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Von Schweikert VR-10 Mk II
 Von Schweikert |
DESIGN GOAL:
Design and build the world's best speaker system requires a system platform with the following characteristics:
· Extremely wide bandwidth (10 Hz to 100,000 Hz)
· Extremely low distortion (less than 0.1%)
· Extremely high dynamic range (96 dB @ one watt/one meter sensitivity)
· Holographic, three-dimensional image recreation
· Extremely high output levels without strain
Towards these lofty goals, Albert Von Schweikert and VSA has developed a four-tower speaker system with the above engineering targets, accomplished by the utilization of the world's finest drive units, crossover parts, and cabinet build quality. No existing speaker system can match the performance, sound quality, and specifications of the VR-10 MKII system, at any price.
| xx | WOOFER TOWERS These Extreme-Duty subs are over-engineered and will provide the deepest, tightest, and loudest bass imaginable! As the internal pressures will be enormous, the cabinet is fabricated from resin impregnated wood pulp (maximum density fiberboard) and has a wall thickness of 2" formed by a composite design using constrained layer damping techniques used in nuclear submarine hull design. The composite consists of 1" MDF walls and 1" internal damping rubber layer; the entire structure is braced with a system of internal honeycomb latticework built with the 1" MDF material. This is one cabinet that is not going to resonate or color the sound, under any condition! The four 15" woofers are each mounted in a separate loading chamber, filled 100% with acoustic stuffing to eliminate cavity resonance; the 2,000-watt digital subwoofer amplifier is mounted on the rear of the enclosure and has controls for volume, frequency, and phase. The controls are calibrated for flat response but can be adjusted to compensate for the room or the recordings. The frequency range of the subwoofer towers is 10 Hz to 100 Hz, but in our system we will be crossing out the subwoofers at 60 Hz in order to ensure transparent sound in the midbass/lower midrange area reproduced by the main towers. |
MAIN TOWERS / MIDBASS FREQUENCY RANGE
To deliver the ultimate in frequency coherence, the eight - 15" subwoofers cross over to eight - 8.5" aluminum coned midbass drivers (four per tower) at 60 Hz, ensuring a seamless transition from the sub-bass frequencies to the midbass frequencies. This is an extremely important range, since 70% of the power of an orchestra at full crescendo is created by the contrabasses, tympani drums, bass drums, cellos, tubas, etc. This is also the range where the human male voice begins, so extreme clarity in this range is important for fans of vocals such as opera, country and western, and pop. Many "statement" speakers have a huge sonic "hole" in the midbass range, as they do not use drivers to reproduce this range (they go from 15" subwoofers directly to midrange drivers that can't handle loud midbass). Consequently, even though these above-mentioned speakers sell for $50,000 to $175,000, they are not seamless in the transition from bass to midrange. There are also speakers with a very boomy, resonant midbass/lower midrange which use cheap paper woofers in a ported box; the coloration on male vocals is amazing (and of course, undesirable).
To insure very low distortion and very high clarity, we have chosen aluminum cones that will not flex or distort at even the highest volume levels, and naturally, we specified very high temperature voice coil wire and a cooling plug at the center of the cone (the so-called phase plug). These cast frame midbass drivers are hand made in Norway and are of the highest quality. As the system utilizes eight of these drivers to reproduce the range from 60 Hz to 400 Hz, the midbass range sounds effortless and extremely clean.
MAIN TOWERS / UPPER MIDRANGE
To accurately reproduce the upper midrange frequencies (400 Hz to 2.5 kHz) where the ear/brain hearing mechanism is extremely sensitive, it is important to use drivers that are transparent to the signal, but are not "peaky" or bright. Far too many speakers have harsh upper midrange, caused by cone flex, ringing voice coils, and other aberrations that are audible but not measurable. This is an area where long experience with transducer design and a musician's ear is invaluable; I have tested 32 expensive midrange drivers from cones to electrostatics to planar ribbon types to find our chosen unit. The tests include time-response measurements such as the impulse burst to test transient response and the Cumulative Spectral Decay, commonly known as the waterfall plot. These measurements show the energy storage and ringing problems endemic to most midrange drivers; in this test, our chosen unit excels beyond any other driver, cost-no-object. However, the most important test is our comparison with a live signal, using a tube microphone and expensive tube mic preamp. We compared the human voice, acoustic guitar, harmonica, cymbal and snare drum, clarinet, etc., with the driver under test. The winner by a large margin is the Audax Professional 7" Aerogel-coned midrange driver. These rare and expensive units are hand-built in France and come with serial numbers; the Aerogel cone is a composite formed of carbon fiber, Kevlar, cellulose acetate pulp, and a ceramic binder. This cone is extremely light and thin, but does not ring due to the spongy internal composition; wave energy is absorbed, not reflected, by the random nature of the internal particles. This exotic cone is driven by an expensive edge-wound ribbon voice coil suspended in an enormously powerful magnetic field, larger than the magnet found on most 12" woofers! Two of these drivers are used per tower, to ensure low distortion at high volume levels; these drivers are so low in coloration that voices seem to be in the room with you! And more, the dynamic range of these mids will really take your breath away: trumpets, snare drums, and the piano seem to be alive, vibrant with energy. Listening to the new VR-10 MKII is an emotional experience, not soon forgotten.
