[simon wagstaff]

I have been sitting on this story for a while but finally have the time and motivation to post this. Perhaps it is of interest.

I have had lots of speakers in my nearly 50 years of audiophilia. Memorable ones include Apogee Duetta Signatures, Dynaudio Geminis, Infinity Intermezzo 4.1 (for maybe 10 years), Gallo Ref 3.5, Paragon Volent, Raidho C1.2 (really didn’t like those) to name a few.  Why did I keep changing?  We all know the answer to that.

😊

I prize transparency, imaging and bass response. I have had a pair of smaller VMPS subwoofers for a LONG time (15 years or more) that I have upgraded. I got the super megawoofers and big bump passives just before VMPS closed up shop, and about two years ago installed 500-watt BASH plate amps into each one. The plate amps are similar to the ones that Brian used, and have a level control, phase control and variable analogue crossover line in and out.
I don’t recall exactly why, but I was randomly driving around the Potomac neighborhood (swanky area outside of DC). I drove by a place that was having a yard sale. Outside were VMPS 626 and RM2 along with some other fairly nice things, like an AR tube amp and an MMF7.1 turntable. Inside were some more higher end things including a VMPS larger subwoofer and a pair of very dusty VMPS RM-V60 and a crossover. I was sorely tempted by them, but it was not immediately clear to me how the crossovers would wire up. I do want to mention that there was something WRONG with each and every item. Three kids were selling their dad’s equipment, dad was moving into a home. The AR amp had a broken tube socket, the MMF 7.1 turntable was missing the motor. I bought the 626 and RM2 for $500 each pair. I bought the tube amp and sold it on eBay and made a few hundred bucks.

The 626 were completely messed up. I sent them to Danny Ritchie of GR Research. He had posted in the past about an improved crossover for the 626. When he got them he found that the spiral wound tweeters were shot, and for some reason the cut-outs on the cabinets were for the Aurum Cantus ribbon tweeters, and the space was just filled in with silicone sealant. He happened to have a pair of the ribbon tweeters, so he rebuilt the crossovers and put in the ribbons. He did a good job.

I am using a Marantz AV-8802A as a pre-pro and have an Adcom 125-watt 5 channel amp to drive center and surrounds, and at the time I had an AVA SET120 power amp to drive the mains. I fired up the RM2 and ran Audessy and it was clear there was some sort of problem.  Channel balance was off by 7 db, the bass didn’t sound right, BUT there was a depth and excitement and detail to the music I had not heard before. I compared to the 626 and no contest. The RM2s had THAT sound that I wanted to hear.

What to do?

So, I found a local guy who claimed to be an expert. He had some measuring instrument and said he could fix them. Well, he basically turned out to be a cranky old con artist, but he did identify some of the problems. One of the tweeters was maybe a little ragged. The woofers didn’t match, one was 4 ohm and one was 8 ohm.  I asked him to disconnect the woofers from the crossover, just give me a direct line to the woofers. I looked around for replacement woofers. Since I had the VMPS subs and was not going to have a crossover I decided to look for woofers that were more efficient but didn’t necessarily go as deep. I found some pretty nice 12” woofers that were 92 db efficient and rolled off around 50 hz or so.  They weren’t cheap, about 80 bucks a piece, but not crazy expensive. Quality driver within it’s design parameters. I also replaced the Aurum Cantus tweeters, those are a direct drop in, pretty crazy to have them still be current in a 20-year-old speaker.

Here is how I have them wired up. I use the Audessy room correction to set overall subwoofer levels and crossover at 250 hz.  That’s the maximum frequency I can set it at. The original VMPS crossovers were at 280 hz, I find this to be close enough. I run the line out from the crossover in the plate amp in stereo to two channels in the Adcom power amp. The other three channels run the center and surrounds. 250 hz on up goes only to the neopanels and ribbon tweeters. They are now driven by a Van Alstine DV-225 monoblocks. It’s basically a tri-amped system with the VMPS smaller subs crossed over at about 60 hz to the 12” woofers in the RM2 which have their own amp channels and no passive crossover network. This results in some truly stunning dynamics on drums and mid-bass. The amp has 125 watts and overload lights to show clipping, I have not seen them light up no matter the volume. They really lay out a nice big bubble of sound in front of me with all the detail, transparency and definition both front to back and side to side that I can ask for.
I think I am set. I might finally look at getting a pair of SVS subs, maybe that will tighten up the bass a little bit, but not sure. The VMPS subs crossed over at around 60 hz still carry a lot of information. It is really surprising to me that these 20-year-old (or more) speakers can sound as good or better than anything I have owned.  If I had bought these with all the trimmings back in the day, I would have been a very happy camper. I think I will stick with these for a while at least.

[WGH]

Good story

[simon wagstaff]

Thanks!  No matter what I did the photo kept on coming in upside down.

[GeorgeAb]

Congratulations! What a find. Quite the VMPS fan going into assisted living.  Whew, the RM-V60’s, we have schematics and expertise on how to wire up right here. That said, they need a large room and really need to be quite distant from the front wall as they are di-pole so not for everybody. Now those RM-2’s well done.

