I never posted my impressions of the 626Rs’ and since I’ve had them for about two months now I think I should. First I would like to thank John Casler who was a pleasure to deal with and the man himself, Brian Cheyney. The LRC I purchased came with a bad tweeter and Brian sent a new one right away. I installed the new one and it now works fine.
I’m not a reviewer so this won’t be very long and I won’t use goofy hyperbole to describe what I’m hearing but I replaced Paradigm Active/40’s and Active 450/C with Active surrounds. This was a system I thought I’d have for a lot longer than the 2 years I had them. They had a very muscular sound that I enjoyed but they also had a tweeter that could sometimes harden at high volumes, which would leave me longing for a more refined sound every now and again. Enter the 626Rs’ and LRC center channel….
I won’t use descriptions like “wide soundstage”, “airy top-end”, “transparent midrange”, or “cavernous bass” to illustrate how these speakers sound. You hear it so much it almost sounds silly after awhile. I’ll only use one word to explain the sound I get from the VMPS ribbons: BEAUTIFUL. They simply sound beautiful. Nothing else applies. Music through these speakers sound gorgeous and I can’t stop listening once I start anymore. I’ve been serious about my audio for about five years now and I’ve always felt secure in acknowledging any weakness in my system from the start in all its’ permutations but I can’t find one reasonable thing to complain about with these speakers. My only beef with the 40’s were with the tweeter and the FST corrects that snag plus some. I thought I might lose some of the ballsiness of the 40’s going to ribbons but nope, no problems in that department either. Instead of listening to music and hearing what I don’t like about my speakers, now I just sit back with a snifter of cognac in hand and enjoy (and isn’t that really the point to this hobby/addiction anyway?). I don’t expect deep bass (I have twin HSU TN1220HO’s for that) so there is simply nothing left for me to do except relax and listen to my favorite tracks. What a concept! Anyway, thanks guys. I appreciate all the help and thanks Brian for making an incredible set of loudspeakers.
