[smoothrog]

VMPS Super Towers/R For Sale - Built in 1989 and still in very good condition with all paperwork.  Morel tweeters and ribbon supertweeter.  Detroit, MI. metro area only pick-up or drop off.  $200

[gab]

try posting those here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=104.0

they should go quickly at that price! Good luck with sale

gab

[Shear Bliss]

Hello,
        If your VMPS Tower/R are still available I would love them. I'm in Redford Twp/Livonia area.

Please call to talk at 313 937-8989

Sincerely, Doug

[Stimpy]

Good luck Doug!  And hopefully, nice score!  That's a lot of speaker.  I just wish they were near me, as I'd love to have a pair like that.  Heck, pretty much any VMPS speaker would be worth it...!

Hello,
        If your VMPS Tower/R are still available I would love them. I'm in Redford Twp/Livonia area.

Please call to talk at 313 937-8989

Sincerely, Doug

[Shear Bliss]

Hey Stimpy,
                 How did those 4 graphite woofers work out for you ??? I am hopefull to take a listen to them Super Tower Rs Sunday.

DW

[James Romeyn]

Hello,
        If your VMPS Tower/R are still available I would love them. I'm in Redford Twp/Livonia area.

Please call to talk at 313 937-8989

Sincerely, Doug

Doug, you're stealing those!  Tip him accordingly!  Those appear to be Brian's own mid range design, probably the best of all the cone mids he used, including the WCF. 

[Shear Bliss]

Hey James,
                I wish I could enlarge the pics on this site. What did Brian do different with these midrange drivers ??? Glad to hear you liked this design knowing you worked side by side with Brian for many years. It means a lot. I'm eager to view/listen to them.

Sincerely, DW

[James Romeyn]

Hey James,
                I wish I could enlarge the pics on this site. What did Brian do different with these midrange drivers ??? Glad to hear you liked this design knowing you worked side by side with Brian for many years. It means a lot. I'm eager to view/listen to them.

Sincerely, DW

Every other cone mid was some other OEM product: Audax HIF13JCAV...(forgot remainder of the model designation), Peerless, Versa Tronics.  The only cone mid that came after Brian's own mid in this image (built by GEFCO) is the Versa Tronics WCF, which was an extra cost option sold concurrently with Brian's poly cone/stamped basket/gauze dust cap per the image.

The fact is WCF's best quality is its worst quality, being maximum self damping.  Self damping eliminates extraneous noise and distortion.  It sounds extremely natural.  But it also overly damps dynamics.  Brian's cone mid sounds snappier and more dynamic.  If I had to choose among every mid Brian ever used (even the pleated "Dyna" and heaven forbid even both planar mids) I'd pick his Strathearn TRUE ribbon with transformer (.5 Ohm), then his own cone mid.  The Neo panel is OK but only with its 1kHz peak fixed.  Even then the Strathearn true ribbon kills the Neo panel but the Strathearn true ribbon is long gone. 

There's nothing really "wrong" with the Morel domes but they just never rocked my world, even the MDT30.  One of Brian's fetishes was to never employ LP on his mids till he finally reneged on the last planar Neo.  If I had those speakers I'd listen to a small coil on the mids...they might benefit.  It would be ideal to put a slightly larger coil on the lower cone but those are two 4 Ohm in series so they share crossover.  This would require a lower tweeter pole.  But I think it would audibly improve performance, especially with such great bass performance.

[smoothrog]

For those following this tread, the VMPS Supertower/Rs have been SOLD.  The speakers have found a new home hopefully for another 25 years.  Thank you for all your input and comments.

[rbbert]

...
 The Neo panel is OK but only with its 1kHz peak fixed...

Can you expand on this a bit please?  Was this "fixed" on any production models, and/or are there a bunch of VMPS RM's out there with sub-optimal Neopanels?  If so, what is the fix?

Thank you!

