[James Romeyn]

RM-40's on Audiogon (not mine):

http://app.audiogon.com/listings/full-range-vmps-rm-40-ribbon-speakers-w-trt-caps-megawoofers-silver-wiring-sr-71-fst-tweeters-2013-02-24-speakers-60586-plainfield-il

FF-1's too (again not mine) (Sorry, I see that you already looked into these):

http://app.audiogon.com/listings/full-range-vmps-ff-1-speakers-2013-02-17-speakers-21208

FF1 seller states three woofers and one tweeter.  How hard is it to count to three?  He seemed to run out of fingers early.  (two Scan Speak D2800/xxxxxxx domes I suggested to Brian + one planar tweeter)  When seller misquotes the tweeter count by a multiple of three I feel extreme low ball offer is justified.  Plus he apparently does not know the slot driver is passive.  I mean, obviously, he does not care about audio! 

[James Romeyn]

I have a pair of the super towers but I think you have already seen the pics if I remember correct, but if not heres pics.All new drivers and includes outboard crossovers.

Had a nice pair of these when I lived in a condo that shared a wall on my living room where the speakers were set up.  I actually damped the entire speaker side of the room including the ceiling! Anyway, the guy on the other side was a drug dealer, but a very nice respectable guy, quiet, friendly, normally high of course.  I used to crank the towers.  One day he said the picture fell off on his wall, and his friends just laughed. 

Sorry, with all due respect, this particular pair might best serve as a sacrifice at the next Burning Man...

One of my fond vmps memories was assembling speakers at the plant, a guy calls, older guy...he had bought the above model in kit form years prior, had lost the instructions, and called for replacement instructions, which Brian of course said he'd promptly mail (remember mail?)...then he sheepishly asked for help in getting his cats removed from the empty enclosure, where they had taken up residence.  Brian said, sorry, that was above his pay grade. 

Readers can make of the following whatever they like.  I make no accusation.  I go back with Brian to assembling speakers in his garage, as Brian affectionately put it, "two guys in a garage."  I never saw any AMT nor Heil type tweeter ever associated with Brian.  Also, I saw Brian do many interesting and sometimes odd things.  I can not imagine Brian telling anyone ever to do anything like simply remove a planar super tweeter in ST/R and replace with a Heil tweeter.  I'm not saying Brian did not do this.  I'm saying just that this is contrary to my decades of experience with Brian.  Frankly, I owned the smaller Heil tweeters and they share little to no resemblance with the low-sensitivity planar super tweeters Brian employed. 

[James Romeyn]

anyone could offer some other brand similar speakers to Super Towers III?

As close as you'll get is the largest Dunlavy.

Nothing I can think of is going to go as deep as the III, but bass is a huge crap shoot with any single-column speaker, so you may make a common error in putting too much stock in the speaker re. bass performance.  Brian knew and practiced this.  One of the first thing's he ask about in every phone conversation with prospective buyers was about the room, longest dimension, solidity, etc, etc.  Brian knew the orchestra sounds no better than the venue and could play no faster than the bass section was capable of of playing.

I'd say the IIIs dynamic envelope is darn close to the IRS III, with which I'm quite familiar.  You can get good sound from the III at close range, but it's sweeter and more integrated viewed at a distance. 

Frankly, because of the QSO crossover employed, if you desire to biamp you really must use only identical amps top/bottom.  A pair of Ncore mono blocks is probably about as good an amp for them as money can buy. 

If shopping for Tower II, do not, I repeat, do not get the in-line series cabinet known as Special Edition.  IOW the only TII to purchase is the older style cabinets with arc array of mid/treble drivers.  There are SE versions of this older cabinet, which are all good.  The inline series in theory should have performed better, but in practice the arc array of drivers performed better.  IMO, and I'm quite positive about this, again, if the drivers were physically offset for time arrival (double or triple the cost) the inline series would have sounded better.   

[underdawg]

I have to agree Dunlavy would be the closest because of the multiple drivers of different sizes in a sealed cabinet.
I have compared mine to s4,s5,s6 Dunmlavys as I had a friend locally who had them all at once. Yes the Dunlavys were better by far, but we figuring 1000.00 versus 3000.00 and up I stayed with my completely rebuilt in 2010 super towers you see in the pictures above.
For the money I have not compared anything better to replace them , and I have done tons of in house comparisons. The drawback is size and weight as mine have extra internal wood work.

