[Albert Von Schweikert]

Dear Audiophiles,

The VR-100XS is now a reality; prototypes have been optimized and the final system is being built as I type this. Development has taken two years and is quite a different approach for us.  This is a four piece system with separate subwoofers and is slightly taller than the VR-9 yet much shorter and sleeker than the VR-11's.  In fact, it is a "tweener" in between VR-9 and VR-11 series, but with some very different design approaches:

a. All drivers are custom built and are all made from magnesium/aluminum/Mylar/ceramic sandwiches; even the new ribbon tweeters are sandwich designs using magnesium/aluminum strips with a Mylar backing to eliminate metallic ringing.  Since all drivers are made from exactly the same materials, there is a "single voice" to the entire system.  The transient response of the custom drive units have been matched by our fabricator, ensuring a "single driver" response in both measurement and listening tests.  In fact, there isn't any particular "sound" in this system, it is extremely neutral but spookily realistic and holographic.  One local audiophile who helps me criticize all new models told me that these are "holographic generators, not speakers."  I think you will understand his statement when you hear this system for yourself!

b. The new sandwich drive units have a transient response that is superior to any other driver we have tested.  We are using Alnico and Neodymium super high output magnets with a linear magnetic field with shorted-turn voice coils for a 10x reduction in motor distortion.  This results in clarity, voice, and speed that is similar to a large ribbon panel speaker, but can easily crush any planar in existence due to an incredibly high dynamic range - this system has a 96dB sensitivity rating!

c. We are patenting the Low Frequency Alignment that features flat bass response in the room, down to a 1.5dB tolerance no matter where you sit or stand.  This requires DSP correction in the subwoofer amplifiers and the utilization of 4 woofers with adjustable phase rotation and time delay.  The VR-100 main towers have response down to 22Hz while the twin outboard ShockWave V-15 subwoofers have a response down to 8 Hz.  Using two of our ShockWave V-15 subwoofers in the listening position, aimed at the front towers, enables us to control the bass response throughout the room without having to subject the signal to AD/DA conversion, which is required by all other competing bass correction schemes. We all know that converting the signal prior to the main amplifier/speaker system is a big boo-boo, kills transparency.   Our new design works in the analog domain and does not affect the music signal being fed to the main towers!!!  The DSP phase correction and time delay inside the subwoofer amplifiers cannot corrupt the music signal above 40Hz, enabling a purist vinyl or tape system to be used.  Transparency rules!  I am not against DSP correction, digital players, music servers, and so forth, but I am against too much circuitry and don't like making compromises when it isn't necessary!

d. The VR-100 main towers are dipoles, but offer adjustable level controls for the rear signal above 1kHz.  There are two rear drivers: a 1.5" dome midrange and a 3" ribbon tweeter, both adjustable with a level control for Ambience Retrieval.
The main ribbon tweeter on the front array can be adjusted with a transformer in a wide range with 0.1dB gradations, enabling an extremely fine adjustment of the treble to match any amplifier, room, or listening taste.  These transformers have "zero" insertion loss or coloration; the typical distortion found in "potentiomenters" is unmeasurable due to the design of the transformer, which is hand made in Japan and cannot be heard in a straight wire bypass test.

e. The VR-100XS may be the world's most transparent speaker system available at any price.  The cabinets, designed by Damon Von Schweikert, are very sleek and beautiful, with an elegant yet original design aesthetic.  The system is Time Aligned and Phase Coherent and features crossover parts by Deulund, Jensen, Mundorf, and Delphi Aerospace.  Photos will be available in about two weeks.  The U.S. price of the four piece system is $145,000.

Please email me for further information at info@vonschweikertaudio.com

As always, Happy Listening!

[kernelbob]

Hi all.  I can finally let folks know that serial number 0001, the first pair of the VR100XS speakers, are mine.  I've had the privilege over the past year of innumerable phone calls and email discussions with Albert as the design and development of these beauties took place.  Not to go into the details here, but the one point I want make is that these are a no holds barred assault on the state of the art.  Much more to come...

[Albert Von Schweikert]

Dear Audiophiles:
We've received 4 emails from interested parties who are looking at various maga-buck speaker systems and each letter contains a question about the quantity of drivers and how they are placed on the baffle.  I was going to save that part for the photos coming next week, but as we have quite a few excited people wanting to know more about this design , I'll list the driver complement here:

