“You can also decide where you want to put them in the room “. Wow , What a stunning technological breakthrough , no wonder they need to charge USD$180,000
I own the VR9 SE Mk2 upgraded. Same ability sitting on casters (350 lbs each) with built in powered assisted 15" subs. The replacement is better, I've heard the Ultra 9 and Ultra 11s. SOTA. The Ultra 9s have ceramic and beryllium drivers. Unibox build. Ultra cabling and electronics. Ultra 7s also considered SOTA. For $22,000, Endeavors with a pair of $10,000 shockwave subs by VS will get most of the sound of these speakers. I know because my best friend gets a similar overall sound as my big speakers, out of the box and music in the room, great dispersion from VR35 Exports. One can't go wrong with Von Schweikert speakers (I've heard half a dozen). Great video Jay. This speaker is phenomenal.
Von schweikert spks have really come a long way. Recall hearing their earlier spks more than 15 yrs ago & they sounded like mud. However, the new ones are totally different. But then again, the price is astronomical as well.
I am a proud owner of the last speaker Albert Von Schweikert designed..the VR-22. This speaker convinced me that, unless you REALLY know what you're doing..any speaker above a 2-way is crap.
Holy Cow Jay - did you drink something to sway your decision to even get near Von Schweikert, hah! I thought you had a dislike for them? All kidding aside, thanks for all your effort and going through the trouble to make this, and all your videos.
Insane money for a speaker that doesn't even have proprietary drivers. At the price you can get Magico, Rockport and a host of others with custom cones.
The mids & woofs are custom made by Accuton. The ribbon tweet is custom as well. The cabinets are proprietary and built in-house. The crossovers are hand ptp wire, no pcb’s. The room control autoformers are custom wound and hand soldered. Magico outsources their drivers from ScanSpeak and Seas. Their crossovers are on pcb’s. Don’t know much about Rockport but I’m quite certain they too do not use in-house drivers. More importantly, VS pays particular attention in their designs for moderate-easy load curves that are free of extreme fluctuations. They are also all very efficient speakers, typically >90db/W @ 1m. The only Magico that approaches that level of efficiency is the M-series. Both M3 and M6 have load curves with substantial peaks within audible frequency range. I’ve demoed M3 in my home vs my VR5 Anniversary and Ultra 55. We had 9 friends over to get their feedback as well, 5 are professional musicians. At the end of evening, which began at around 2:00 and went till midnight, the M3 was universally the least liked. We played mostly blues and jazz, a little classic rock, source was all r2r tape on a Studer A812 or vinyl on a Brinkmann Balance. Amps were Wavac 805 and Rogue Apollo, all biamped, pre is a CAT SL1. The M3 was less refined, bright from upper mid-top end, particularly horns. I’ve heard similar from other demos at shows of Magico’s. I find them fatiguing, unnaturally dynamic. Some folks like that sound, I know Jay has lauded them in past, he’s owned them, though not M-series to my knowledge. If you like Magico’s, you likely will not appreciate VS’s, the voicing is very different. I prefer VS’s, fed by SET DHT amps. Different strokes for different folks. 👍
@@MichaelM-to4sg I applaud your response. At least thoughtful and not knee jerk like what you would expect. Jay has owned the M6 but like all his stuff not for long. And this is his weakness. He doesn't own gear long enough to really get to know it. The M6 he had did not have commensurate amps to power it nor the Boulder stack he has. But as Jay has said, he is about gear, not music. As to your points: I am not really a Magico fan but I assume they get custom cones from a reputable source; you say Scanspeak. I take you at your word. But the drivers in the VS are not much different from the stock Accutons but the Magico drivers are custom designed/made. Not so sure about the VS. Moreover, the Rockports are the same: custom design/manufacture. I know the crossovers are point to point wired. Moreover, I heard the same thing about the Accuton drivers from Estelon which are nice speakers but for the money, again, you would think just a tad better. The tweeters in the VS are from Fostex, out of Japan, known for tweeters and more importantly, super tweeters. It even says Fostex on the dials on the back. All I am saying is that for $180K US I would expect more since speakers are not rocket science. Their design, implementation and purpose have been known for decades. There have been very little improvements, really, in the last 20 years, although the rapid acceptance of the beryllium tweeter has changed that, and the obvious of the enclosure stiffness/dampening which to some might seem excessive. I have JL Audio subs made from simple MDF that are world renown and sound awesome. And they stress the box more than anything. And MDF is no good???? Don't you think if it wasn't JL Audio would have thought of that? Sorry, but at $180K you lose me with any justification as to why. Even Paradigm makes their own drivers in house from scratch. I get the volume of sale (I own S8V2s) but still, they can do it. Moreover, you would think with all this time and R+D price would come down, not up......but it doesn't. This is why audio will be a dying art and once the boomers (and their money) are gone so will the high end. You think any 20/30 somethings of today yearn for this sort of stuff when they can't even afford an apartment let alone a house with a dedicated sound room? I can tell you this: there will be a time when you can get all this uber expensive gear for really cheap, and that day will come sooner than you might think.
