One Amigo Visits South East Asia and Hears Some Amazing Systems

On post #27 yet again, among the equipment that I have acquired, I do not keep all of them. I only keep the ones I really like.

ho ho ho amigo!

looks like santa claus came early for* audio write-ups from steve to Jimmy , Jack and the gang...albert must be smiling!!...that's some stellar collection of highest end audio gear and most stunning is the great human bonding , some genuine friendships made .....all in the name of listening to recorded music!

looks like Steve and party have thoroughly enjoyed magical phillipines both in unrivalled hospitality , out of this world music at "the palace of sound" and jacks "jazz club house" and all the other contributors

Way to go guys....this may come to pass as ..."the must do visit for major recorded music heads"!

I keep dreaming of a single day pass !.....in time to come .....all in the name of schweikert sound , Jack

I am sure Steve is one blessed man!..and thanks for sharing your memories .....must have really enjoyed your trip

the photographic montage is still evolving and stunning

still enjoying vsa vr 9se mark2!

Sam

Great read Steve and many thanks for sharing, most enjoyable

Lee

Amazing sound rooms . 14' ft ceiling . That is a massive, massive room.

Jack , I read that you are using Koetsu Jasper. Is that with diamond cantilever ? How is it compare to Koetsu Coralstone ?

audioblazer said:

Amazing sound rooms . 14' ft ceiling . That is a massive, massive room.

Jack , I read that you are using Koetsu Jasper. Is that with diamond cantilever ? How is it compare to Koetsu Coralstone ?

Click to expand...

Hi Audioblazer,

I find that the Coralstone is more dynamic in the midbass, second only to the Jade but with more finesse. Of the stone bodied Ks I think the Coralstone is also the warmest and carries more of the classic wood body sound. The Jasper is more akin to the Tigereye and Bluelace which are best among the line at fine nuance and filigree in the top octaves which while less in body and density than the Coralstone does the portrayal of hall space better. The Jasper however is to my ears faster if not fastest of the Koetsus I've played with along with the Moss Agate which is more refined still. As for the Koetsu color, while the woods have that amber glow to them, the stones are more prismatic. The differences being mainly how the tone colors blend. The Jade is most stark in contrasts while these new diamond cantilevered soft stone bodies the more seamlessly blended. As gross over simplifications go, I think I would choose a Coralstone Diamond for Jazz and Rock and the Bluelace/Tigereye/Jaspers for Jazz and Classical. Fortunately, since my system is very easily tunable I don't lack in density with the Jasper. In system B which has normal sized speakers with no active bass support, I imagine the Coral might be the better choice. As I also like taking the system for big spins, the extra refinement of the soft stone/platinum/diamonds is a godsend in terms of keeping fatigue at bay. As far as small ensemble/vocal centric listeners I still think the wood bodied and lacquered platinums are the place to get their feet wet. All this in my experience only. As always given the myriad differences in systems, YMMV.

Hi

Many may not realize how much it takes to try to document while trying to enjoy: It is hard work. I went on a European vacation and tried to document it. I failed. Thus I appreciate the effort put forth by Steve to document his experiences. I enjoyed these a lot and am looking forward to go there soon.

Tell me about it! I think I took less than 10 pictures. LOL.

I believe it to be around .3mV Steve. Jim can correct me if I'm mistaken. Slightly higher than the standard platinum output. I do know that I did not change any gain settings when toggling between the .4mV TD Ti and the Jasper.

JackD201 said:

Hi Audioblazer,

I find that the Coralstone is more dynamic in the midbass, second only to the Jade but with more finesse. Of the stone bodied Ks I think the Coralstone is also the warmest and carries more of the classic wood body sound. The Jasper is more akin to the Tigereye and Bluelace which are best among the line at fine nuance and filigree in the top octaves which while less in body and density than the Coralstone does the portrayal of hall space better. The Jasper however is to my ears faster if not fastest of the Koetsus I've played with along with the Moss Agate which is more refined still. As for the Koetsu color, while the woods have that amber glow to them, the stones are more prismatic. The differences being mainly how the tone colors blend. The Jade is most stark in contrasts while these new diamond cantilevered soft stone bodies the more seamlessly blended. As gross over simplifications go, I think I would choose a Coralstone Diamond for Jazz and Rock and the Bluelace/Tigereye/Jaspers for Jazz and Classical. Fortunately, since my system is very easily tunable I don't lack in density with the Jasper. In system B which has normal sized speakers with no active bass support, I imagine the Coral might be the better choice. As I also like taking the system for big spins, the extra refinement of the soft stone/platinum/diamonds is a godsend in terms of keeping fatigue at bay. As far as small ensemble/vocal centric listeners I still think the wood bodied and lacquered platinums are the place to get their feet wet. All this in my experience only. As always given the myriad differences in systems, YMMV.

