and standing behind it. They have sent me stuff for free etc.

Tvad I have not heard of the sorbothane which I assume acts an isolation accomplishing product. What difference do you notice and where do you get it, and what VS speakers has it improved, VR4's? Also do you roll it into a ball and put it where the spikes were or what?
Thanks
Joe

Sounds like the service is irratic not crappy. Some people having stellar experiences others recieving poor service. Still needs improvement

Newbee - sorry, you are definitely right that if you are on the personal recieving end of the "erractic" service, it is definitey crappy.

Douglas Thanks for sharing your perspective on what is going on at VS. I am eager to see the review. Do you kno where and when will it appear?

So back to the beginning question 91 posts ago. The product is cream, the service is currently crap:)

Ozzy It took I'd say at least 500 hours for full break in of my VR4Sr's but from where you are they should be pretty stable, and just get slowly sweeter and better. I have not had much trouble at all with bass even though I am only about 18 inches off the front wall, given the new forward firing port. Von and his son both have said to me that they really attempted to design so that closer front wall placement would be possible. What I do see with close placement (and a TV in between - even covered with blankets) is a challenge in getting the soundstage to really lock in fully. It is a trade off I have to do becuase of being in a multi-use room.

Ozzy Cool points. I have my rear tweeter set at about two but am close to the front wall and am firing at glass.

Douglas Thanks for doing the review. I think you nailed it
Joe