@@TheNoseman1 Ok I have to respond to this and I'm sorry if I offend anybody because that is not my intention. There have been a few VSA models in the past that does in fact use off the shelf drivers. These drivers were built fantastic, measured great and fit the bill for exactly what they were used for. And just because a loudspeaker manufacturer uses a modified off the shelf driver means absolutely nothing about it's performance. As for the Accutons....we started with OTS drivers in the very beginning and then had slight changes done. The Accuton drivers in my opinion are State of the Art and I based(WE) sorry Damon, our entire Flagship line with these amazing transducers. With that being said you look at a Magico M6 which cost more than an ULTRA 7 and anyone who knows pricing of the components we use can tell an Ultra 7 cost more to build. An ULTRA 7 uses 3 different materials to form our cabinet walls and if you look at John Aktinson' s measurements of the magicos for resonance ours are every bit as low! And I'm not here to trash Magico either. They are a good speaker. Our technology has changed drastically since 2011 and continues to do so. Our crossovers are ours! Our topology which Albert built the foundation for and I was there in the room with Albert and Linkwitz and heard the words from his mouth...."Albert this is incredible! An entirely new topology in filter design and how it is applied. Amazing!" And it is amazing because I walk through many of the rooms at Munich and did not hear one room image or have the depth of soundstage like our room. And we used very little sound treatment. Being in this industry as long as I have you might think I know things that our general audience of music lovers don't know. But many of you suspect and are correct! The amount of pay to play is disgusting and part of the reason high end audio keeps increasing in the cost. Just the cost for us to do a show to bring our product to the listeners is out of control. I'm not going to state numbers especially the cost one year vs. the next or I will just get all pissed off again. I'm ok and understand that not everybody is a Von Schweikert enthusiast, but if your going to make public statements about our technology or quality of product, please do a little more research and if you have examples post them if you want and we can discuss it. Damon and I are an open book to those who are interested. On a side note...VSA has not taken any form of advertising with Jay's Audio Lab and I am in no way accusing Jay of pay to play! We are just now building a relationship with him and look forward to what the future brings. Thank you Jay for taking the time to cover our room and talking with us! All the best!
We considered Ultra 55 and Ultra 7 but the aesthetic is a hard no. The composite cabinets don’t suit our aesthetics. Love our VR5 Anniversary MkII, the sound is phenomenal and can be bi-amped with our Wavac 805’s & Rogue Apollo Dark. Nearly as important as the superb sound is the wood cabinetry, just beautiful 👍. The Ultra 55, had they been in wood, was not a noticeable improvement sufficient enough to “upgrade”. The Ultra 7 however is another class. What an amazing speaker. No wood veneer exterior is however a deal breaker. Offer a wood exterior and you have another sale.
Please hit the like button guys and support my efforts here in Germany. I am working tirelessly to give you amazing coverage
“You can also decide where you want to put them in the room “. Wow , What a stunning technological breakthrough , no wonder they need to charge USD$180,000
I own the VR9 SE Mk2 upgraded. Same ability sitting on casters (350 lbs each) with built in powered assisted 15" subs. The replacement is better, I've heard the Ultra 9 and Ultra 11s. SOTA. The Ultra 9s have ceramic and beryllium drivers. Unibox build. Ultra cabling and electronics. Ultra 7s also considered SOTA. For $22,000, Endeavors with a pair of $10,000 shockwave subs by VS will get most of the sound of these speakers. I know because my best friend gets a similar overall sound as my big speakers, out of the box and music in the room, great dispersion from VR35 Exports. One can't go wrong with Von Schweikert speakers (I've heard half a dozen). Great video Jay. This speaker is phenomenal.