Click to expand...

Oh jeeh, did I made the wrong choice with my Koetsu coral stone diamond cartridge for all my classical records, Jack? Still love it though!

Never a wrong choice my friend and love it you should! Beauty is..... we can always have more than one!

I should add that as far as the Mono variants go, my vote would be Coralstone without a doubt.

JackD201 said:

Never a wrong choice my friend and love it you should! Beauty is..... we can always have more than one!

I should add that as far as the Mono variants go, my vote would be Coralstone without a doubt.

Click to expand...

Sure, just kidding and I will do.

Jack . Thanks for the detailed response . I thk I will stick with Coralstone . Planning to get a Coralstone with diamond cantilever . What can I expect compare to a normal Coralstone ?

JackD201 said:

Hi Audioblazer,

I find that the Coralstone is more dynamic in the midbass, second only to the Jade but with more finesse. Of the stone bodied Ks I think the Coralstone is also the warmest and carries more of the classic wood body sound. The Jasper is more akin to the Tigereye and Bluelace which are best among the line at fine nuance and filigree in the top octaves which while less in body and density than the Coralstone does the portrayal of hall space better. The Jasper however is to my ears faster if not fastest of the Koetsus I've played with along with the Moss Agate which is more refined still. As for the Koetsu color, while the woods have that amber glow to them, the stones are more prismatic. The differences being mainly how the tone colors blend. The Jade is most stark in contrasts while these new diamond cantilevered soft stone bodies the more seamlessly blended. As gross over simplifications go, I think I would choose a Coralstone Diamond for Jazz and Rock and the Bluelace/Tigereye/Jaspers for Jazz and Classical. Fortunately, since my system is very easily tunable I don't lack in density with the Jasper. In system B which has normal sized speakers with no active bass support, I imagine the Coral might be the better choice. As I also like taking the system for big spins, the extra refinement of the soft stone/platinum/diamonds is a godsend in terms of keeping fatigue at bay. As far as small ensemble/vocal centric listeners I still think the wood bodied and lacquered platinums are the place to get their feet wet. All this in my experience only. As always given the myriad differences in systems, YMMV.

Click to expand...

Very interesting Jack, I was aware of the differences between wood & stone bodied Ks but didn't realize that there was that much distinction among the stone bodies, thanks for the in depth synopsis! One thing I have to do one of these days is to get a diamond cantilevered one to see how it differs from the metal ones.

david

Just catching up with these threads, Steve... easily the most entertaining yet! What a fantastic trip that must have been! Thanks for sharing all these details, on the systems, Hong Kong, the audio show, Palawan, and the food!

More delicacy and nimbleness audioblazer

Holy moly!!!

I have travelled through Asia as well, and been invited into some people's homes. I've seen a few extreme systems. But these things take it to another level! Especially jimmy's home .. I mean, wow.

And BTW Steve I thought you were taller than that Must have been your charm that won you such a beautiful wife!

Steve, thanks for posting one of the most interesting stories of a musical journey that I’ve read in quite some time. I have met some enthusiastic music lovers in my day, but you’re certainly at the top of the list! Congratulations are in order, as your visits to these varied and extremely interesting systems were very well written and your photographs made me feel like I was with you during your adventure!

Thanks for your work in bringing these fine systems to the attention of WBF readers, which now include me. I look forward to writing posts in the future, as this group of readers are clearly the music lovers that I would love to know on a personal basis myself.

Of course I especially enjoyed your coverage of Jimmy's system. As one of the many suppliers to that system, I am honored that you liked the sound of his room, electronics, and speakers. Jimmy is an amazing person and I am so glad that you were able to visit him and enjoy a day making new friends and sharing some glorious music! Jimmy is truly on a fantastic quest to find that perfect sound of a live orchestra, and so I must congratulate him on his exquisite taste, inspiration, love of music, and desire to own the best components that he can find.