BASS SYSTEM
a. Each of the two main towers has 4 woofers, 2 above and 2 below the midrange section, just like the VR-11.  In this case, since we're matching the transient response speed to the 3" ribbon tweeter, we couldn't use more than a 180mm diameter cone (a little less than 7").  You might not believe that 4 - 180mm woofers can go deep or play loud, but in this large labyrinth-tuned transmission line, the response is flat to 22Hz!  The SPL capability will slam you out of your chair due to the magnification of the bass power by the transmission line;  we believe that the combined power of the 4 woofers is equivalent to a typical 15" woofer, although the surface area might not be equal.  The X-max (excursion) of the cone and voice coil are amazing and do not limit the dynamics of any bass instrument we have auditioned, including very loud bass whacks on the Kodo drum record, pipe organ notes from 16Hz to 32Hz, or extremely loud bass guitar played at stadium levels in your living room.  Although we did not design this woofer system based on "loudness," it will play bass as loud as you could wish, since the system is augmented with twin 15" subwoofers which run from 8Hz to 40Hz.  The best part is the extreme definition and clarity of each bass note; when listening to a kettle drum roll, most woofer systems make this instrument sound like a "roar," with no silent space in between each mallet strike.  By contrast, the woofer system of the VR-100XS system is so articulate that each mallet strike can be heard individually, as well as harmonic overtones that let you hear that the mallet is a wood ball covered with felt, and that the kettle drum is made from copper and brass, not just a metal barrel.  We have not heard any woofer system that his this type of dynamic range, clarity, or transient response.

MIDRANGE SYSTEM
b. As the "heart" of a speaker system is naturally the midrange drivers (90% of the musical foundation resides from 200Hz to 3,000Hz), we have spent many months engineering the midrange system to have clarity equal to (or in excess of) any dipolar planer driver.  Using two small 5"diameter cones driven by a huge Neodymium magnet can outperform one larger driver, since the smaller cones are naturally "faster" due to the lighter weight and lowered radiation resistance.  In addition, two small ones can go higher in frequency due to the narrower cone profile, which simplifies the crossover blend with the super-fast ribbon tweeter.  As we are employing ceramic-coated magnesium cones for the woofers (both the 15" and 7" woofers are made from the same material), we decided to optimize the midrange with the same specialized combination of magnesium, aluminum, ceramics, and Mylar.  The small, rigid cones have enough internal damping to avoid any type of coloration due to cone flexure or energy storage due to the sandwich construction and materials. 
In order to drive this cone, we required a very large magnetic field to accelerate the cone at the same rate of transient response as the ribbon tweeter.  Thus, our use of Neodymium (a rare earth element) for the magnet, which is 7 times more powerful than any other magnetic material available.  To avoid a large flat magnet behind the cone, which could cause sonic obstruction to the rear wave, we have employed five longitudinal bar magnets with a long and narrow physical profile, so that the magnets do not block the rear of the cone.  In addition to the reduction of rear wave reflections, the long bar magnets enable a longer excursion when the voice coil is reproducing lower midrange frequencies at 200Hz, which is considered to be upper bass frequencies on many instruments.  As the excursion potential is very great and has very low distortion due to the short coil/long gap under-hung design, the clarity is vastly improved with this type of motor system.  The outer rubberized surround and the inner damper (spider) have been optimized to prevent any non-linearity to develop, greatly enhancing the accuracy of the frequency and phase response patterns.  In summation, these are the best performing/sounding/measuring midrange drivers we have ever tested or used in a speaker system.

TREBLE SYSTEM AND DRIVER PLACEMENT
c.  As I had built a plasma speaker system at the lab at Cal Tech 36 years ago, we wanted to design a newer plasma tweeter to match the ultra fast and extremely transparent midrange drivers.  However, due to the experience we have had with various methods to generate the plasma field and our recent findings that no midrange driver in the world could possible have a transient response as fast as a plasma, we decided to employ a simpler treble reproducer and moved on to various diamond, Beryllium, ceramic, and diamond coated domes.  During our survey, a new type of ribbon design came onto the market that we felt was very interesting.  This new design uses a square film and foil diaphragm loaded by a short horn wave guide.  Since the horn has a circular exit throat, the best method to "load" the throat was by completely filling the throat instead of using the more standard "strip" style of ribbon foil element.  Although strip ribbons can sound great, they do exhibit a wide but vertically narrow radiation pattern, which makes integration with the midrange waves difficult.  Since midrange waves are circular rather than planar in pressure structure, it is desirable to use a tweeter with the same radiation pattern for maximum integration.  This new ribbon design radiates a circular wave front, much like a dome tweeter, so the dispersion pattern is a perfect match in both the on-axis and off-axis measurements.
 
In addition to the improved polar response and radiation pattern, this new ribbon design uses several layers of soft plastic (Mylar film) heat bonded to the magnesium/aluminum diaphragm.  This "sandwich" construction completely eliminates the harshness of typical metal tweeters that are crossed over at low frequencies below 2kHz, since the soft plastic film acts as a "damping" pad to the (ringing) metal diaphragm.  Although a sandwich diaphragm by necessity weighs more than a simple metal foil strip, it is possible to use Neodymium magnets with 7x more magnetic strength and then acoustically "boost" the output with a short horn wave guide.  The engineers have succeeded in raising the sensitivity (and efficiency) to a higher output than the twin midrange drivers combined, which enables a high level of dynamic range without compression or distortion.  The transformer attenuator can then either boost or cut the treble to match a particular system or listening taste.

