March 1998

One-Night Stand: A Date with the VR-8
Von Schweikert Research Factory Tour and Other Fun Stuff

Three years ago, when I moved from western to central Canada, I had hardly thought that I was stepping into a hotbed of high-end audio. After all, Ottawa, Canada, for anyone who knows the city well, is wonderful to visit--at times picture perfect, and with a European flair. However, at its heart, Ottawa is stunningly dull. Yes, this quaint little city beside the beautiful Gatineau parkland is a government town to the core--the capital of Canada, you know--and as one friend so elegantly stated, "The government's walls are painted grey and so are its employees." This is perhaps a little harsh, but after living here for three years, I can tell you that if any fun is to be had, you had better find it yourself.

And for three years I have found fun by seeking it out myself. I started SoundStage! in Ottawa, and as a result of that I had to seek out and explore the high-end community. Very little high-end exists in this city except for a couple decent stores. Luckily, Ottawa lies smack between Toronto to the west and Montreal to the east, each distinct and important parts of the Canadian high-end-audio scene. Toronto is conservative and businesslike, but bustling with speed and anger on its freeways. Ask SoundStage! reviewer John Stafford. He lives there and finds joy in the Formula One racing he calls his drive to work. Toronto is not really to my liking, however--a little too angry. Montreal has flare, excitement, great restaurants and that thing the French call joie de vivre. The Montreal lifestyle is one I relate to much more readily--the people smile amidst the mayhem. And they drive fast on their freeways too--only they do it with flare and vigor. Maniacs we call them. There is passion in the province of Quebec, and it is reflected in the art--and the audio.

That's to the east and west. Not much lies to the north, although I must say that I have not ventured far that way. More lies to the south--we're directly above upstate New York. I guess we're up-upstate. The first New York audiophile I met was Syracuse-based storeowner Richard Brkich. With Richard's Signature Sound store only three hours away from me and my spouse Elsa, who has a penchant for shopping experiences in the U.S., going down for some upstate shopping has become a regular thing. She goes to the malls and I go to the audio stops. As a result, through a sort of six-degrees-of-Brkich thing, I met many other upstate audiophiles, including a fairly new but famous resident: Albert Von Schweikert.

Down from me but up from most, Von Schweikert Research, of which Albert is president, is located in Watertown, New York. Watertown is a one-hour trip up from Syracuse and two hours down from Ottawa. It is a quaint city with a laid-back lifestyle. Anyone tired of the hustle and bustle of concrete living can get a breath of fresh air here. Albert moved to Watertown from California, and although it gets cold up in these parts of the woods--really cold--according to Albert and his family, living here is a dream come true. From Ottawa and Toronto, Watertown is a stone's throw away on a nice day and an ideal spot for a factory tour--luckily, it has a mall too.

Displaying only a black "Von Schweikert Research" banner out front, the factory is a large but relatively unassuming brick building in an industrial part of town. Stepping through the front doors, however, you find an entryway bustling with activity, bright office spaces, a huge sound room, and a 20,000-square-foot factory out back--an active place that's ideal for producing the full roster of Von Schweikert products.

When I had first met Albert Von Schweikert two years ago, he made only the VR-4 loudspeaker--the VR-3 was still a LEAP away. Today Von Schweikert has over 15 models of speakers, including the VR-3, VR-4 Gen.2, VR-4.5, VR-6, a host of home theater products, and, of course, the new top-of-the line speaker and Albert's reference--the VR-8. But we'll get to that later.

Stepping from the offices through the lunchroom and down the hallway to the production area is an impressive trip. Many high-end companies are very small, but Von Schweikert Research is not. Seeing 20,000 square feet of partially finished speakers makes you wonder if they would miss just one pair. VR-6s, VR-4s and VR-3s abound, as does everything in between, in various stages of development until they're shipped out the back door.

It is in this main room that all of the speaker assembly takes place--everything else is an offshoot from this. Everything is manufactured in-house, except for the drivers themselves, in a very modern facility. This includes the cabinets, crossovers, and grill cloths. However, before the parts end up here, they are created in two other areas, each on opposite sides of the assembly area

On the right-hand wall of this main assembly area is the crossover-assembly room, where the heart of any VSR speaker is put together. Stepping inside, you are surrounded by a variety of capacitors, inductors, and wires used to create the crossover boards housed in all of the speakers. All crossovers are point-to-point wired, and the components are glued to wooden boards. Attention to detail is a must to ensure production consistency, and thorough testing is done to guarantee that the strict tolerances are adhered to.

Directly across the large assembly area, on the left-hand side, is the wood and paint shop. This separated area is where all of the MDF and various other wood panels are cut and prepped for the assembly area. The wood-shop portion is spacious, with ultra-modern equipment capable of producing the high-volumes of speakers that Von Schweikert Research is now delivering. Stacks upon stacks of MDF sit along one wall waiting to be cut and routed.

