[Stevo]

After several years of rotating through various speakers, we have finally reached the pinnacle; enter the VMPS RM/X speaker!  These speakers look beautiful and sound fantastic.

Arrival:
The speakers arrived two weeks ago.  Picking up, moving around and unpacking these beasts was no easy feat.  Probably re-aligned the vertebrae in the back a few times lifting these 350 pound dreadnaughts.  Needless to say, these speakers are very well packed.  By the time we got the final box off, we wondered why we were being so delicate moving the boxes around.  They are double boxed, and have more styrofoam and bubble wrap for bracing than a mars rover landing kit.

Once unboxed, we were extremely pleased with the finish of the cabinets.  They look absolutely beautiful.  The grills are not very easy to remove; I managed to snap a couple of the plastic mounting pieces on the side grill  .  Makes the decision to leave the grills on or off very easy; these grills are going nowhere  .

Photos of the setup: http://www.blackmorgan.com/home_theater/RMX_Speaker_Setup/index.html  

The initial sound:
(It sound be noted that the speakers are located in a partially finished HT room.  The room is super bright; trim, doors, carpet and room treatments to be added over the next month or so.)

Connected the speakers to both a Panasonic XR/45 (direct digital in, 400+ hours, custom PC) and a Krell KSA-50S fed XLR by an Anthem AVM-20.  These speakers are very revealing, and it only took around 20 minutes to decide that the Panasonic XR/45 is finding a new home in the upstairs theater room.  The Krell/Anthem combo was used to break in the speakers for the next week or so.

The VMPS RM/X sounded stunning in the mid-range, good in the highs, and dropped fairly sharply around 40-50Hz out of the box.  Proceeded to remove more an more mortite from the bottom woofers until two marble sized (around 1/2 to ¾ inch diameter) balls were collected.  After playing an 80Hz to 10Hz break-in track for a few days, the bass began to open up.  Moved the speakers (ouch, the back again!) to a few different locations after testing the room for peaks and nodes.  The speakers sounded very good in many ways, just lacked a little punch in the bottom end.

Sound after short break-in:
After a couple of weeks, the speakers are positioned around 4 feet from each side wall and around 2-3 feet from the rear speaker to front wall.  Soundstage width is 13 feet center-to-center.  Distance to listener is around 15 feet, and the speakers are toed in about 1-2 feet in front of the listener.  There is still around a marble sized ball of mortite off each of the bass drivers, and the pots are positioned near 12:00 position.  The speakers are now playing much more solidly down to around 25Hz or so.  They drop a little in test tone past 25Hz, but you can see the side woofer moving.  Not going to spend too much more time playing with the controls or position until the room is complete.

What a treat it is to listen to the RM/X (or the ‘Vaders’ as my wife calls them).  There is so much detail, engaging mid-range, and enough highs and lows to satisfy most if not all songs and movies.  There is still more potential in the extreme bottom end.  The imaging is great and should improve following carpet / room treatments.  Soundstage is wide and gives a sense of around 4 to 10 feet deep.

It seems like every music track and movie scene has something new to be experienced.  With such a revealing sound, this can be the greatest gift or an awkward grimace depending on the source material recording quality.  Definitely satisfied with the sound quality to this point.  The speakers present a good soundfield in phantom mode for movies as well.

Short note on associated equipment:
Not intending to get off topic, but these speakers make source equipment strengths and weaknesses very clear; so it may be worth sharing this recent experience.

Mentioned previously was the Panasonic XR/45 vs. the Krell KSA-50S.  We could not bear the fatiguing highs of the XR/45 on these speakers for more than 20 minutes.  In addition, the spaciousness and dynamics were not sensed to the degree of the Krell’s capability.  Power wise, we never took the Krell out of its second bias level, which is around 25 watts per channel.

As happy as we were with the sound of the Krell/Anthem combo, one couldn’t resist but wonder if a power issue was at play with the lacking deep bass.  Decided to add a Carver Professional VR 1600 to the mix.  After only a few hours of break-in time, the Carver easily showed that it was the one to use moving forward.  The Carver Professional added more punch to the lower bass, slightly more detail, and matched the great sounding mid-range quality of the Krell.  The distinct difference of the two digital amps (Carver Pro vs. the Panasonic) is that the Carver Pro is far more dynamic, spacious, and accurate in the highs.  It also has deeper bass than the Panasonic and Krell.