[Shear Bliss]

Thanks to Smoothrog and his wife for their hospitality on Sunday. It was indeed a road trip way across town but well worth it. Never have been on the island so kind of fun with the ferry ride and the beautiful waterfront views etc. I could retire there very easily too. Very nice home and setting.
Roger the ST/Rs are in good hands, have found a good home with my other VMPS playmates, my 626 stand mount monitors, and my RM-1s. How did all this occur ??? I suppose mainly because I just dig the VMPS signature in tone and robust detail. Brian was a genius pure and simple. How he was able to put  Hi-End loudspeakers into the homes of the common man/women at a price point well below his competitors sometimes 3-4 fold is beyond me. Brian is a legend in this industry and is sorely missed. His legacy will surely continue in coming years.

I contacted another loudspeaker legend this morning, Bill at Millerspkr.com to re-foam my ST/R drivers. Rest assured they will be done perfectly and balanced for another 20 some years. As always, thanks MR. Bill for your magic fingers and hands. Going to get both 15" woofers and passives done now, the 12" Mid-couplers are probably on their last legs and will need help soon also. These are in super condition other than the foam .... age takes its toll. Very pleased to be their caretaker for now, eager to get them back up and running.

Shear Bliss > DW

[James Romeyn]

Wow, they look just about factory fresh, congrats.

Spray the L pads with Caig Pro Gold, but listen to it first before you do it.  You'll fall out of your chair. 

Also clean every single contact you can access in your entire system.

[Shear Bliss]

Thanks James, will do. Also do you recall the putty loading on these ??? I'm thinking maybe a 8 inch coil, don't recall Brian ever using more. Perhaps I"ll get a better idea once I pull the passives.

Thanks again James,
Shear Bliss > DW

[James Romeyn]

Of all the VMPS supertweeters, only two were better than that Asian clone of the original JVC planar: the original JVC planar was slightly better (earlier) and the large Philips planar (later) was better (at least equal to the original JVC).  We must have went through a thousand of those clones.  He crossed them right, 2nd order about 12 kHz. 

PR mass changed more often than Brian's shirts (almost).  During that era, IIRC, PR mass is 1oz fishing weight (glued to PR cone center) plus about 4" length of single strand gray rope putty. 

Check how close I am.  BTW, I may certainly have assembled that pair, which is early-mid 90s IIRC.  Brian tended to insert driver screws at hard angle, me more vertical.  Check the screw angles.   

I talked with another great speaker designer and we agree it's ideal to stagger (not match) PR mass between channels.  As ST/R owners know, they go super deep, low 20s for sure, if in decent condition.

I don't know the owner's age and I don't know if the following is possible, likely not: no matter how good the foam it rots faster than rubber.  If your guy can approximate the foam surround compliance with rubber, consider rubber depending on cost of course. 

VMPS fans will love this: when I owned that model (heck that might be my old speakers!) I lived in a townhouse connected on two sides.  The guy W of me was a drug dealer, but he was really nice, never any crazy parties, very low key, no craziness, just a mellow guy who rode bikes like I did my whole life and liked beer.  His clients were quiet and friendly enough.  Just dope AFAIK, nothing heavier than that I suspect. 

Even though the floor was slab, you can imagine how those flex sheet rock walls. 

One night I cranked the towers with a Sota TT (they don't feed back).  He later told me, very casually, he had guests over and his painting on his wall fell off its hook!  He wasn't even mad.  That's why I liked that guy.   

[Stimpy]

Doug,

Not just a nice score, that's an awesome score!  I'm glad that everything worked out for you.  Also, once the woofers have fresh surrounds (good choice using Millersound), and the speakers are up and running, I'd love to hear how they compare to your RM-1's and 626's.  Curious how the cone mids hold up to the Neo's?

Now, if I could get my butt in gear, and do something with your woofers, I'd be happy!  There just never seems to be enough hours in a day...  May be a winter project; no grass to cut then...

Oh yea, vitrify the passive radiator's before reinstalling them.  That's supposed to improve the bass response. 

Take care,

Stimpy

[Rocket]

Hi,

Great score on these speakers.  I've read that Millersound does great work and you should be able to get these speakers back into really good working order.

Cheers Rod

[James Romeyn]

Is it possible to maintain driver parameters while changing from foam to rubber surround?  Does Miller offer such an option? 

In case you didn't know, the biwire/biamp split is between the mid/treble vs. the typical bass/mid split.  This makes it virtually impossible to biamp with different amps.

Overall I don't think RM1 or 626 hold a candle to proper running ST/R, regardless of any perceived midrange advantage of the two former models. 

