Compared to the Magnepan 3.5R which is extremely similar to the 3.6:
Starting with the bass. The RM 40 bass is extremely articulate and powerful. Very accurate. The Maggie bass is thud thud thud, no resolution to speak of and no dynamics. Overall the RM 40 is far more dynamic, it's not even close.
Midrange: The speed of the push pull planars in the midrange pretty much eat the Maggie's for lunch. The Maggies are more diffuse and obviously distorted no doubt caused by the large panel and only being driven by one side. The image size appears bigger with the maggies, too big for reality. The RM 40's sound just the right size, the maggies make people's mouths much wider than reality. With the RM 40's the sound is so close to reality it's amazing. That's why I became a part time dealer, I had to have a pair of these after hearing them at Soundguy's home.
The treble on the Maggies is excellent, not as articulate as the RM 40 ribbon but very very good. More open and diffuse, the RM 40's sounds more accurate. I'm sensitive to the way cymbals sound and have never been happy with any reproduction of the cymbal even with the two pair of Vmps speakers I had prior which both had dome tweeters made by Scanspeak on one and Focal on the other.
The general presentation is that the Maggie throws a nice soundstage, compared to the RM 40's it's somewhat blurry though. The distortion on the Maggies I believe hits 20% if you push them at all which is required to get the sound from them. The Magnepans need alot more power, more than double.
Soundstage is very good with the Magnepans. It's very open and wide. It's also open and wide with the RM 40's only the RM 40's disappear better. Images are more articulately placed in space with the RM 40s as the maggies are somewhat diffuse.
I've had people ask me where the sound is coming from even with two large speakers in front of them. One time a guy and his wife were auditioning here and I'd left for a while and came back and the guys wife was on the floor with her head near the speaker drivers. She commented you can't hardly tell the sound is coming from the speakers and had to hear it up close to make sure!
My system is comprised of a Primare Pre 30 preamp, a sony dvd player as a transport to a Behringer DEQ 2496 which is output into my Bel Canto Dac 1.1. Present power amps are a Rotel 991 driving the woofers and a Van Alstine 550 EXR driving the top. I've also got a Blue Circle BC 24 to drive the top end with. The BC is more tubey sounding but just barely being a hybrid, the AVA amp sounds like the cleanest and smoothest SS amp you've ever heard. Only had it a couple of days and had no idea an amp could sound so clean. The Blue Circle amp sounds clean to but tends to smooth just a tad bit of resolution out. The blattiness of horns are losing a bit of inner detail.
I've also owned Vandersteen and do own some old Legacy Classics. I want to put the cone driven speakers together even though they sound different from one another. The reason is because the sound of the Vmps speakers is different from them in pretty much the same way.
Bass: Bass in Vmps speakers has been touted since the early 80's. Brian designs very low distortion and powerful bass. You get excellent bass in any speaker in the line for the money, I don't know if anyone else does as well at each price point. I'm sure there's someone but I've not heard them. Suffice it to say you should be very happy. I love bass but it must be outstanding, period. I'm completely satisfied with the bass I'm getting. Compared to the Vandy 2c series, Kef 107/2 a friend has or the Legacy's the Vmps bass is more articulate, faster and more accurate sounding. Even the little 626R's with the 6.5 inch woofer puts out way more bass than I would have believed til I heard them.
The midrange panels of the Vmps speakers are lightning quick. This no doubt due to the fact the diaphram is only about 1.5 grams driven front and back with Neodymium magnets. No cone can touch them. The midrange is state of the art by any standard. Caution with electronics must be used as they're ruthless. In my opinion a pure SS amp will sound a bit transistory no matter how good it is. I could be wrong and 10-20k amps may not. If there's detail there to be heard you will hear it. The beauty of it is the realism you get with these drivers, they're capable of following the singnal much closer than a cone can. These drivers start and stop on a dime. The transient response I believe has alot to do with the accuracy of the midrange with this line of speakers. If you've heard electrostatics you know what I mean.
A cone diaphram weighs alot and sounds like it. It's like a dump truck compared to a Corvette. It only takes a couple of seconds to realize what you're hearing. I was wowed on my way to sit down on the first hearing of the RM 40's midrange.