So to summarize the equipment, it is clearly evident that the listening experience can change appreciably depending on the source components.  The RM/X is revealing enough to show even the slightest of sonic differences.  For the next while, we’re setting on the Carver Pro VR1600 (XLR) fed by Anthem AVM-20 combination.  The Panny is now driving the other theater room, and the Krell is now driving the rear speakers.

Overall:
Extremely satisfied with the VMPS RM/X.  Brian Cheney has produced a wonderful speaker package that has great build quality, finish and sound.  Add the price/value into the mix and the RM/X exceeds expectations.

Thanks to John Casler, who has been a pleasure to work with through the purchase process.  One can tell immediately when chatting with John that he loves his job and this hobby.

Also thanks to those that have taken the time to compare VMPS speakers to other familiar models and manufacturers.  Without the opportunity to listen to VMPS before a purchase – it can be a sense of a stretch.  However, with various comparisons to other speakers, one can better grasp what to expect with the VMPS sonic signature.  

Photos today: http://www.blackmorgan.com/home_theater/RMX_Speakers_2/index.html

Looking forward to further enjoyment once the listening/viewing room is complete.  Until then, the room will be full of tunes and movies; there’s never enough of music when a speaker sounds this great!  

-Steve.

[Brian Cheney]

You will get much better coherency and improved bass by moving the pod to a more downward deflection.  In a room that size I recommend the pod be moved to more downward firing, with the bottom edge of the pod about one inch in from the top edge of the midrange enclosure, about a 30 degree downward deflection.

If the pod is too tight to move use an Allen wrench to loosen the fasteners, then retighten.  You will find pod deflection angle very important to maximizing the sound of your system.

Agree the Panasonic trebles are fatiguing with ribbon tweeters.

[ekovalsky]

Congrats Stevo!

Having gone through much the same process two months ago, I can offer a few suggestions on getting the most of these awesome speakers.   Glad your wife approves of them.  I remember the day my pair arrived, she saw the size of the boxes and was just staring at me like, what the f*&% were you thinking ?!?  I told her to leave for a while, when she came back they were both assembled and positioned.  She walked around them a few times, studied their lines and curves, and finally said "they are cool.  nice job honey!"  

1)  Agree 100% with Big B about aiming the tweeter pods downward.  One easy way to set them -- have your wife hold a small makeup mirror over the tweeter.  When you can see your ear on the same side (i.e. left ear for the left speaker) in the mirror from the listening position, the inclination is about right.  Thanks to John Casler for that tip.  Then using a precision level make sure the tweeter pods are perfectly aligned Left>Right and Front>Back.  From Left>Right they should be parallel to the floor, hopefully both perfectly level.  Either from the way the pods were mounted or from shipping, both my pods were slightly misaligned and needed some nudging to get them just right.  Thanks to Julian Turner for stressing the importance of perfect alignment!

2)  Sounds like you have taken off a lot of putty.  That may be necessary for your room.  In my relatively small 14.5' x 17' room a pea-sized chunk did the trick.  Once your woofers break in you may want to continue experimenting with the bass damping.  I'm very flat to 20hz with no perceptible bass nodes or suckouts.  The multiple woofers loading the room at various angles works superbly to smooth out the bass.  I was planning on a TacT RCS unit to do this but it is not needed in my setup.

3) When you get around to setting the mid & treble pots, make sure they are set identically on both channels.  This may not be at the same clock position!  On my pair, at installation one channel's pots were slightly more rotated than the other.  So to get symmetric balance one channel is set at 1:00 and the other at 12:00.  You can turn the pots all the way clockwise and see where they end up.  If there are differences from one channel to the other you can offset them accordingly.  Thanks to Julian for this tip.

4) I had the same experience with the grills as you, three or four of the little plastic mounts came off.  I decided to keep the grills off, at least for the time being.  

5) I had heard some "knocking" around the woofers with loud, bass heavy material.  My pair have the Analysis-Plus wire which is large and floppy.  It was slapping against the woofer cones.  I opened the speakers and was able to get the wire out of the way and redistributed the fiberglass more symmetrically around the woofers in each channel.  The spurious noise was gone.  Hopefully you won't have this same problem, if you didn't opt for the Analysis-Plus wire you almost certainly won't.