Adjoining the front end of the woodshop, in an area of its own, is the paint room. Normally the paint room would go without much comment because its usage is pretty much self-explanatory. However there is a nifty aspect to it worth mentioning, called "the water wall." In order to offset fumes and other paint-related side effects, Albert built a simple but effective method of running water down a large flat wall, like a sheet. That, in itself, looks neat, but there is a reason for it. The wall is made of corrugated metal and there is a trough at the bottom to catch the water. While the painter works, a fan blows air toward the wall. The result is that any paint byproducts are sent toward the sheet of water flowing downward and drained out.

Back out in the assembly area is where the components from the crossover area and the wood shop meet. At one end, workers meticulously assemble each speaker. Albert places strong importance on the design of the cabinet, and that is why all aspects of production have been brought in-house. Frankly, seeing a VR-4 in its raw, partially assembled state makes it hard to imagine that this is the same speaker that looks so elegant, with its full running grill cloth and end caps.

Once the loudspeakers are finally assembled and nearly complete, except for grill cloths and such, they are run through the break-in and testing area. To break in a speaker, VSR plays loud music through it, and lots of it. Albert mentioned that Chumbawumba seemed to be popular break-in music these days. For actual testing, each loudspeaker is measured in a stringent set of tests. The test area is a small, black sound-proofed room built on the floor of the assembly area. After break-in, the speakers are placed on a roller track and one by one they are slid into this room and run through a variety of tests by driving the speaker with various test signals. Speakers that pass all tests are then routed off for final assembly before packing and shipping. Others, such as a pair of VR-3s that I saw placed to the side that had written on them "down 3 dB at 1000 Hz" are routed back through the assembly process for more work before attempting to pass its test again.

Once speakers pass all of the tests and the spit-and-polish final touches are put on, they are boxed and lined up on skids and then wait to be shipped. It's somewhat awe-inspiring to imagine that all these speakers end up in somebody's listening room.

Then there's Albert's office--the place from which stems the ideas and the designs that all this revolves around. Like any office of a person who creates, it's somewhat of a mess--perhaps an orderly one. Walking into Albert's office, if it could be called an office at all (it's more like a test lab/storage spot), you must step over and around drivers, wire, books and everything else that is placed in a working man's fashion everywhere. It's this spot where all the work takes place, so everything's close at hand.

When it comes to the crucial process of driver selection, VSR does the selection by measurement and ear. I was astounded by the number of drivers of all types just laying around. When I would bring up a driver that I had seen on another company's speaker, Albert would begin bouncing up and down, then sometimes disappear for a moment, and almost always come back with, "Do you mean this one?" Dynamic, ribbons, the wild and esoteric, they're all to be found somewhere in and around the office.

It was also during this time that Albert told me of his approach to speaker design--one part of which stood out in my mind. For the most part, designing speakers is done almost completely on the computer. That's right: An entire speaker is modeled and measured through computer simulation before it's ever built. Crossover design, cabinet volumes, etc. are all determined electronically. Once the prototype speakers are built, there is usually only a final amount of tweaking to be done to achieve the desired sound. However, that does not mean that Albert does not listen as part of the process. Instead, he listens to every individual component along the way--drivers, wire, capacitors, inductors, and the like. The fact that you can call the VSR offices, sometimes at midnight, and Albert's there crawling along the floor listening to driver combinations with various crossover components, swapping in and out even just a piece of wire to determine its effect on sound, shows a fanatical dedication to the designs.

When I heard that Albert had embarked on building a new reference loudspeaker, I knew that the words "petite" and "elegant" would likely not enter the conversation. This speaker, of course, is the VR-8--and it's HUGE. You certainly gets a lot of speaker for the money. For $17,500, you get the standard version finished in grey Nextel. Beautiful cherry and oak veneers are available for a $1000 premium and are worth every cent in my estimation. For $25,000 you get all the above with souped-up crossover components and wire. While some may find the VR-8 to be an odd-shaped behemoth, others, like myself and John Stafford, find it out of this world. It's sexy in a way only an audiophile could understand. It has even spawned a little brother, the VR-6, which uses the same midrange and tweeter headshell and drive units. However, it substitutes an entirely different bass module based on dual 9-inch woofers. The overall size and price are reduced to accommodate smaller budgets and rooms ($12,500 for the pair). The VR-8, however, is still intended to be the be all, end all in the Von Schweikert world.

Each speaker weighs in at 500 pounds. The huge bass modules use 10-inch and 15-inch woofers. Crossover from the midrange unit to the bass section occurs at 200 Hz. Other VSR speakers cross over lower than this; however, Albert chose 200 Hz to give the midrange higher power-handling capability. There is no electrical crossover between the 10-inch and 15-inch drivers. "The fewer electronics, the better the transparency," according to Albert. The 10-inch unit works strong from 200 Hz down to the 60 Hz mark, where its own mechanics limit its extension into the nether-region. The 15-inch unit handles the lowest frequencies, down to the point that it can shake, rattle and roll you into queasiness, should that be your thing.