| TWEETER ARRAY To match the world-class bass and midrange, we have selected two different types of treble drivers: twin 1.5" Dual Ring Radiators by Vifa/Scanspeak of Denmark reproduce an extremely smooth lower treble range, from 2.5 kHz to 40 kHz, with extremely high clarity, (and most importantly, with creamy smooth high frequencies). To reproduce the "air" and shimmer of cymbals, triangles, and other delicate instruments, we are utilizing a 2" tall ribbon tweeter made in France by Raven; this super-tweeter is mounted between the two Dual Ring Radiators and brings out the delicate high frequencies from 10 kHz to 100 kHz. The three tweeters in combination have incredible detail, high power handling, very high dynamic range (far more output SPL than horns), but most importantly, this superb tweeter array has the lowest distortion of any tweeter system known to modern science. The high frequencies appear to be floating in space, surrounding you, on cushions of air, with the most delicate and effortless sound you can imagine. Other speakers sound coarse, harsh, and ugly compared to the VR-10 MKII…… |
| xxx | REAR FIRING AMBIENCE RETRIEVAL SYSTEM To reproduce the holographic imaging that is encoded on so many wonderful recordings, we are utilizing our Ambience Retrieval System, with decoding circuit and rear-firing tweeter array to provide depth of field. On the rear of the midrange/tweeter cabinets, there are twin 1" wave-guide midtweeters, fed a depth signal by our proprietary Ambience Retrieval extraction circuit, which decodes the out-of-phase signals that were reflected off the back wall of the concert hall or recording studio. As these reflected signals arrive at a later time than the original signal, they are out of phase with the music arriving at the front of the recording microphones. Our decoder/ extraction circuit feeds this reverberant signal to the rear-firing tweeters, reproducing the original depth and hall-size encoded in the recording. As an additional benefit, this system enables listeners sitting far off axis to hear stereophonic sound; as you walk around the room, you will notice that the VR-10 MKII has a spooky resemblance to a live musical performance, in that anywhere in your room you will hear a 3-D sound-stage effect only heard at a concert hall. This system is the heart of our Virtual Reality design. |
MAIN TOWER CONSTRUCTION
The acoustical design of the main tower is non-resonant and is constructed of the same type of multi-wall composite design as the woofer towers. Any type of vibration or resonance in the enclosure will adversely affect the purity of the music and/or voices, so we have over-engineered the cabinet walls, honeycomb bracing system, and internal damping to ensure the most transparent sound known to modern science. The rear wave of the drive units is absorbed by a multi layer of foam rubber, Dacron stuffing, and felt blankets. We have tested many variants of chambers and acoustic damping over a 23 year period, and the internal construction of our speakers enables the transparency and clarity to rival the live sound of the instruments. Our famous "live instrument versus the speaker" test we perform on each new model helps us identify coloration and distortion added by the enclosure and damping materials, and hundreds of hours of experimentation have resulted in the cleanest sound imaginable. This is an important factor in our sound quality, as our competitors do not spend any time on testing the internal sound quality of their designs; the coloration and distortion is very apparent in almost every speaker system on the market.
VR-10 MkII SPECIFICATIONS - IN CURRENT PRODUCTION FOR 2006
PRICE: $85,000/system (Suggested Retail as of 1/2006), four towers featuring amplified subwoofers.
SIZE: 72" tall x 18" wide x 18" deep (woofer towers); 72" tall x 10" wide x 18" deep (mains).
WEIGHT: 300 lbs (woofer towers), 230 lbs (main towers).
IMPEDANCE: 8 ohms nominal, 6 ohms min.
SENSITIVITY: 96 dB @ one watt/one meter.
POWER RATING: 100 watts to 1,000 watts per main tower recommended.
SUBWOOFER AMPLIFIERS: (TWO included): 1,000 watts r.m.s. minimum, 2,000 watts peak.
FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 10 Hz to 100,000 Hz (-10dB), 20 Hz to 50 kHz (-3dB).
WARRANTY: 10 years from date of purchase, excluding burnt voice coils due to abuse.
CABINET DESIGN: Multi-layer composite, with 1" MDF and 1" acoustic rubber, sealed box
CABINET FINISH: Gloss black or gloss silver finish
SUBWOOFERS:
Four (per side) - 15" Extreme-Duty drivers with carbon fiber/ABS cones, Low Distortion Motors, 2" peak-to-peak throw, dual spiders, Supronyl rubber surrounds, 3" high-temp voice coils and vented 100oz. magnets. Freq. range: 10 Hz to 60 Hz.
MIDBASS DRIVERS:
Four (per side) - 8.5" aluminum-coned Super-Duty drivers with Low Distortion Motors, 40mm high-temp voice coils, butyl rubber surrounds, linear spider, cast magnesium frames, and phase plugs for cooling. Freq. range: 60 Hz to 400 Hz.
MIDRANGE DRIVERS:
Two (per side) - 7" Audax Aerogel-coned Professional midrange drivers with Low Distortion Motors featuring edge-wound aluminum voice coils and hi-Gauss Strontium magnets, cast frames, and phase plugs for cooling. Freq. range: 400 Hz to 2.5 kHz.
TWEETERS:
Two (per side) - 1.5" Dual Ring Radiators with Ferrofluid liquid cooling, rubberized linen diaphragms, Low Distortion Motors, and phase plug. Freq. range: 2.5 kHz to 40 kHz.
SUPERTWEETERS:
One (per side) - 2" ribbon with Neodymium magnetic assembly, waveguide lens, impedance matching transformer, Low Distortion Design. Freq. range: 10 kHz to 100 kHz.
AMBIENCE RETRIEVAL SYSTEM:
Ambience Extraction decoding circuit feeding twin 1" rear-firing midtweeters with acoustic waveguide lens, Ferrofluid cooling, Low Distortion Motors, rubberized silk domes, and Effects Level control potentiometer, 0 to 100 %.