The highs on the typical speaker uses dome tweeters. I've noticed the last few years quite a number of companies switching to ribbon tweeters. The ribbon tweeter has a diaphram that is the conductor and only weighs milligrams. No voice coil and heavy dome to slow things down. Speed and therefore accuracy can't be touched by any dome. Everything else sounds slow compared to ribbons, at least in my limited experience. A cymbal has alot of inner detail that no dome I've heard can reproduce. It's a matter of physics to a large degree.
Overall a cone system typically sounds slow and soft in comparison. I've not heard any cone system capable of doing what the planars/ ribbon do. There may be some that come close but I've not heard alot of speakers. Physics alone will explain alot.
Another thing I seem to like in speakers is first order networks. There is some lobing with first order crossovers(although with the CDWG's this will be history). First order crossovers are in phase though and to my ear sound more natural. Vandersteen and I think Thiel also use them.
I don't seem to like the sound of speakers with 2nd and 3rd order crossovers. They sound like multiple drivers. The RM 40's sound like one big speaker 99.9 percent of the time. The integration is outstanding compared to cone systems with 2nd and 3rd order crossovers. The Vandy integration however is excellent.
My brother who now owns my first pair of Vmps speakers also owned my Vandy's. His main issues with the Vandersteens are the same as mine. The dynamics just aren't there. They get you so far and then crap out. At 1,600 a pair though what do you expect. The bass is wimpy with the Vandersteen 2CE's too. In contrast at the time the Vmps Tower II special editions I bought to replaced them had all the dynamics of a rock band with excellent bass and treble with a very good midrange. Not as open as the Vandersteen's but over all sound more like the real thing. Everyone who heard the difference agreed on it. They were 2 hundred more than the Vandies and sounded far better.
Brian does have an advantage over someone like Vandersteen,Paradigm, B&W and Thiel. He doesn't pay for advertising. Full page ads that run every month cost alot of money. Look at the amount of hardware per dollar and you can see what I mean. Brian also doesn't believe in charging high prices for the sake of high prices.
The the brick and mortar people have to make a profit to stay in business. They do offer a good service but are somewhat snobby in my experience.
I think people like me who operate part time and others who are full time dealers who operate from their homes offer the best of high end audio. I have a dedicated room that's better acoustically than any brick and mortar store in Portland. If someone wants to come over for a listen and to discuss hifi I'm all for it, it's not necessary they are interested in buying speakers. Not making my living selling Vmps speakers I'm not motivated to sell something that someone doesn't want. I let the speakers sell themselves.
I also try to make people comfortable. People that come to my home are guests in my home, not a store. I try to give people the respect that I'd appreciate. If you add up the time and money I've made it's less than I make at my real job. I do get pleasure for doing so though as it's fun. Dynaco A 25's were my first hi fi speakers back in 1971 and audio is still my favorite hobby.
My point is that for the money you should listen to some Vmps speakers before you buy anything. I've had a number of people here who have auditioned alot of speakers and/or owned these highly regarded speakers in the audio mags. If you want names PM me. When they hear and see what Vmps speakers sound like and sell for they're usually amazed.
Hopefully some others will do some speaker comparisons for you also. I've not heard that many speakers or owned that many different brands. I actually enjoy listening to a 30 year old pair of Dynaco speakers probably more than many people enjoy their 2k speakers so my opinion is mine alone.
A pair of 15k B&W's sound very very good but not as good as my RM 40's. This I've heard others say also so it's not just my opinion. The ones I heard though were not in my room and the room they were in wasn't a fair place to audition any speaker. In the same room though I bet the Rm 40's would have kept up with them.
See what Ka7niq said recently in another thread here in the Vmps circle. He's a better person to ask than most of us as he has 8 other pair of speakers presently. He just bought some older RM 40's. I think he said they sound better than any of his other speakers including 2 pair of Von Schweikerts, B&W 801's and maybe Vandersteen Model 5's, I'd have to look to be sure on the Model 5's so don't hold me to it.
Best of luck to you and welcome to Audiocircle!