[James Romeyn]

Duntech (designed by Dunlavy) 2001 Sovereign at CES remain an audio high point for me, even at close range in too small hotel room...my best one-word description is "dramatic."  Deep, involving, mesmerizing, intoxicating...a killer loudspeaker by any standard.  Duntech employed all-Dynaudio drivers, and this was years before the improved Esotec line arrived. 

As someone who's reference has been Dynaudio Esotec for going on six years now, I am positively and quite thoroughly baffled that John Krutke of Zaph Audio so strongly dislikes the performance of Dynaudio mid bass and the Morel mid bass which are Dynaudio clones.  Very strange.   

[rbbert]

I'd take 30s over 40s.  Heard every iteration at Brian's sound room, including direct A-B, and of course I owned several of each model.  Best I can tell the 30s line source beats the 40s symmetrical array (preference might invert if the 40s drivers were offset for time alignment ala Duntech/Dunlavy, but that would have doubled the speaker's cost)...

I can't agree with this unless your room is fairly small (hotel room size), in which case the RM-30 might well sound better, although that is mostly due to the side firing woofers (more flexible room blending).

I don't understand the comment about tweeter placement?  In both the 30 and 40 it's in the same position relative to the mids, and the Xover is designed for them to be phase coherent (as in all VMPS designs?).

[James Romeyn]

I can't agree with this unless your room is fairly small (hotel room size), in which case the RM-30 might well sound better, although that is mostly due to the side firing woofers (more flexible room blending).

I don't understand the comment about tweeter placement?  In both the 30 and 40 it's in the same position relative to the mids, and the Xover is designed for them to be phase coherent (as in all VMPS designs?).

Practically no two people about audio, especially speakers.  Brian is gone now, RIP.  He did not disagree with my overall assessment 30 vs 40, and we did that A-B more than once.  In fact he more or less echoed my sentiment.  Being the owner of 40s when the 30 arrived, I had every reason to prefer the 40.  I had no affinity then for smaller speakers (owned FF2 SRE prior). 

Again, Brian dropped the side-firing 10 on the 30 after I continuously reminded him every time I visited (a  lot) the enclosure is too small.  The Q is audibly skewed way too high on that particular model (30 with 10")  Am I correct the last 30 iteration was side firing 10PR with no down-firing 6.5PR?  Those dual 6.5PR were way too small PR cone area for that high Q system.  My two 6.5PRs in my 30 bottomed soon and often, even minus the 10 active.  Unfortunately, RM30 with 10 active inverted the classic speaker design formula: PR cone unit area = 2x active cone unit area.  You can cheat on the formula with PR modifications but not to that degree.  Open up your 30 and computer useable internal volume for the woofers...there ain't much there. 

Brian was a kick butt designer, incredible, and worked his butt off daily.  Even Joe Montana lost a post-season game here and there (ask Roger Craig about Washington, would have been three-peat SB).  I still think the first six versions of the WATT were pretty horrific, and many agree including professionals.  Version Seven only borders on OK.       

Read about the differences between a line source (30) and symmetrical array (40).  The two have little in common in their respective radiation patterns.  Speaker radiation patterns define much of perceived performance.

The 30 beat the 40 even in Brian's huge room unless one puts much more weight on bass cutoff and bass power.  But as always, every speaker (including in this case) with deeper and more powerful bass (40) creates more bass mode effects than one with higher bass cutoff and less bass power (30).  If this was not so, then the endless pages written about bass traps, EQ, bass treatments, bass resonators, soffits, 50k pages arguing the relative merits and demerits of ideal bass loading techniques, etc. would not exist.  Deep powerful linear bass in a domestic space is almost impossible because of bass mode effects.  Take any speaker with deep powerful bass.  Perceived performance relies on almost infinite variables outside the users control.  However it sounds, move one speaker over 6" and check how different it sounds.  Or move your listening chair 8" side to side or forward/backward?  Does it sound similar or radically different?  Probably the latter.  Perception depends on infinite variables outside the speaker.  Bummer, but true.   

I had Brian pretty well convinced about the merits of Distributed Bass Array at 2012 CES.  If I was still living near him we would have experimented with it in his sound room and it would be featured in this forum.  I would also have convinced him to move beyond the RM50 bipolar array (which he selected after my urging) to something infinitely better.  But fate had a different plan.   

 

   

[rbbert]

Given the radiation pattern of the Neopanels, is it appropriate to call it (the RM-40) a phased-array?  With almost no vertical dispersion from them I suspect if measured the RM-40 also behaves like a line source; it certainly sounds like one to me.  I do run my RM-40's with additional subs; one simply needs bass from more than 2 sources to get decent room response.