Moving upward, Albert chose to use two of the 5.25-inch carbon-fibre midrange units that find their way into all VSR speakers. Fourth-order crossovers are what's employed. By doubling up the midrange drivers, there is an increase in power handling and a rise in efficiency: 96 dB at 1 watt/1 meter is what the VR-8 measures, with a nominal impedance of 4 ohms. The VR-8 will reach down to the 3-ohm range, so despite the VR-8's high efficiency, an amplifier capable of delivering high current is necessary. Finally, the VR-8 uses a titanium-dome tweeter from Focal. This is an extremely high-quality drive unit that finds itself on a number of reference-class loudspeakers, including the JMlabs Grand Utopia and the Wilson X-1 Grand Slam.

It's by no coincidence that this factory tour included listening to the VR-8. I had heard and been impressed by most of Albert's other speakers, and he wanted me to hear this speaker so as to introduce me to this creation first-hand. It's a good thing because given the size of these speakers, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that they would get into my listening room. They would make it through my building's loading dock fine, but I would be skeptical about the separate boxes even fitting in the elevator. And if they did get up the elevator, Elsa would never let them through the door. If I decided to have them delivered when she wasn't around, by the time I got them set up I would be forced to sit in my bathroom to listen while they occupied the entire listening room--they are that big. I envy the guy who has the room for these titans.

Albert has such a room. The VSR factory listening room is approximately 25 by 40 feet with a 16 foot ceiling. Furthermore, it has no parallel walls, including the ceiling in relation to the floor! The room has been newly treated with damping material bought as military surplus. There is a good selection of equipment on hand, including the Pass Aleph 2 amps, a Timbre TT-1 DAC, and preamps from N.E.W. and Thor. For variation, there is also B.A.T. and Sunfire -- lots of good stuff. Low and behold, there was even some Canadian beer chilling in the fridge -- John Stafford and I nodded knowingly. It was a long day, it and was time for some listening.

And listen we did--for some hours on end. Albert cringes and searches for objects to hit me with whenever I allude to the fact that although I had heard the VR-8 sound good at previous hi-fi shows, to my ears they had not approached great under those conditions. I always suspected that it was room problems because, after all, these are an enormous speaker that can displace a whole lot of space and air. Placement considerations become large concerns for every perspective buyer. On this day, set up very well, Albert's VR-8, the Nextel, standard version, gained redemption.

John and I marveled at the VR-8's ability to cast a soundstage that was so vast and deep that it may have bettered any speaker I had ever heard. Deep, wide, and focused with air and space that went on and on and... Listening off- or on-axis, a sense of image and space was apparent and more focused than I could have imagined with two-channel stereo. Left to right, front to back, the VR-8 can display pinpoint accuracy--spot on. Furthermore, while the VR-8 can play full-sized orchestra and other large-scale works with size and conviction, it can portray a vocalist with the stunning focus that you find projected from mini-monitors. It's a remarkable recreation that must be heard properly, as we heard here.

From infinitely extended high frequencies to rock-solid subterranean bass, the VR-8 sounds balanced, detailed and completely natural. John and I both marveled at its ability to reveal everything in a recording, yet never be fatiguing and never sound harsh. Completely seductive and enticing, the VR-8-led system became music. I was in love and temptation set in. This was all the speaker I had ever wanted.

Hearing a pair of VR-8s is like seeing the most beautiful creature on earth. I wanted to reach out and have them for myself! I connected with the VR-8, and I was ready for commitment. But when it comes to attaining these musical wonders, I run smack into a barrier. This was far better than I could have imagined recorded music to be--and better than anything I've ever heard.

The VR-8 is the kind of speaker that causes an audiophile to rethink his
entire system--and lifestyle. While $17,500 is far out of reach for many
people, it's far enough within reach for some. I weighed the pros and cons, and I knew that even if I could spill the coin to buy a pair of VR-8s, my room and my Elsa would not hear of it. The barriers are real enough for me that I'm forced to stand on one side of the glass and simply gaze in. But the VR-8 certainly is tempting, the sort of seductress that makes you want to beg for freedom from all you own and start again. Alas,1998's budget at the Doug Schneider habitat will not allow it, but dreaming never hurt anyone.

Like all great memories, certain things are experienced once and then left to be pleasant reminders. I came home, looked at my current system, smiled, and within a few songs we were back to enjoying each other's company--all was forgiven. A lifestyle change isn't for everyone. I couldn't help but think, though, that perhaps the VR-6 will be the focus of my next visit to VSR.

...Doug Schneider
das@sstage.com

To find out more about Von Schweikert Research
Visit their website at www.vonschweikert.com