Not another Super V sound thread
I wore out my last thread
So the build is done. I'll post a lessons learned on that thread for those interested in building their own. A newbie perspective if there ever was in need of one.
These speakers look great!
But how do they sound? Good looking speaking can start looking pretty ugly if they don't deliver great music with the effort and cash spent. Most speakers that have been through my living rooms have been great sounding. I'm not readily willing to bash a manufacturers speaker unless it's quality issues. All have there unique character and sound. All my junk has been very different (duh, can you tell?) and no exception here. Here's a quick chronological list so one knows where I'm coming from.
Zenith clock radio - Played a lot of music through that clock radio
Bose 901 -Dad and I built a DIY version, early 1970's - Sounded awful but everyone else thought they were cool because they played loud and with plenty of distortion
Yamaha NS500's - Great set of speakers - 1978 and owned for a long time.
DCM Timewindows - They were Dad's reference - to 1990 I think
Def Tech BP2000's - 1995 Another great speaker not so refined but they rocked.
AV123 LS6's. 2004? - Still our past reference. Everything upstream has to be perfect. AC especially. Room yes, Source yes. Perfect. Wow, we still refer to the LS's when we evaluate ALL speakers including the V's. Sold before we learned why all those tweeters hurt at times
Dynaudio Confidence C1's. Need power, we had it, they melted.
MBL 121's. Need power, they love it and played well. A speaker that sounded great outside the sweet spot. Impeccable engineering. Cool looking too.
Tyler Acoustic Decade D1's. Smoked the MBL's with great clarity and precision. Good with SS but really liked being fed tubes. Still in our living room but for sale to finance the CC bill on the Super V's
Associated equipment:
Oppo BDP-95 tethered to a USB hard drive
VPI Scoutmaster - Dynavector XXV Mark II cart
PS Audio GCPH phono stage
Allnic L3000 preamp
PS Audio Power Plant Premier on all digital equipment fed by a PS Audio AC12 on a Furutech receptacle on its own 10AWG 20 amp circuit
Decware Torii Mk III fed into a Oyaide R1 receptacle, WPC-Z cover, Acrolink 7 nines copper cable and Oyaide plugs on a dedicated 10awg cyro'd circuit of 20 amps.
Synergistic Research Tesla speaker cables.
Morrow SP3 interconnects on the sub amps.
Electra cables (Danny's recommendation) on the amp.
Lot's of room treatments, cones, sand, and even a Schumann frequency generator set at 6.83Hz. Stop it - don't go there
Super V's.
Why Super V's. We were looking to build a pair of LS9's. My wife and I both miss the 6's. Noting in the web site, there was much mention of the Super V's. A Call to Danny and shortly after we had an order in forgoing the notion of building or acquiring line arrays.
I was fortunate enough to have a gentleman come to my rescue when my Torii melted down after battling a distortion issue. The transformer went up in smoke and boy did it stink! Scott, who lives not far away offered up a Onix SP3 while I waited and waited and waited for the eventual arrival of the Torii. I bought a set of V-Caps ($600) while it was in the shop. I must be crazy
Now we have to wait and wait and wait for these damn things to break in. But I can't wait for, or at least give some thoughts about the Super V's.
Through the Onix: This amp is either an overachiever or it simply sounds great with V's, OR, the V's don't need exotic amplification. Initially, the V's sounded good, bright as one would expect with raw caps but having the ability to dial in bass to your room was welcome if not needed so much in our room. Having 4 server controlled woofers not in the confines of a cabinet must to be heard. I just couldn't pick up room issues with the bass but in all honesty, my room was treated. We didn't note much change in the bass performance but I did have to constantly tune due to the change of amps, 2 volume controls, and the break-in of caps. The Onix/V's combination provided a reasonable stage, not close to the best I've heard but good. It would gain in depth as you cranked the volume and lock in better a central image. This is an easy thing to perform with the Torii's as they seem to possess limitless volume. The reason for that is the way they handle all spectrum of sound. Once the Jupiter's were settled in (and the Sonic caps), they provided a warm full bodied tone that when called upon, was nuanced with detail and air.
Through the Torii we knew were in a different league. The music became lush, warm, friendly and inviting. It's rather constrained in the amount of air and staging we hear but again, the caps have maybe 18 hours on them. My understanding is that these V-Caps need 500 to 1000 hours to settle in. And the journey will be tough. In these 18 hours though, one could tell that magic will and in some cases, was happening. On a few numbers we cranked the volume and was rewarded with a sound that was very close to the best we've heard. What is missing from the V's and maybe from the tube counterpart, are any sort of hardness that we too often experienced. What is delivered is a midrange that invites vocalists to sing and be heard. Another nuance of note was the blending of subs to the rest of the system. I/we could not pick up the transitioning between subs and midrange unless the subs were dialed up way too far. How'd he do that?
That's my 5 cents worth in this early audition.