Yes, on the way you have them configured; significantly better control of the bass section using the active crossover. You mentioned wiring of RM-V60, essentially you did it as Brian configured for the bass section... the wiring allows you to access the point from the passive XO going to the drivers allowing you bypass passive XO, go  active XO and drive bass driver, ribbon drivers, or tweeter directly. If you search on going digital, you will see that there are many VMPS speakers that are configured like you have yours, using active crossovers and amps directly connected to the speaker. You can do the same for the mids (bypassing the passive XO components), but should use the passive XO for the tweets to prevent accidently frying the ribbons in your tweeters. The ribbon panels roll off quite quickly at 5K on their own without XO components where the tweets come in. This is how many of the RM-V60 owners have them configured.

Brian’s passive XO design are quite simple, hence the minimum phase of Veritone (Minimum Phase) Speakers. It is the key reasons why they image so well. On the 7dB mismatch there really isn’t much in Brian’s design to go wrong in the bass section in the XO as he has a small capacitor across the input to shunt noise above the audio spectrum and an inductor in series with the drivers. There is one inductor and capacitor in series with the ribbons along with the L pad (8 ohm high power variable resistor) (responsible for V in the Veritone of VMPS or DSP before DSP), so I would be looking at the L pad which can be replaced for $15 for your 7 dB mismatch https://www.parts-express.com/L-Pad-100W-Mono-3-8-Shaft-8-Ohm-260-262. Same holds true for the tweeters. On the L pads you can also swipe them back and forth a number of times to get the grunge off the contact wiper that often affects them and douche down with electronic cleaner. Personally, for the cost I would replace as the L pads as they take quite a bit of abuse as they take the whole amp load, and shunt a portion of the energy to the driver. The L pads are usually hot glued down to keep them from rotating. I have found after desoldering leads or cutting wires going to them, warm L pad body with heat gun, insert screwdriver from outside of cabinet in slot and give quick tap with hammer and they come right out.

On supportability, we have most of the schematics on this site, I know we have the 626, RM-30’s, VR-60’s and there is quite a bit of information on maintaining and support of our VMPS speakers, for example finding the proper and modifying neo panels for spares.

I enjoyed the story of how the RM-2s came into your life; the audio gods were smiling upon you that day. Congratulations on an amazing find, and bringing back to life a great sounding speaker. 

PS You mentioned SVS subwoofer. I own a SVS 4000 which in their upper end line. I use in my home theater setup and I like a lot in that setting of home theater for their great control and effortless depth. For my two channel setup I use two large VMPS subs driven by a pair of 1000W amps. For me, in my system, in my room I would not swap them out for the SVS... they just work well. IMO the VMPS larger subs (12" and 15" active drivers in each sub) work well enough not to go to the SVS sub. Those pair of tall boys you have are a nice setup IMO. 

[simon wagstaff]

Thanks for the comments and feedback. I made sure to mention how every piece there had something wrong with it. The 60's were awfully tempting, and they brought the price down to $2K but I just had a feeling that there would be something bad in there that might be hard to fix. I think the bass arrangement would have been unsatisfactory to me as well. I have some experience with the RM30's (another story) and the 6 inch megawoofers really can't do the job that the 12" driver can.

I think the channel imbalance was due to the mismatched impedance of the woofers that were there. Through measurements now there is MAYBE a 1 db difference. If I were a little braver I might think about replacing the L-pads, just because they are maybe 20 years old. There is no static when I move them and they have been cleaned. They do help to set the tonal balance a bit.

The subs that I have are VMPW smaller subs. I would replace them only because I could, and it might tighten up the bass a a little bit. The SVS subs have the correct electronics to set things up as I have them now.

The really surprising thing to me is the imaging and soundstage these put out. Both side to side and front to back. A narrow baffle can help I suppose, but a baffle like the RM2 does not necessarily mean poor imaging.

I know better now to mess around any more, the AVA DV225 mono blocks were icing on the cake as far as dimensionality goes.

Happy camper.

[Stimpy]

The really surprising thing to me is the imaging and soundstage these put out. Both side to side and front to back. A narrow baffle can help I suppose, but a baffle like the RM2 does not necessarily mean poor imaging.

After their repair by Danny, do the 626's retain the midrange magic and spaciousness, of your RM2's?  I ask, since Brian always believed in a first order crossover, where Danny designs his speakers with 2nd order based crossovers, for flat frequency response.  Not a knock on Brian or Danny.  I just knew they had different design philosophies. 

[simon wagstaff]

No knock on anybody but I never heard the 626 until after Danny worked on them. They sound really good and I had them set up with the pair of subs as well. There was just an excitement with the RM2s that the 626, and none of the other speakers I have had pass through my hands, had.

They are upstairs in the living room, a fine second system.

 

[ZAKski288]

Great story Simon, I’ve heard RM-2’s and they definitely ROCK.  The  626’s were probably these. They were the cheaper version with spiral ribbon tweeters installed instead of the AC GS2i tweeters

VMPS 626 JR Speakers