[Thrice]

As I alluded to in my introduction message I have a pair of Supertower IIa/R's that I'm going to have to part with. A sad day for me, however every time a door closes a window opens, so this could be a window of opportunity for a VMPS enthusiast.

The cabinets are in excellent condition, very few edge "dings" (a couple on the back corners, none on the front corners) and no delamination of the veneer on the main body. There is however some slight crazing of the lamination at the toe kick area (just above the floor) and lifting of the lamination on the top outer edges (only visible from above the tower). When placed in a room these imperfections are difficult to notice. The speaker cover frames are in excellent condition with both VMPS emblems still attached. The cover fabric is in ok condition save for a 6in. tear on the left cover and a 1in tear on the right cover.

Moving to the speakers themselves, the towers have never been opened up for servicing so as one would expect from the original components sitting idle, the subwoofers will need to be refoamed. The cones are in excellent condition on all the subs and of the TWENTY mid and hi speakers the only damage is a dent in the dust cap of the bottom midrange speaker of the right tower in the photo.

I've made every attempt to preserve these speakers and believe with a refoam of the subwoofers these towers would be ready to rock.

Asking $950 for the pair sounds like a fair place to start, I encourage those interested to ask any questions. Shipping as we all know won't be cheap, but I kid you not UPS will ship these. No matter your shipper (Ryder, Uship, etc.) the origination zip code is 64050 and I'd be happy to help in any way I can.

Am I missing anything?

-Russell

[zadfrak]

I have a moderate interest in these, but was really seeking the Supertower 3's. Let me look into shipping costs because you are a long ways from me.

Thanks. What did you drive them with?

[Thrice]

Zadfrak, thank you for your interest, they were driven by a 100w/ch fisher component system. I have pair of amps (500w ea. IIRC) however I never used them.

Lowered the price to $600, should help ease the bite of shipping for you... or anyone else interested in purchasing them!

-Russell

[PMAT]

Man I wish those were near me. And while I'm at it I wish I was 25 with a fat trust fund. 

[Shear Bliss]

DONT WE ALL, DONT WE ALL!!!

[jwalker]

If the front facing woofers have bad surrounds, the buried passive radiator will almost certainly have the same problem.  See here for the adventure I embarked on to replace the passive radiators inside these speakers:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=67765.msg635525#msg635525

[Thrice]

One needs to be. The other, surprisingly, is in excellent condition.    All jokes aside, refoaming the passive radiators along with the rest of the woofers would need to be done. The radiators aren't as simple to get to as the woofers but certainly not complicated either. I liked your hinge idea, Jwalker!

I'm surprised there isn't more interest. Lopping $350 off the price pays for a 1500 mile round trip for someone to come get them. No one within 750 miles wants them? What if I gave them cool names...

...like Hanz and Franz!? 

[James Romeyn]

Same vintage or possibly a bit later: B tweaked a pair of these for four days continuously at CES, driven by Meitner M100 watt mono bloc, Meitner wired remote preamp (first high end remote preamp?), Sony ES CDP/transport driving Theta DAC.  By Sunday the 4th day it was an audio high point for me and still is.  Brian said and I agreed, the Telarc Beach Boys tribute CD with the electric bass octave synthesizer felt like a ballerina doing tippy toes on your chest. 

That this banker-planned depression caused Telarc to go under makes me sick.   

Its coherence and dynamic presentation rivaled Infinity IRS III.  In fact, I'd place bass transient presentation as surpassing the III (though not power wise...with the III I noticed the bass transients were first under damped then you heard the servo kick in and slightly overdamp...as Brian said, one thing working against the III's bass servo was time). 

I don't recommend the following because it's kind of a history piece, but it's an option: For that money you could ignore the mid/treble array and have one hell of a pair of sub towers after fixing the surrounds.  Sell the mid/treble array if you want...mids have sub enclosure so no need to plug those holes, only plug the tweeter holes.  Bypass the insanely complex bass xo in series with the mids, power it with the PX 950W sub amp/xo.

The only required OEM xo part you'll need is/are the resistor pads on the two upper 12" mid bass #2710.  Replace them with higher quality.   

For sub duty, even with the resistor pad the 2710s extend too high.  Brian uses the upper 12s way up into the midrange.  Ideally I'd probably recommend 6th order or staggered slopes (start 4th order then slightly higher pole increase to 6th order via Bheringger DCX2496 powering Hypex' 2400W DIY UcD amp). 

Ignore everything you ever read recommending stereo subs below 80 Hz, utter nonsense.

Because of the driver layout, generally the greater the listening distance the higher the potential sound quality.  These are not recommended for near field under any conditions. 

 

[PMAT]

  how do you remember all this shit. What the hell did I have for breakfast?

[James Romeyn]

how do you remember all this shit. What the hell did I have for breakfast?

Paul, you had corn flakes with a slightly over ripe banana, which you liked because it was sweet! I got this info from Gen. Alexander, NSA head honcho...

I just now remembered the full Audax model number of the 5" mid bass on this STIIa/R for sale: HIF13JVX2CA12...anyone want to bet?  If the owner wants to he can remove one of the mid bass and check. 

You'd not believe the bass that 5" makes in a small PR loaded box.  Gary Summers was my neighbor years ago in Petaluma.  Last I checked he won 6 Oscars for re-recording engineering.  The only speakers I had when he visited was a small monitor with that 5" midbass, same driver blown for a PR, and Scan Speak D29005 silk dome.  I wish I still had them.  I fired the PR down, like Brian, through a slotted pedestal bass.

They might have played as loud or louder than my current Dynaudio Esotec 17cm mid bass.  The Dynaudio sound "fuller" and "larger."  But that ancient Audax 13cm paper cone/rubber surround/steel frame had better speed, punch, and dynamic slam.  It definitely beat the best and 5x as costly KEF 5" mid bass of that era, as found in the LS35A (almost exactly the same size box as my tiny monitors).  In direct AB the bass in my tiny PR equipped monitor killed my ultra high cost German Braun 5" sealed 2-way (might have been a 6" 3-way with dome mid and tweeter).

Yeah, the LS35A and Braun had "smoother" mid range, but that did not make up for the night/day bass deficit. 

Why oh why did I take those apart!  Dumb!  I vitrified the cones on the mid bass 30 years before Brian did it to his PR!         

[PMAT]

"definitely Kmart"  Rainman    and don't croak, we're probably going to need you.

[James Romeyn]

VMPS/Spica tidbit:

The 16cm Audax mid bass (HIF16JVX2CA12) Jon Bau employed in his superlative sloped-front Spica TC50 was the larger version (identical except deeper cone and +30mm diameter) of Brian's old Audax 130mm.

[Thrice]

Pardon the extended duration of time which has passed but I completely forgot to post the sale information of these speakers per VMPS circle guidelines.

Sold to a member of this board, acustat lover, the end sale price was reduced from $600 to $500 after the towers... I kid you not... slid out of the back of my truck the day before he picked them up.   

The image of them hitting the ground still haunts me...

[Rocket]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the damage to the vmps speakers.  At least you sold them and hopefully to a good home where they will be well looked after.

Regards Rod

[Shear Bliss]

How does one lose two Supertower IIa/R"s from a pick-up bed ??? Just the thought of it makes me feel sick.