"New" AP Virgo spk: Improved or Diminished ??

I heard them at a dealer with a variety of solid state and tube amplifiers and preamplifiers. I was not impressed. The bass is definitely weak and while it is certainly a good enough speaker to reveal things about the upstream equipment, I felt that either of the previous Virgo's, despite their mid-bass bloat, was clearly better.

The dealer I auditioned the speakers from told me they had the speakers running almost twenty four hours a day for a little over two weeks. I would assume that the speakers I auditioned were broken in, or at least most of the way there.

Itsalldark, you don't say how many hours were on them. Are you sure they were broken in?

I auditioned a pair just after they came out and was not very impressed overall. They are very transparant which I liked very much and did the AP dissapearing act as most of there speakers do. To me, they did not sound like a full range speaker, sounded like they were in real need of a sub. I moved them all over the room, but could not get the sound I was searching for.I really wanted to like this speaker. I had read alot of positive things about them, but in the end I passed on a pair. I guess my real complaint was that the speakers never drew me in--they could not convey the kind of emotion I wanted. My system consists of BAT VK75-SE, BAT 50SE, Electrocompaniet CDP, Verity Audio Parsifal Encores, Siltech interconnects, Silver Symphony cable and Shunyata P.C. In the end it really comes down to how the speakers sound to you--in your system, listening to music you know very well. Let what you hear and feel be your guide. Good luck!

The speaker is much improved in all aspects. The Problem with many peoples impression of it is often due to the associated equipment.
The III's are much more transparent and neutral than the II's and do not have the midbass warmth that the II's have.
The III's demand the best of all upstream components. A Cary with DiMarzio cabling will just not cut it.
I would encourage any with impressions of these speakers to list the equipment that they were heard with.
They are a great speaker but must be matched with equipment equal to their quality.

Do a search in the archives for "Virgo", and you should find quite a bit of information on them. There were also quite a few responses to your previous post regarding these speakers in Dec. 2001. In addition, since then I've read a lot of comparisons on them to other speakers which might help you get a better idea of their performance.

I can't really comment a whole lot on them as I decided not to buy them and go with the AP Avanti III because of their better LF response. However, I did not find the Virgo III "bright and biting". I heard them with the Classe CAM-350 monoblocks and preamp using a Musical Fidelity Nuvista CD Player which both my wife and I enjoyed thoroughly.

If you are not impressed with them, perhaps you might want to look at a different speaker. There is no right answer for everyone when it comes to speakers, otherwise we would all own the same speaker.

Good luck in your search.