Interesting info about the difference's of VR4 III HSE and VR4 GenIII's. I'm also in the market for a building a new system and considering These speakers along with Salk HT3, Salk V3, Vons VR4jr mkII, Merlin VSM, Totem Forest.
Just FYI from Albert himself.
In a small room at the Home Entertainment Show put on by Stereophile two years ago, Kevin of VAC and I used the VR-4jrs in a small room with a 100-watt VAC amp the sound was incredible. The VR-4jr sounds better in a small room than the larger VR-4 Gen III and Gen III HSE.
By the way, the VR-4 Gen III and the HSE version are similar, but the HSE version is newer; the HSE stands for Hovland Special Edition and used Hovland MusicCaps in the crossovers instead of the less expensive (but still good sounding) Solens. The HSE version also used slightly better drivers, so was a better sounding speaker system overall. However, both versions had extremely powerful bass response down to 16Hz, which can sometimes overload a small room with too much bass. This is correctable by installing more Dacron stuffing into the port.
Hope this helps.
Just FYI from Albert himself.
In a small room at the Home Entertainment Show put on by Stereophile two years ago, Kevin of VAC and I used the VR-4jrs in a small room with a 100-watt VAC amp the sound was incredible. The VR-4jr sounds better in a small room than the larger VR-4 Gen III and Gen III HSE.
By the way, the VR-4 Gen III and the HSE version are similar, but the HSE version is newer; the HSE stands for Hovland Special Edition and used Hovland MusicCaps in the crossovers instead of the less expensive (but still good sounding) Solens. The HSE version also used slightly better drivers, so was a better sounding speaker system overall. However, both versions had extremely powerful bass response down to 16Hz, which can sometimes overload a small room with too much bass. This is correctable by installing more Dacron stuffing into the port.
Hope this helps.