Since this highly advanced ribbon tweeter has the lowest level of distortion we have measured, we believe that the VR-100XS has the most detail and lush treble range of any speaker on the market, as the tweeter runs from 2kHz to 100kHz.  Although a plasma tweeter may be indeed faster and slighter lower in distortion, the disadvantages of not having a matching plasma midrange driver array wipes out the advantages on a check and balance sheet.  In fact, our new midrange/tweeter array is so close to the sound of a "live" instrument that you will be very pleased!

DRIVER PLACEMENT AND WAVE LAUNCH
d. As the design of the transducer set is called a "concentric array" you might surmise that the ribbon tweeter is placed on the axis of the ear when the listener is sitting down.  By placing the tweeter in between the two midrange drivers and in the center of the spaced woofer array, a genuine "point source" is generated, which more closely resembles the pickup pattern of a recording microphone. 

Why is this important, you might ask?

Simple!  If you wish to reproduce what the recording microphone "heard" at the recording session, you need to design the speaker to emit sound as closely to the mic as possible.  Since recording microphones are point sources, your "perfect" speaker would need to also be a point source.  Second, if you really want to design the world's best sounding speaker, you will need to optimize the image focus, so a Time Aligned and Phase Coherent Point Source is really the only choice!  To accomplish this goal, the tweeter's acoustic center needs to be in the same physical plane as the midrange and woofer array, so that every frequency range hits your ears at the same time.  In this manner, you can simulate a "one way" speaker system that can closely mimic the instrument that you are hearing on the recording in both sound quality and image focus.

It is my belief that most speakers differ wildly in the treble, with one group of listeners preferring a "detailed" sound while other listeners preferring a smoother and richer sound.  The key to enabling everyone to be happy with the treble range is to use a driver that has the least distortion or coloration, and then provide a method of raising or lowering the volume (amplitude response) in order to balance the treble to the equipment, room, or listening taste.  That is why we are employing a hand-built Japanese matching transformer with 22 positions with 0.1dB gradations.  This attenuation transformer uses Military-Grade contacts that will never oxidize or distort the signal.

CROSSOVER IMPLEMENTATION
Since our goal is to generate the sound and image focus of a single driver that has infinite speed and bandwidth, it is critical to engineer a method to use all of the drivers in their most efficient and lowest distortion ranges.  As woofers do not sound good when trying to reproduce cymbals, and tweeters do not sound good when trying to reproduce bass instruments, simple First Order (6dB per octave) filters were rejected after careful listening tests against a live instrument.   

However, it is necessary to find a way to integrate the 20 drivers without adding any further phase distortion or coloration caused by high-Q ringing from improperly designed steep order filters.  As we have found that simple first order filters allow too much distortion to be developed in the drive units due to out-of-band signals that are not handled gracefully by the driver, it is imperative to use higher order crossovers to eliminate the excess distortion and driver overlap that causes a "veil" found in first order circuits.
Our solution was to design a filter set that uses the driver's own electrical and mechanical characteristics as part of the electrical filter design, which then enables higher order filters to be designed without additional electrical parts!  In addition, I discovered a method to design filters that are not connected in series with the drivers, but are implemented as ground shunts that do not dissipate the signal or absorb any low level detail.  If "true" transparency is desired, the crossover filter set is perhaps "the" most important part of the speaker design.

Due to my personal interest in filter design (having engineered and constructed more than 300 circuits in the past 36 years using CAD technology), I have tweaked my Global Axis Integration Network (G.A.I.N.) design to work with the specific nature of the new metal sandwich drivers.  The GAIN circuit is a series of servo-controlled Zobel shunt circuits outside of the signal path.  The filter sets control the four following parameters:
a. Crossover frequency points;
b. Phase correction to compensate for the mechanical driver roll-offs and voice coil non-linearities;
c. Time delay correction (not created by the driver acoustic centers, which "are" mechanically aligned), but compensation for the phase lead and phase lag through the capacitors and inductors used in series with the drivers to control their crossover points;
d. Amplitude correction, as the drivers do not all have matching sensitivities due to their differing moving masses and acceleration factors.

SUBWOOFER SYSTEM
The VR-100XS main towers have a response from 22Hz to 100kHz, so outboard subwoofers would not be absolutely necessary IF you will be setting up your speaker system outside.  In a normal room, the bass waves will reflect off the walls back to the woofers, creating pressure disturbances called "standing waves" or in scientific language: "Eigentones."  To eliminate the variation of bass pressure throughout the listening room, it is possible to use equalization methods based on DSP solutions, but "add on" digital bass correction methods are only useful for one small listening position.  At all other positions, the bass is going to be worse.  Many vinyl lovers are not going to subject their source to additional AD/DA conversions, with the resulting additional distortions and colorations, either!

