Whats in the box?

[Emil]

May be an eyeopener for some but not for others.

BTW, its not the Tannoys pictured that he's writing about but some unmentioned company out of California


http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/07/open-mike-high-end-loudspeakers-ot.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FZSjz+%28The+Online+Photographer%29

[machinehead]

Wow. That sucks! I want to know what speaker brand they are. He should just buy some new Tannoys..

[Barry (NJ)]

Very curious to know what they are...

[BobM]

It could be any one of a hundred different speakers. My rule of thumb for speakers ...

if you are going to buy upscale then buy used but good/high quality at a savings of probably 50% or more over retail.

If you are going to buy cheap then look at the boutique manufacturers and/or DIY kind of places, because they don;t have the markup of the big boys and sell most of their product at these price points. To stay in business they need to provide real value.

[sleepyguy24]

I bet they are Onix Rocket or speakers from AV123. What Mike (aka The Online Photographer) details kind of scares me. That is my primary reason for buying older speakers from yesteryear. With the money I had to spend on speakers it wouldn't get me far with the newer stuff of today.

[richidoo]

Von Schweikert VR3 fits the description.

It used a nice carbon fiber Audax midrange driver, flat 100-10000Hz which could have been happy with 1st order crossovers.

Those original Audax drivers were likely damaged and replaced with 'anything that fit' by a previous owner. Sometimes you get burned buying used.

Mike should contact the manufacturer and investigate whether his speakers are original. If not, replacing the mids is only a couple hundred bucks.

[FnAudioDog]

Hi Richidoo,

I'm new here. I'm thinking of building Troels DTQWTs or the DTQWT-12s. I saw yours here and was hoping you could give me some incite as to their sound. Are you happy with them?
If you had to do it over would you still build them?

[Barry (NJ)]

Von Schweikert VR3 fits the description.

It used a nice carbon fiber Audax midrange driver, flat 100-10000Hz which could have been happy with 1st order crossovers.

Those original Audax drivers were likely damaged and replaced with 'anything that fit' by a previous owner. Sometimes you get burned buying used.

Mike should contact the manufacturer and investigate whether his speakers are original. If not, replacing the mids is only a couple hundred bucks.

That's a very interesting and pretty valid assumption I wouldn't have initially considered Rich....

I blew my speakers, so rather than fix them properly just toss some cheap replacements in there and off load 'em to some unsuspecting sucker out of town...

Caveat Emptor indeed!

P.S. I just read the blog entry a bit more thoroughly, seems as though all the drivers were poor quality and fitment to the cabinet, and that the binding posts and crossover components were also of low quality, so I now doubt your assumption in this instance, though it could still be a possability in other transactions.

[richidoo]

The blogger believes there are not enough crossover parts in there to make a quality speaker system, so I take his technical opinions with a grain of salt.

It could also be a chinese clone, posing as a real VS, or whatever brand the sticker says.

[hometheaterdoc]

not VR-3... and not likely any legitimate VR speaker...

1) VR speakers have been high order crossovers for as long as I can remember... 4th order and higher equivalent has been part of his toolbox and part of the VR "sound".

2) the VR-3 was a grill sock speaker... the author talks about nice cabinet construction, not a raw MDF box with rough flat black paint and a grill sock pulled over it.  It wasn't until the "retail" line of speakers (VR-1, VR-2, VR-4jr, LCR-15, VR-S/1, TS-150) that there was chinese veneered speaker options... the upper models offered it as well (VR-4SR and VR-5SE being chinese cabinets until having to get them done domestically again when they dropped the retail line).  But no VR-4SR and above models retailed for $2500.00.  The 4SR started at $6K MSRP when first introduced.

3) I've never seen a model with a separate crossover compartment.  a couple with compartments to load lead shot or sand, but not crossover compartment...  and I've seen lots of examples of domestically soldered crossovers from them, as well as the chinese built crossovers in the retail line... nothing like he describes in his article...

Fit and finish has never been something I've seen an issue with on VSA speakers.  It's actually been one of their strengths... which is a lot more than I can say for some interesting experiences I've had with other manufacturers opening up new boxes of their stuff.... I had two particularly bad experiences with manufacturers where it was exactly as described... actually it was worse .... but I'm sure it wasn't them...

[richidoo]

Well the other high end California speaker maker with expensive flagships is Vandersteen. He uses low order crossovers. But his base speaker model 1 is only 2 way, sock covered.

So sleepyguy might be right AV123/Onix. But they never made ultra high end speakers in the tens of thousands.

[shadowlight]

Well the other high end California speaker maker with expensive flagships is Vandersteen. He uses low order crossovers. But his base speaker model 1 is only 2 way, sock covered.

So sleepyguy might be right AV123/Onix. But they never made ultra high end speakers in the tens of thousands.

Did av123/Onix ever have a dealership and the most expensive speaker in their product line was LS9 or Onix Ref3 which was around 5 or 6K (i think).  I also do not think they built any speakers in the US other than the LS6/9 series.

I get the impression that the company in question still exists:

"the maker doesn't have any dealers near me. They are the "budget" floorstanding model from a high-end audio company which has received a number of positive reviews for its mainstream mid-level $8,000–$12,000 models, and which also makes "statement" products costing many tens of thousands of dollars."

[djdube525]

The author also suspected the drivers were loaded in CA... Wouldn't make sense given AV123s operations in CO and Columbia. Certainly, they had their issues... I don't think this example is them at all.

Dave

[djdube525]

Did av123/Onix ever have a dealership and the most expensive speaker in their product line was LS9 or Onix Ref3 which was around 5 or 6K (i think).  I also do not think they built any speakers in the US other than the LS6/9 series.

Well... Mark did take orders (and money) for th RSL IIs... Which I thought were in the 12K range... But I believe only 1 was ever made... A buddy of mine got burned on those.

[Barry (NJ)]

Well Harmon is located in Cali, so Revel, Infinity, Others(?) could be a possibility...