[es347]

Ok kernel I know for a fact that Albert paid you a visit laying hands on your new transducers.  So it's encumbent on you to post photos of your room and Alberts visit along with all the audiophile hyperbole describing the sonics.  NOW...not tomorrow...NOW 

[kernelbob]

Hi all,

Yes, the 100's arrived last week.  Albert and an associate flew in late on 9/18 (actually after midnight, so early the 19th).  The speakers were delivered earlier by Pilot.  I had a local piano moving company handle the heavy lifting.  They sent three men to move the crates to my living room where Albert supervised the uncrating and installation.  I highly recommend using the services of a professional piano moving company.  I used Allied Piano and they really knew what they were doing.  Albert had to fly back  on Saturday morning, 9/20, so we only had the one day to get the system installed and work on placement, rake angle, etc.

I was worried about the weight of the 100's on my uncarpeted floor, but it turned out to be very stable and solid.  I had ordered eight of the Giant Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders from Herbies Audio Lab.  They have a low friction bottom layer; a proprietary attenuation layer; and a metal plate on the top with an indentation to hold a spike.  They worked perfectly allowing the spikes to be installed while still permitting careful movement of the 100's towers.  These attenuate transmission of vibrations into the floor.  I have three 8' tall sets of GIK diffusers per side at the sidewalls' first reflection point and that allows the room to be lively, but without any coherent reflections.

There's a stairway entrance just behind my listening position.  That combined with a room that's 22' wide with a length ranging from 45 to 70 feet and an arched ceiling, tends to make my room bass-lean.  With Albert's OK, I removed about 55 grams and 75 grams respectively of the damping material from each of the #2 and #3 woofers' ports (the inboard woofers).  This gives the bass weight and power that I heard at Axpona in 2013 where I first heard the 100's in action.  Of course each room set up is unique.  It's great that the 100's can be so easily tuned to fit in a wide range of locations.  See RH's article in TAS where he describes how well the 100's performed in a small room at the VSA design studio.

Even though Albert had exercised the system before shipment, I've been playing one of his recommended conditioning CD tracks during the day at moderate levels.  That's having a big impact with that tremendous bass speed and slam now present that was so impressive at Axpona.  I've really come to appreciate how important really fast woofers are to set the stage for the sense of speed throughout the spectrum.  An exceptional trait of the 100's is how well matched are the woofers, midranges, and tweeters.  Using four 7" woofers per side allows the bass to be both powerful and blazingly fast.  One of the "house sounds" of VSA is that in any of their systems I've heard, there's a sense of cohesiveness to the sound with all the drivers having a similar character.  I can say that having the 100's in my house now, that they have, top to bottom a sense of tremendous speed, but also power and slam.

I should have a new preamp to try in my system in the next week or two, and then I'll be able to go back to bi-amping the system with the monoblock Kronzillas on top and monoblock Spectrons on the bottom.  By the way, Albert and I were both surprised with how loudly these Krons were able to drive the 100's full range.

More to come as the system settles in and with equipment additions.  Though my speakers have the Ultra internal wiring, a pair of Ultra interconnects will be coming.  I haven't had those in my system since I auditioned the first prototype pair after Axpona in 2013.  At that time, they transformed my system, so I'm sure looking forward to trying a production pair now.

Best,
Robert

[es347]

Great news Bob!  Pictures please....what preamp is on the way?

[kernelbob]

I have a Tortuga LDRxB balanced preamp on order for evaluation.  It uses light dependent resistors to both select inputs and control attenuation.  Actually the input and output LDR's work together to optimize impedance matching.  There are no switches, volume pots, or resistor selectors in the signal path.  The LDRs are also self calibrating on demand.  Keeping the LDRs precisely calibrated is especially important in a balanced configuration since one LDR is needed for each phase of the signal.  The user can activate the self recalibration process at any time, so volume imbalance is a thing of the past.  Once a month is more than adequate, or as often as desired for the obsessive.  I'll see how the LDRxB sounds shortly.  Of course one question is how it behaves in a bi-amped system driving two amps per channel.  I'll be posting my impressions of course.

[es347]

Yeah but I won't believe a word of this until I see photographic evidence! 

[gammajo]

A hearty congratulations, kernel! May these provide decades of enjoyment. You'll love having the Ultra IC.

[kernelbob]

I've only had the speakers for a week now and am still fine tuning the positioning, toe-in, etc.  I marked the towers' positions that we ended up with on installation day with blue tape on the floor and recorded that position for future reference.  Since then, I moved the towers closer to the front wall (closer to where my previous speakers were placed).  The resulting sound image was more familiar to me, but after a few days, I moved them out again within a couple of inches of that initial position.  That freed up the soundstage.  When closer to the front wall, the image is more like a bas releif sculpture with objects projecting from a surface.  Now the images are again free standing, but still have a sense of solid physicality.  Right now, the front of the towers are six feet from the front wall.  I have the rear ambience drivers (a ribbon and a dome driver per tower) set to the second lowest position which allows the soundstage to be disconnected from the towers, but not to create a ghost-like image (that's what I don't like about omnis).