You may believe that you can simply ignore the effects of standing bass waves by moving the speakers around and use a few bass traps, but if you hear a speaker system that completely eliminates the bass problems created by room reflections, you will be shocked at the increase of overall clarity throughout the midrange as well as bass range.
In my original post, found above, I have mentioned that we have designed a complete solution which does not corrupt the musical signal, since we use no processing before the musical signal has reached the main speaker system.  The ShockWave V-15 is a compact servo-controlled push pull woofer system with a 15" aluminum/magnesium/ceramic coated cone and 56 pound magnet.  The 1,600-watt Class-D amplifier has been designed expressly for this subwoofer driver and has on-board Signal Processor with analog-based time delay and phase shift adjustment.
The cabinet is sealed to optimize the transient response and enable tight bass without any port overhang.  The 3" thick cabinet walls cannot flex or add any energy storage which would be audible.  By itself, the ShockWave V-15 is the fastest and most accurate subwoofer available, but when used with our Pat. Pending Room Correction algorithm and placement method, the bass/lower midrange standing wave Eigentones are completely eliminated.  This total package will not only shake your preconceptions of what a "real" subwoofer can do, but will also enable you to hear your music (perhaps for the first time) without any resonances or mud in the lower midrange.   Now, that is what we call a "total system" design!  If you have any further interest in discovering what just may be the most comprehensive speaker system in the world, stay tuned for photos next week!
As Always, Happy Listening
Albert Von Schweikert

[htradtk]

All,

Congrats Bob for having the first pair, I'm sure you can't wait for those babies! I would have to take out a second morgage to get a pair. Will they be on display at CES 2013 in Vegas?

Henry

[kernelbob]

My pair will be shipped from VSA to my house and are unlikely to ever be moved-- they're extremely heavy, but still svelte in appearance.  The second pair also in production has the same finish as mine, ultra high gloss piano black, and will likely be the ones presented to the public.  Not sure about when that pair will be unveiled.  It will take some time (as one would expect) to get the drivers, crossovers, porting, etc. precisely dialed in.  The last thing I'd want is to rush the final voicing of the speakers.  As Albert mentioned, these have been in development for two years, but they're in the home stretch.

[Albert Von Schweikert]

Hello Fellow Audiophiles,

There has been an enormous amount of interest in our new VR-100XS, with many of our potential customers wishing to see some photos.  I am pleased to publish this photo, which shows the large 500lb tower with the UniField Model Two for scale.  Enjoy!

[es347]

Very cool Albert.  How about a picture of the subwoofer?

[htradtk]

Absolutly gorgeous!! Looks very close to the VR-11! Great job VSA! 

[htradtk]

Opps, went a little overboard on the drooling, but who wouldn't!

[es347]

...just don't stand next to your VR5s.  That gloss black and drool don't go together.. 

[JackD201]

Anybody know if K-Bob is getting any sleep while as he awaits his pair? 

[Johnbr]

It would make a great center laying on its side.How tall is it.

[Damon Von Schweikert]

It would make a great center laying on its side.How tall is it.

It's 180cm tall or 5'9".  To be honest, the first thing I said when I laid eyes on the test cabinet was; "Wouldn't it make an amazing center channel laying on it's side?"  Does that mean that I lose my 2-channel street cred?

[Johnbr]

Your are probably  think of 5.1 music.

[Holli82]

It's 180cm tall or 5'9".  To be honest, the first thing I said when I laid eyes on the test cabinet was; "Wouldn't it make an amazing center channel laying on it's side?"  Does that mean that I lose my 2-channel street cred?

Damon

After you and Albert upgraded my '9s to mkII, you have 2-channel street cred for life with me

[heilman]

Congratulations Albert my friend:

Truly a labor of love! a real MAGNUM OPUS for the lovers of music everywhere.  For the High End, the bar has been set even higher.




Space! The final Frontier

[es347]

It's 180cm tall or 5'9".  To be honest, the first thing I said when I laid eyes on the test cabinet was; "Wouldn't it make an amazing center channel laying on it's side?"  Does that mean that I lose my 2-channel street cred?

VR100 center channel?  Why not when the brother of a certain poster has VR9 rears 

[SundayNiagara]

When will these speakers be delivered?

[Rx8man]

An education on speaker design technology   Albert, can you put me on the easy payment program?

[gammajo]

Congratulations Albert! It looks like you put your heart and soul into them. Thank you for the detailed description of their design. I would be honored to hear them some day. Will you have a pair in your listening room in CALF?