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EQUIPMENT REVIEW - Von Schweikert Audio VR-44 Aktive
baritone sax possessed a big beautiful tone that
contrasted with Mike Santiago’s sparkling guitar
runs and Thomas Fay’s articulate piano work,
full of emphatic chording and ringing arpeggios.
George Duvivier’s bass was tight and tuneful.
There were lovely, coordinated crescendi from
both the drums and the rhythm section, and Dave
Samuel’s vibes rang purely, with rich harmonics
and lightly percussive mallet work. I thought the
audible, intimate qualities of the performance a
testament to the VR-44s outstanding ability to
retrieve subtle, live, and evanescent details. The
musical notes, no matter from what instrument,
went right through you and grabbed from the
inside, shaking you by the spine they were so
immaculately present. It was a pure revelation to
hear this vintage pentode sound combine with the
newly minted VR-44 to make a recording recently
lifted from the archives come so alive.
What could these speakers not do Well, they
couldn’t make everything sound good. With
my reference deHavilland electronics in place,
DGG vinyl from the 70s could sound thinnish
and peaky, the lush strings of Albinoni’s Adagio
sounding occasionally glossy and opaque,
Pachebel’s Kanon in D (both from Adagio, DG)
sounding pleasant enough but not glorious or
completely open. Herbie Hancock’s title cut from
his Maiden Voyage LP [Blue Note 4195] could also
have a bright bite to it, limiting the sensuousness
of George Coleman’s tenor, crushing the brilliant
top of Freddie Hubbard’s roulades and tripletongued
runs. And, with only two woofers, albeit
powered ones, I’d guess the VR-44s might not
play very loud in large rooms, though they lacked
for nothing in mine.
What about any flaws Rarely, but on certain
recordings while the speakers were still breaking
in, I heard a chuffing or light slap behind the
woofers on passages with heavy bass, perhaps
from air pressure building up behind the voice
coils. This seemed to disappear with break-in.
Later, with the volume turned up so crescendi
might reach to triple fortes of over 92dB (measured
on my Phonic PAA-2), there was occasionally a
“pushed” kind of sound on some CDs, like the
midrange got too crowded with responsibilities
for such a wide range of signal. Orchestras in tutti
passages, for example, as on Beethoven’s 2nd
Symphony [Teldec], or during an aria from Verdi’s
Otello (from Sempre Libera, Abbado-Mahler
Chamber Orchesta), or on Mozart’s Jupiter
Symphony [Archiv], while never sounding crushed
or dynamically pinched, could nevertheless
sound a tad less open, not completely free and
easeful. An on-axis spectral balance analysis from
my listening seat, again using the PAA-2, showed
a slight upper bass bump of 2–3dB at 80Hz
(likely a room issue) and a 2dB suckout in the
lower mids between 200–315Hz. The latter might
cause some leanness that could account for that
occasional “pushed” sound I heard. Yet, neither
anomaly caused me much worry as, truthfully,
once everything was set up properly and the
system optimized, I found little to complain about.
In my room, SPL readings from 20Hz to 12kHz
were otherwise fairly flat.
In fact, on some of the most difficult music,
the wide-ranging, intensely variable sound of
the human voice, the speakers excelled. Using
the combination of a VAC Phi-200 (100Wpc) and
VAC Signature IIa preamp for my electronics, I got
extraordinarily pure, extended, and clean vocals
from both female and male singers, performing
opera arias and country gospel music with like
easefulness and aplomb.
Anna Nebtrenko, as celebrated a diva as there
is today, can sometimes sound thin and pinched,
with a dose of glare depending on the system
and recording. But I’ve always thought the Red
Book layer of Sempre Libera, a hybrid SACD
[DGG] one of the best sounding of her recordings.
Via the VR-44, her voice sounded liquid,
penetratingly pure, as well as open and extended
on top. It was a pleasure to listen to arias from
the bel canto repertoire—three from Bellini’s La
Somnambula, three more from I Puritani, and four
from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Netrebko
hit a high midway through “Ah! non giunge uman
pensiero” from La Sonnambula that’s a crazy
coloratura note, ornamented and vibrant, lyric
and sweetly piercing, testing the upper reach of
the 6" midrange and the handoff to the tweeter.
The speakers nailed it—no spike, no glare, no
hole in the voice, and no ornaments of melisma or
vibrato disappearing and breaking up Netrebko’s
supple rendering of the most dramatic moment
in the aria. This was a telling demonstration of
the speaker’s coherence, extension, speed,
microdynamics, and fine resolution.
Joseph Calleja’s powerful tenor voice on
Alfredo’s “O mio rimorso” from Verdi’s La Traviata
[Decca] had huge dynamic swings, but the VR-
44s handled them easily, without breakup or
dropoffs, shriek or hashiness. The orchestra was
deft in accompaniment and the cellos especially
dark and grave in contrast to Callejas’s brilliant
Caruso-like tones, full of body and an upper
sheen, attesting to the fine tonal palette of the
VSA speakers, their nimbleness and range in
handling widely varying, yet near simultaneous
overlapping tones and textures.
“Great Atomic Power,” a song written by the
Louvin Brothers and Buddy Bain in 1951, has
been a country and Cold War classic for the
span of sixty years since the Louvins recorded
it in 1952. It’s usually sung satirically nowadays,
but its message is fundamental—“Sinner repent
before the atomic bomb blasts us all!” Using
a VAC PA-100/100 stereo amp (100Wpc) in
combination with a Lamm LL2.1 preamp, I heard
Raul Malo apply his smooth tenor voice, honed
to a fine lyric beauty singing Mexican corridos,
to this humble but inventive gospel tune on The
Nashville Acoustic Sessions [CMH CD]. Malo’s
supple voice leapt naturally from the speakers,
which disappeared behind a tapestry of dawg
music from a mandolin and three acoustic guitars,
finely woven and arranged across the generous
soundstage. And the chorus behind was so clear,
I could hear the breath of one singer and then
another, the soft plosives in their mouths shaping
the notes. Transients were acute without being at
all edgy.
Throughout the review period, from the
beginning to its end, the issue that concerned
me most was string and orchestral sound, most
frequently on CD playback. As I mention in the
sidebar, the long break-in, the nuisance of noise
in the line, and my own improper default choice
of a high upsampling rate each compromised
a natural sound. Furthermore, that most of the
audible frequency range was handled by a single
driver, the wide-ranging midrange, also concerned
me, as I worried there would not be sufficient real
estate for the 6" driver to move enough air to
create the illusion of a full orchestra. I’m happy
to report that, once the issues were resolved, I
92 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com
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