As you have clearly stated, the sound of Jimmy’s system is the combination of an amazing room and great components chosen very carefully by him. I have met and befriended many of the suppliers of these incredible components, from Kevin Hayes of VAC, Luke Manley of VTL, Nick at MasterBuilt Audio cables, and Joe of Critical Mass Systems. Although I have not met the designers of the Air Force turntables or the cartridge manufacturers, Jimmy has clearly chosen well! I love the Studer tape decks and hope to meet with the talented rebuilders and tube preamp designers who took the Studer to the next level.

On a side note, the three designers of Jimmy’s one-off VR-111XS ULTRA include me as the lead engineer, my son Damon who is our cabinet designer and CAD engineer, and Leif Swanson, my personal assistant and co-designer of the VR-111XS ULTRA. Leif is also our QC and testing engineer and knows a thing or two about speakers: he was the designer of the Endeavor Audio Engineering brand, which VSA acquired to help them with funding. And all three of us collaborated on the final voicing.

Last, but not least, I would like to clarify a few points about the VR-111XS ULTRA that we spent three years developing exclusively for Jimmy. As this was to be Jimmy’s fourth system of ours, we knew we had to greatly improve on the VR-11SE MkII released in 2008. Although Jimmy loved that system, over the years, he became used to the sound and decided that we could build something better. He asked me what it would take to beat our VR-11 design, and I spent a few months thinking about how every subsystem inside the design could be improved. After hearing about our ideas a few months later, Jimmy commissioned this custom one-off design and then waited very patiently for three years as we developed the technology necessary to achieve this level of performance as well as fabricate the final design. Here are some details that readers might like to know more about:

1. We should clarify that the ULTRA VR-111 is a six tower system, three towers per side. The crossover parts are so large that they required their own cabinet. These enclosures utilizes a proprietary technology that isolates the networks both physically and electronically. We felt that a “no holds barred” design would require shielding of the hyper-expensive crossover parts. In conventional speaker systems, the crossover parts are exposed to signal wires going to the drivers, a huge magnetic field from the drive unit magnets, and RFI/EMI that can radiate into the circuits. All of this interference will cause low level noise that would reduce the overall transparency of the signal.

2. ULTRA wire, sourced from MasterBuilt, is an aerospace alloy used in the Large Hadron Collider and space craft and is used throughout the speakers from crossovers to drivers. Although this wire is very costly to produce and requires licensing from the US manufacturer who has a monopoly on it's fabrication, Jimmy and I felt that the sonic differences were so great that we were forced to use it after careful a/b/x comparisons with
many other brands of wire. ULTRA is an alloy made of rare earth and precious metals, and although MasterBuilt will not reveal the exact formula, we do know that some of the ingredients are almost impossible to obtain and all of these ingredients are cast into tubes that have RFI and EMI shielding within. Much of the transparency that you heard is due to ULTRA wire. After Jimmy was loaned an ULTRA interconnect to use for a couple of weeks, he gave MasterBuilt a thumbs up and we subsequently purchased enough of this proprietary alloy made with precious metals to use more than 200 feet inside the six cabinets. During the construction of the ULTRA VR-111’s MasterBuilt fabricated custom ULTRA cables to use throughout his system, including speaker cables, inter connects, and a few of the critical power cords.

3. Single Voice: the essential concept of this speaker system had been discussed by Jimmy, his brother Jack (our importer) and myself for several years. About six years ago, Jack asked me if it was feasible to build a system wherein every single driver was the same, except for size and frequency range. This would insure a “unity of voice” similar to an electrostatic speaker. After emailing every high quality manufacturer of raw frame drivers, I received samples of driver diaphragms that I could test. The winning company, a small but extremely high tech company in Norway, was able to supply diaphragms from 12” in diameter to 1.2” dome tweeters in a variety of compositions. Their suggestion of a sandwich of magnesium, aluminum, and a ceramic coating was the winner. This particular diaphragm is extremely light, extremely stiff, and inert (i.e., free from sonic character). The fabricator needed to know how I was going to use these custom drivers, so they required technical details of the cabinet size, shape, and composition. After making several rounds of prototypes, with different types of voice coils, magnets (both ALNICO and Strontium Ferrite) and suspension designs, we ended up with a full range set of drive units, each with the same sonic signature. However, let me paraphrase that comment: there is almost “zero” sonic signature, as you discovered during your listening session. I say “almost” as nothing on Earth is quite perfect.