The subwoofers are a new thing for me.  Determining the subs' phase settings is easier with one person handling the phase angle dial and the other at the listening position.  We did an initial set up of the subs of course when Albert was here, but I'm going to try various placement options.  I'll draft a friend to do the adjustment duty.  At the moment I have one sub 35' and the other 43' from the front of the towers.

One thing I've found is that when the subs phase settings are dialed in, the subs seem to disappear.  On well recorded performances, the subs can give the impression of opening up the room and give the sense that you're in a much larger venue.  To get this effect, the recording needs to have captured that ambient information to start with, but when the subs are dialed in, the top of the room seems to open up.  It's very surprising the first time you hear this effect.  I really appreciate the flexibility of the subs being separate from the towers and having the continuous phase angle adjustment.  More fiddling to do, but hey, they're not going anywhere.

[htradtk]

Bob,

Congrats on those new 100XS's! I'm sure it's hard to leave your listening room! Please post some pics when you get a chance. Are we invited over for a listening session? Would love to hear them!

Henry

[kernelbob]

The room is, shall we say, in flux (meaning it looks as it normally does).  I need to deal with the maze of IC's and speaker cables.  They're all suspended with desktop mic stands and Velcro loops.  Very functional, but a bit of a laboratory aesthetic.  I've found cable covers to cover the signal sense cables that run from the 100's to the rear subs.  I've got my eye on a new equipment rack.  Mine is ancient and only demonstrates that I'm a creature of habit, not having changed it in 20 years or more.

Albert took some pics when he was here of the installation.  I'll see if he has some that he'd be willing to post.  I know he's busy preparing for RMAF, so please be patient.  I will take some pics also to at least show how the 100's fit into the room.

I got word that the Tortuga LDRxB controller is shipping tomorrow.  I should have that later this week.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a good fit.

[ceedee]

Nice to read your story Kernal Bob.

Good luck and a lot of musical enjoyment.
Hope to meet them some day.

All the best from Holland,

Cor

[Albert Von Schweikert]

Hello Fellow Audiophiles,

It was a real pleasure to help Kernal Bob set up his new VR-100XS speaker system customized with ULTRA cabling.  Although my assistant engineer and I were only at Kernal's house for one day, we were able to achieve a setup that gave me goosebumps on any song we chose to play.  His room is amazingly large and requires a very large speaker to fill it with sound, although in the past Kernal has owned and loved our VR-6 and later our VR-5 Anniversary Mk2 systems.

These photos were taken with my Galaxy 4S phone and hope you can see the scope of this installation.  Note that the piano movers had to carry these heavy brutes up a flight of stairs in their crates; quite a feat!  Setting them up was child's play after getting them into the room. Kernal Bob's system is going to be biamped with 1,000-watt Spectron mono block solid state amplifiers on the woofers and the KR Audio "Dual Kronzillas" on the midranges and tweeters.  I got to hear both the solid state and tube amps separately, and they both sounded quite good, but I was not able to hear the full biamp setup as the new preamp had not yet arrived.  I believe that his eventual biamped system will be incredible.  Kernal Bob has indicated that if someone wishes to hear his system, he will accommodate a visit.   

I hope you enjoy these photos:

[violetmachan]

Robert you've really come a longway.....vr6 to vr5 anni mark2 and now 100xs....way to go

Blessed are the faithful!....that's  very nice of Albert and team to come home , Install  and fine tune the speakers

I am sure the system and and room will soon reveal its magic.......

Robert are you using an entire loom of ultras......ie IC and speaker cables....apparently you had them as internal wiring for the vr 100xs

I am sure one's it's runin.....you will be in sonic nirvana

congrats and happy listening Robert

active violet

[JackD201]

Hubba Hubba!!!!! Look at that finish!

[jab]

Can't imagine hawlin those mothers up a flight of stairs, in total or parts!!  Bob, what a treat for you!  We met at the Chicago show a couple of years ago and I know how excited you were then and must be now!  Congratulations!  Look forward to following your experiences with the 100's!

[ceedee]

Nice space Kernal Bob,

Good to see the VR 100 on their final position.

Happy listening.

All the best from Holland

[steve f]

Congrats Kernelbob. A beautiful system.

Steve

[Jean Sibelius]

Really looks awesome! Congratulations with your new system. Enjoy

Jean