Finest speakers in the land!
LOL
Von schweikert spks have really come a long way. Recall hearing their earlier spks more than 15 yrs ago & they sounded like mud. However, the new ones are totally different. But then again, the price is astronomical as well.
Great coverage Jay.
Thanks
Very great =)
I am a proud owner of the last speaker Albert Von Schweikert designed..the VR-22.
This speaker convinced me that, unless you REALLY know what you're doing..any speaker above a 2-way is crap.
Holy Cow Jay - did you drink something to sway your decision to even get near Von Schweikert, hah! I thought you had a dislike for them? All kidding aside, thanks for all your effort and going through the trouble to make this, and all your videos.
My pleasure
Jay have you thought about keeping your Wilson’s and just buying a larger home? With a larger listening room.
Insane money for a speaker that doesn't even have proprietary drivers. At the price you can get Magico, Rockport and a host of others with custom cones.
The mids & woofs are custom made by Accuton. The ribbon tweet is custom as well. The cabinets are proprietary and built in-house. The crossovers are hand ptp wire, no pcb’s. The room control autoformers are custom wound and hand soldered.
Magico outsources their drivers from ScanSpeak and Seas. Their crossovers are on pcb’s. Don’t know much about Rockport but I’m quite certain they too do not use in-house drivers.
More importantly, VS pays particular attention in their designs for moderate-easy load curves that are free of extreme fluctuations. They are also all very efficient speakers, typically >90db/W @ 1m. The only Magico that approaches that level of efficiency is the M-series. Both M3 and M6 have load curves with substantial peaks within audible frequency range. I’ve demoed M3 in my home vs my VR5 Anniversary and Ultra 55. We had 9 friends over to get their feedback as well, 5 are professional musicians. At the end of evening, which began at around 2:00 and went till midnight, the M3 was universally the least liked. We played mostly blues and jazz, a little classic rock, source was all r2r tape on a Studer A812 or vinyl on a Brinkmann Balance. Amps were Wavac 805 and Rogue Apollo, all biamped, pre is a CAT SL1.
The M3 was less refined, bright from upper mid-top end, particularly horns. I’ve heard similar from other demos at shows of Magico’s. I find them fatiguing, unnaturally dynamic. Some folks like that sound, I know Jay has lauded them in past, he’s owned them, though not M-series to my knowledge.
If you like Magico’s, you likely will not appreciate VS’s, the voicing is very different. I prefer VS’s, fed by SET DHT amps. Different strokes for different folks. 👍
@@MichaelM-to4sg I applaud your response. At least thoughtful and not knee jerk like what you would expect. Jay has owned the M6 but like all his stuff not for long. And this is his weakness. He doesn't own gear long enough to really get to know it. The M6 he had did not have commensurate amps to power it nor the Boulder stack he has. But as Jay has said, he is about gear, not music. As to your points:
I am not really a Magico fan but I assume they get custom cones from a reputable source; you say Scanspeak. I take you at your word. But the drivers in the VS are not much different from the stock Accutons but the Magico drivers are custom designed/made. Not so sure about the VS. Moreover, the Rockports are the same: custom design/manufacture. I know the crossovers are point to point wired. Moreover, I heard the same thing about the Accuton drivers from Estelon which are nice speakers but for the money, again, you would think just a tad better. The tweeters in the VS are from Fostex, out of Japan, known for tweeters and more importantly, super tweeters. It even says Fostex on the dials on the back.
All I am saying is that for $180K US I would expect more since speakers are not rocket science. Their design, implementation and purpose have been known for decades. There have been very little improvements, really, in the last 20 years, although the rapid acceptance of the beryllium tweeter has changed that, and the obvious of the enclosure stiffness/dampening which to some might seem excessive. I have JL Audio subs made from simple MDF that are world renown and sound awesome. And they stress the box more than anything. And MDF is no good???? Don't you think if it wasn't JL Audio would have thought of that?