Sorry, I can't remember if the xo has electrolytic capacitors.  If it does, it seems prudent to replace them for shelf life.  What is manufacture date on the documentation near the terminal boards?  Electrolytic shelf life is as little as 15 years.  There are three capacitor banks, all series: mid, treble, planar.  He normally wrote, with Sharpie black pen, the proper cap value on one of the caps per bank.  You could cut open one end of each cap bank and measure the value, comparing the value to the pen mark and/or compare channels one to another.   This would tell you whether/how much the value strayed.  This definitely affects performance and reliability (power handling if pole is lower than spec.)

Forget about the coils, they're all fine.   

[Shear Bliss]

Hey James,
                 Not really concerned with converting the surrounds over, they were designed as foam, will stay that way. These made it 23 years so in my basement cave should do just great. Bill will do them correct and properly balanced, not some backyard hack job.

Pretty bummed to hear I can not Bi-Amp these with different amps thou. My RM-1s fit my room and sound just fantastic running a Crown K1 on the bottom with a 30 watt Antique Sound Labs tube amp on top. Quite a power disparity top to bottom, but I use the K1s attenuators to balance everything out.

James do you think Vitrifing the passives on the ST/R is worthwhile or just leave alone ??? Pretty funny on the loading with 1oz weight and 4" of putty.

As always thanks for your insight on Brians VMPS designs.

Sincerely, DW

[James Romeyn]

yeah, I don't know about you, but I've not met anyone over 100 so middle age is a memory.  It's not like I need woofers to last another 40 years, so I get your feeling about the foam.  It was more just a curiosity.  One would presume big change in driver parameters upon changing the surround material. 

The pole of the biwire/biamp split is a result of Brian's so-called "QSO" quasi-2nd order crossover, with two parallel woofers in series with two series 4 Ohm mids.  So your biwire/biamp split is way too high for disparate amps, between the mid/treble.  Brian NEVER added a LP pole to any cone mid, so that pole is about 4k-5k Hz.  (In fact he never added a LP pole to any mid till he was practically coerced into it on the last Neo planar mid...which did improve performance BTW.)   

You can imagine how strange it would sound with two completely amplifier technologies split below and above such a high pole frequency. 

I later wondered if Brian's primary goal in his implementation of QSO was to save money on crossover parts.  His implementation requires far less capacitor series value for a given midrange HP pole.  I thought performance would improve, though cost would also go up, if he implemented the QSO between the mid/treble.  This would move the biwire/biamp split where it normally is between the bass/mid. 

The thing is, though, that Brian's bass LP pole frequency is so high that it would still probably be too high to employ different amps.  Put your ear close to the 2710 mid bass and you'll hear a LOT of midrange output, probably more than any other speaker I've heard. 

Brian got away with it because tere is so much powerful deep bass to go along with the mid bass extending up so high.  That ST/R goes lower than just about any VMPS full range model lacking 15s.  The only possible exception is the largest towers with multiple 12s, but if you test them next to each other the ST/R makes more power in the low 20s I'm almost positive.  I'd bet lunch money absolutely no version of any 10 he ever sold goes that low with that much clean power.  How could it?   

Like Bert Whyte said in the late 70s, "It's not whether VMPS is ready for the digital age, but whether the digital age is ready for VMPS." 

[DFaulds]

Yes, changing surrounds will affect the woofers parameters, but so does the normal aging of the driver itself, including the surround and the spider.  In fact all foam surrounds are not remotely identical. Most replacement foam surrounds will be different than what was originally used and may also slightly change parameters.

And no one should ever think that rubber surrounds are somehow superior to foam surrounds, because most rubber surrounds will dry out, stiffen up and crack.  I own a basement full of vintage speakers, and while the foam does eventually need replacing due to foam rot, many of the woofers in my collection that are 25 years old or older almost all need re-surrounding as well because the rubber is no longer as pliant as it used to be.  In that respect it may be better that older high end speakers did use foam because it is pretty to see when surrounds need replaced while the rubber surrounds will merely change the speakers performance over time and most people won’t even think there is a problem.

Most modern foam surrounds are treated with anti-fungal agents and will probably last as long, or longer than most rubber surrounds.