[Stevo]

Brian,

The tweeter pod is now adjusted as you mentioned.  Roughly about 30 degrees downward.  The tweeters were close to 30+ degrees upward before.  I'll give that a listen for a while.  Good tip.

Eric,

There must be an unstated law of audio that no person's significant other can show immediate affection for any new gear, regardless of how cool they think it looks or sounds.  A good gauge for the approval of new gear is when your wife starts using the room for movies or TV more than you!  

It is encouraging to hear that your speaker/room combination is flat down to 20 Hz.  Did you find that it took some time to get to this point, or were they effective in the bottom end within a couple of weeks?

The tip for the tweeter position sounds very good.  We'll probably wait on the carpet before getting out the level.  In the mean time, we'll try them with more downward deflection.

Moving the pots to the same postion based on the relative dial mount placement makes a lot of sense.  Maybe take a screwdriver to them later today and count the 'ticks' from one of the extreme ends.  I'm contemplating backing off the mid-range and highs to compensate for a little more relative bass in the short term.  I like to listen to music with a little more slam than currently presented.  Wonder if any other VMPS owners have had to turn the pots back a bit to compensate as well?  It is understood that moving the speakers around may produce a better bass respone, but we've had enough moving of these beasts for a while.

How interesting that you mention about the slapping noise in the woofer area.  When we were running the 80Hz to 10Hz test tones, there was a similar noise that was noticable when listening close to the woofer.  At first I thought that it may be an artifact of the test track, or woofer material "breaking in".  Glad to hear that the noise is not "breaking in" with a literal sense.  These speakers have the Analysis wre as well, so it sounds like the same issue that you experienced.

Were you able to access all of the AP wire and insulation by removing only the side woofer?  A little nervous to remove the front grill at this point.  If accessible by the side woofer, I may venture to tidy the internals.

Sure is fun right now.  Movie night with friends last night turned into a five hour marathon as everyone was getting a kick out of the new setup.

[StevenACNJ]

I am trying to get a bit of info together before ordering a pair of RM30's as kits.

What kind (make) of Analysis Plus wiring is being used in your speakers & is it being run to the woofers, mids, & tweeters or just the woofers.

Congrats to both of you on great audio setups

[Brian Cheney]

We use Analysis 12 gauge copper oval wire for the bass in all systems now.  Mid and treble wire is progressively smaller gauges of stranded silverplate teflon insulated wire sourced from Anixter.  Silver 12 gauge AP bass wire is available as a $400 option on most systems.

[ekovalsky]

Stevo,

Good luck counting "ticks"... there seems to be hundreds of individual steps on those pots.  I attached a wire to a screwdriver, bent it so it was perpenticular to the shaft, and used a makeshift clock dial to turn the pots back 4 hours from full clockwise position.  One channel wound up at approximately 12:00 and the other at 1:00.  From that point I can fine tune using the "ticks".

You will have adequate access through the side woofer alone.  It came off easily with a little pulling from hemostats on the rim after the screws were removed.  Be careful once you free it, the driver is a Megawoofer and very heavy!  You'll be able to see most of the crossover parts once your remove the fiberglass.  

The noise you hear is definitely from the wire.  The woofers don't break up at any volume and can put out truly prodigious bass.  I heard the knocking noise on one channel only but wound up redistributing the fiberglass identically (or nearly so) on both speakers.  Julian had told me this made a difference in the bass.  

I suspect you'll be spending much time the next weeks/months re-listening to your CD collection.  I did, and my previous speakers weren't shabby -- they were RM-40's  

[Stevo]

The idea to use a perpendicular wire on the screwdriver was quite clever!  Using that technique, the pots are located near 11:00 and 11:30 or so on each speaker.  Going to go with the pots down from 12 for a while to allow some bass emphasis.  It is good to hear that most of the wiring can be accessed from the side woofer.

After a couple of days with the tweeters downward, it has been sounding even better.  The Carver Pro working nicely with the speakers.  Certainly no lack of headroom, and a step ahead of the Krell.

Time to keep feeding the cats so they won't fit between the bases; its their new favorite hang-out.  They seem to like getting a buzz from the LF energy...