Sorry, but at $180K you lose me with any justification as to why. Even Paradigm makes their own drivers in house from scratch. I get the volume of sale (I own S8V2s) but still, they can do it. Moreover, you would think with all this time and R+D price would come down, not up......but it doesn't. This is why audio will be a dying art and once the boomers (and their money) are gone so will the high end. You think any 20/30 somethings of today yearn for this sort of stuff when they can't even afford an apartment let alone a house with a dedicated sound room? I can tell you this: there will be a time when you can get all this uber expensive gear for really cheap, and that day will come sooner than you might think.
@@TheNoseman1 Ok I have to respond to this and I'm sorry if I offend anybody because that is not my intention. There have been a few VSA models in the past that does in fact use off the shelf drivers. These drivers were built fantastic, measured great and fit the bill for exactly what they were used for. And just because a loudspeaker manufacturer uses a modified off the shelf driver means absolutely nothing about it's performance. As for the Accutons....we started with OTS drivers in the very beginning and then had slight changes done. The Accuton drivers in my opinion are State of the Art and I based(WE) sorry Damon, our entire Flagship line with these amazing transducers. With that being said you look at a Magico M6 which cost more than an ULTRA 7 and anyone who knows pricing of the components we use can tell an Ultra 7 cost more to build. An ULTRA 7 uses 3 different materials to form our cabinet walls and if you look at John Aktinson' s measurements of the magicos for resonance ours are every bit as low! And I'm not here to trash Magico either. They are a good speaker.
Our technology has changed drastically since 2011 and continues to do so. Our crossovers are ours! Our topology which Albert built the foundation for and I was there in the room with Albert and Linkwitz and heard the words from his mouth...."Albert this is incredible! An entirely new topology in filter design and how it is applied. Amazing!" And it is amazing because I walk through many of the rooms at Munich and did not hear one room image or have the depth of soundstage like our room. And we used very little sound treatment. Being in this industry as long as I have you might think I know things that our general audience of music lovers don't know. But many of you suspect and are correct! The amount of pay to play is disgusting and part of the reason high end audio keeps increasing in the cost. Just the cost for us to do a show to bring our product to the listeners is out of control. I'm not going to state numbers especially the cost one year vs. the next or I will just get all pissed off again.
I'm ok and understand that not everybody is a Von Schweikert enthusiast, but if your going to make public statements about our technology or quality of product, please do a little more research and if you have examples post them if you want and we can discuss it. Damon and I are an open book to those who are interested.
On a side note...VSA has not taken any form of advertising with Jay's Audio Lab and I am in no way accusing Jay of pay to play! We are just now building a relationship with him and look forward to what the future brings. Thank you Jay for taking the time to cover our room and talking with us!
All the best!
Did you go to the Hifi Deluxe in Munich the parallel show to the MOC ?
Ceramic drivers from Accuton ?
Yes. All of the Ultra models usd Accuton woofs and mids
White gloves or no touching 😊
Why are they putting the cables on blocks of wood ?? does not make sense??
We considered Ultra 55 and Ultra 7 but the aesthetic is a hard no. The composite cabinets don’t suit our aesthetics. Love our VR5 Anniversary MkII, the sound is phenomenal and can be bi-amped with our Wavac 805’s & Rogue Apollo Dark. Nearly as important as the superb sound is the wood cabinetry, just beautiful 👍. The Ultra 55, had they been in wood, was not a noticeable improvement sufficient enough to “upgrade”. The Ultra 7 however is another class. What an amazing speaker. No wood veneer exterior is however a deal breaker. Offer a wood exterior and you have another sale.
We cab build the ULTRA 7s in just about any finish you.want. Just let me know!
Michael, I also own the VR-5 Anniversary MKII, outstanding performance indeed, hopefully I can upgrade to the ULTRA 7.
@@leif8660 I was told otherwise. I’ll be in touch the next few weeks. Thank you Leif
A hundred and eighty thousand Dollars MSRP …. 😂😂🤣🤣🤣
Go Big or Go Home 🏡
@@CarlVanDoren61 yeah, but doesn’t make sense to go WAY TOO BIG in price!
Oh well.... I stick to KEF. Less options for the sound. Just music.
Is this snake oil?
..tell us why you think it might be sir
What a mess of cables would never get past the wife
..no problemo..once she hears what you paid for them she will be long gone 😂