Have you seen the VR9SE Review?

Yes I did read the entire article and I stand by my earlier comments. I certainly didn't mean any disrespect towards Mikelavigne (and I don't think he took it that way), but even he describes the article as less than a review.

One think I wish he would comment on is the after purchase supports from both Rives and VS. How did they assist him in getting the performance his system is capable of delivering?

Holenneck, I actually consider your above statements as very valid and at one time thought very similar, but I have changed my mind on Room vs. Speaker, Vs. correct in the first place vs. Tweaking vs. Etc. .. Let me say why, I have had excellent crossed over speakers in just Okay rooms in the past with pretty good but never perfect results.
Now look at these von's they are VERY complicated and have many user corrections needed no doubt, Not plug and play.. but people would think the opposite at 75,000 should be a near perfect speaker without you having to adjust a damn thing. This is wrong, and actually now I see at 75,000 I want every knob and adjustment possible in the world to sink these things in, because at that kinda money it better start to sound How you want it too and it should in the given environment whatever it might be. I commend a speaker manufacture going to the extent now to give the User full control for the most part after finding out its easier to let someone with a little knowledge and great patience tune their product to taste if you have the tools and higher cost components installed into the speaker to do so, rather than try to sell the Perfect crossover and straight drive system that is supposedly perfect archetecture and you have no right to correct something you don't like attitude. I only believe this now after several months with my new speakers I found there is no other way to this kinda nirvana and perfection within any room.. If it is done right there are far less negative effects to having some adjustments especially in Multi driver systems(which some you nearly need to be a pro engineer) with the payoff of positive and incredible tuned sound overcomes those negatives. Yes it takes TON's of time and thinking out of the box to test and adjust every incriment, but it solves things you never would have believed a speaker could do if you find these little advancements. Anyway its tuff to go back to a "This is how it is" conventional design with a couple of binding posts that only correction is, Buying a different preamp, or the latest Magical midrange sounding cable for 500 or 1000 dollars to act as tone controls, I have been thru it, and now after finding what needs to be adjusted I just enjoy the music and not the system. So now I connect completley with the Mikelavigne experience and revalations of such control over your audio once you understand the ins and outs of such a complex yet simple concept, but you will not totally understand it withoug going thru it for some time and learning the results that is all. At 75 k its better to have the options and tayloring ability than not.. I think that many of the very big systems use even better with adjustable electronic crossovers, and multi driver arrays, which is why they cost so much, are they always practical, No but what is in this hobby?

Onhwy61. Maybe you didn't notice that the article is listed under Audio Discourse not Hardware Reviews.

Mr. Lavinge has certainly been on an odyessy with that room and all of the various equipment changes. It's very generous of him to take the time to share his experiences with us.

One thing that bugs me about those speakers is that traditional hifi logic suggests that having all of those adjustments in the signal path would have some affect on the overall transparency of the speaker. Of course Mike's room probably allows him to hear more detail from a boombox than most of us hear from our systems but still, I wonder if the system could be improved further by going fully active and using something like DEQX or a Lake Contour (http://www.lake.com.au/) to handle the crossover. Of course these solutions would introduce extra a-d and d-a conversions, but I wonder what would be the lesser of to evils: having additional circuitry in the signal path after the amplifier, or having the additional digital conversions but thereafter maintaining a direct path from the amplifers to the drivers?

Mike,

An extremely thoughtful and well-composed article. I await a future review about your next speakers with anticipation.

Regards,
Rufus