4. Here is a list of each driver, all using this composite diaphragm: 4 pcs of 12” composite diaphragm subwoofers, 8 pcs of 7” composite diaphragm midbass drivers, 4 pcs of 5” composite diaphragm midrange drivers, two pcs of 1.2” composite domes with a black ceramic powder coating (they look like fabric due to the black coating, but they’re the same metal as the rest of the drivers), and 1pc of 3” Heil Air Motion super tweeter, which uses a folded Teflon ribbon driven by a vapor deposited aluminum “flat voice coil.” As the Heil does not contribute to the sound below 20kHz, it was easy to blend with the magnesium domed tweeters. In fact, the crossover point is not detectable with test equipment or the ear, but if you reduce the level of this driver, much of the air and space is diminished – so much for the idea that nothing above 20kHz is audible.

5. To fully engineer this “single voice” system, a specialized crossover circuit was designed. As the towers are designed and built with Time Alignment from the beginning, we needed no compensation for inter-driver time delays. However, all of the stiff diaphragms have a resonant frequency based on the material, diameter of the diaphragm, and so forth. This resonant frequency could not be removed by mechanical means, so we eliminated this frequency with a paralleled shunt-to-ground Zobel circuit, which is not in the signal path. Naturally, this is a complex circuit, not found in any text books – we had to literally invent the circuit architecture.

6. Jimmy’s speaker system features a near omnidirectional “surround” effect, based on two principles:

a. Controlled midrange Directivity: If you examine the front baffle, you’ll see that Damon and I had designed a shallow sideways “V” shape to the midrange and tweeter baffle area. This is designed to control the off axis directivity of the midrange driver pressure wave. If you note the mirror image of the two main towers, you’ll see that we are essentially horn loading the pressure wave of the midrange drivers to simulate a narrow baffle that would naturally allow the sound waves to escape to the sides. Out of dozens of simulations, this design looked best according to our polar response graphs. After testing a mockup, we decided that along with the wider and deeper sound stage, the sculpturing effect would add a nice cosmetic touch.

b. You will also note that the tweeters are mirror imaged and are placed outboard, which is contrary to common thinking. The reason for this is based on the shape of the sideways “V” shape directivity lens. The speakers will not image as well with the directivity “V” scallop aimed towards the outside of the stage.

c. The speakers are dipolar, but can be configured as bipolar, as the room requires. This is based on the material of the back wall being reflective, absorptive, or a combination. Although Steve was not able to take a photo of the rear driver array, there are three drivers facing the rear wall. Two drivers are 1.2” ceramic powder coated magnesium dome low frequency tweeters and there is one 3” Heil Air Motion Transformer super tweeter. All three of these drivers are semi-horn loaded, and are the same units as seen on the front of the towers. However, we are feeding these three drivers an “ambience” signal that an omnidirectional recording mic would have picked up from the rear of the hall; essentially, that signal is an out-of-phase component of the front wave. The time delay which creates the out-of-phase situation is due to the path length of the reflections from the rear wall of the concert hall being an odd multiple of the microphone’s placement to the front of the orchestra. This is all adjustable with controls on the crossover towers; i.e., amplitude level, phase, and frequency range.

Steve, I do not know if Jimmy or Jack had you walk around the room while the music was playing, but as a psychoacoustic demonstration we have people stand to the sides or behind our VR speakers. All of the people who have experienced this effect are shocked at the image stabilization and the VR’s ability to sound like an orchestra playing in a hall. The speakers simply disappear, as you found. The ultimate expression of our Ambience Retrieval System is Jimmy’s pair, which use three drivers at the rear; our former VR-11SE Mk1 and MkII models used only a single ribbon tweeter, which lacked lower treble and enough SPL to fill a large room.

I hope this was not too long of an explanation, but so many customers have emailed us for more information that we decided to post this in your thread. We wish to enlighten all music lovers of our technology, as many people who are not potential customers still wish to understand our reasoning behind these small details. Steve, your own curiosity is amazing, since you would not have undertaken this long journey if you were not as much of an enthusiast as the wonderful people you visited in Manila! We know first-hand what great hosts treated you to their homes, family, food, and music.

Congratulations once again from all of us at Von Schweikert Audio!