Vandersteen Audio Model Seven XTRM

One can draw an unmistakable through-line from Richard Vandersteen’s 1977 garage-built experimental speaker to right now’s flagship Model Seven XTRM reviewed right here.

That storage venture, which grew to become the Vandersteen Audio Model Two, was an prompt basic and went on to develop into the best-selling audiophile speaker of all time. While many speaker firms have come and gone prior to now 47 years, and others have ventured in numerous technical instructions, Vandersteen has stayed true to the ideas which are the muse of the Model Two’s phenomenal success.

One of these ideas is the concept that a loudspeaker needs to be time and section coherent. That is, the person wavefronts produced by every driver ought to line up completely in time. When one driver strikes ahead, all the opposite drivers ought to transfer ahead in excellent unison. Although one would intuitively suppose this issue is a prerequisite to constancy, only a few audio system are section coherent. There’s a basic musical rightness of this method that’s laborious to establish with any particular sonic standards, however I imagine that it’s one purpose the Model Two offered in such large numbers; potential purchasers auditioning the Model Two in a supplier’s showroom responded to that musical rightness with their wallets. About 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 of them to be exact (that’s not a misprint).

The Model Seven XTRM is an evolution of the Model Seven launched in 2009 and that I reviewed in 2010 (Issue 206). The basic structure is identical: powered woofers, an exterior passive high-pass filter earlier than your energy amplifier, Vandersteen’s personal patented carbon-fiber-and-balsa-wood drivers, intensive bass changes for higher room integration, and time-and-phase coherence. You may take a look at the 2 audio system side-by-side and suppose that they’re the identical, however the Seven XTRM employs a bunch of technological enhancements whereas remaining true to the product’s conception. It’s price noting {that a} Model Seven of any classic might be upgraded to the XTRM. A Seven upgraded at Vandersteen’s manufacturing unit is equivalent in each option to new manufacturing (besides, in fact, cupboard wear-and-tear).

Before we get to what’s new within the XTRM, let’s evaluation the Seven’s platform which is in contrast to that of every other speaker I’m conscious of.

First, the fundamentals. The Seven is a four-way floorstander with twin side-firing woofers pushed by an inside 400W linear (not switching) amplifier, a 7″ mid/bass driver, 4.5″ midrange, and a 1″ dome tweeter. There’s a .75″ tweeter round again to breed atmosphere info. The sealed enclosure is faceted, with a narrower prime part. A barrier strip gives bi-wire or bi-amplified connection. Sensitivity is on the low aspect at 85dB, however the powered woofer part reduces calls for in your amplifier. The Seven might be ordered in any automotive coloration, with sweet apple pink and black being commonplace. It is priced at $89,300.

Although a number of producers provide audio system that includes an integral energy amplifier to drive the woofer, Vandersteen takes the thought a number of steps additional by providing with the speaker a high-pass filter that matches between your preamplifier and energy amplifier. Vandersteen sells this necessary filter individually (beginning at $3092) as a result of some Model Seven clients might personal Vandersteen’s High Pass Amplifiers which have an integral filter. The filter is a small passive field (known as the M7-HP) that has an enter jack and a captive output cable (you possibly can order it with RCA or XLR connectors). The filter rolls off the bass at 6dB per octave with a nook frequency of 140Hz. A filter contained in the Seven’s integral woofer amplifier has a reciprocal curve, restoring flat response. This approach is instantly analogous to the RIAA equalization curves used on all LPs; bass is reduce and treble boosted when the album is reduce, after which an inverse filter in your phonostage boosts bass and cuts treble for flat response.

There are advantages to the Seven’s method. First, your energy amplifiers are relieved of the burden of amplifying low frequencies, leaving extra energy and dynamic headroom for the remainder of the spectrum. In addition, constructing an influence amplifier into the speaker confers all the advantages of bi-amping. Significantly, the sign driving the Seven’s woofer amplifier is taken out of your energy amplifier in order that your entire spectrum shares the identical sonic signature.

Vandersteen Audio Model Seven XTRM crossover

But maybe extra importantly, powered bass provides the chance to include equalization that means that you can tune the speaker to your room. In the Seven, this takes the type of 11 trim pots (trimmer potentiometers, small screwdriver changes recessed within the rear panel). Used at the side of take a look at tones (obtainable on Vandersteen’s included CD or downloaded from the Vandersteen web site), you possibly can exactly scale back the amplitude of room modes and understand a a lot flatter bass response. Specifically, every of the 11 changes can enhance or reduce the sign on the particular test-tone frequencies: 20Hz, 24Hz, 30Hz, and many others. as much as 180Hz. In follow, you play the 11 take a look at tones on the CD in sequence and word the sound-pressure degree of every tone on the listening seat as measured by an SPL meter. Vandersteen provides a helpful sheet for filling in these values. Then you play the collection of tones once more, this time with somebody behind the speaker with a small screwdriver. Consulting the chart of sound-pressure ranges you simply wrote down, instruct the particular person to lift or decrease the extent of every trim pot till the meter reads near the reference degree. You’ve simply diminished the amplitude of room modes and smoothed the bass response. The course of takes about 20 minutes, however I anticipate that your supplier will carry out this calibration upon set up.

It’s necessary to notice that it’s a mistake to overly enhance frequencies the place there’s a null; you’re merely pumping extra vitality into what is actually an vitality sink, stressing the loudspeaker within the course of. The finest method is to very flippantly enhance the dips however to be extra aggressive in attenuating peaks, that are far more audible than nulls. This actuality is mirrored within the Seven’s adjustment vary; the trim pots can present as much as 3dB of enhance however as a lot as 20dB of reduce. In follow, the thought is to knock down the very best peaks (however not all the way in which down) and really barely carry up the nulls. It is necessary to depart a number of the peaks; the ear/mind unconsciously creates a “map” of the listening room by these peaks and nulls from talking and listening to different sounds in that room. Removing an excessive amount of of that signature by equalization creates a cognitive dissonance that reduces the sensation of musical immersion, based on Vandersteen.

In addition to this granular calibration means, you can even alter the general woofer quantity in addition to the woofer “Q”. The time period “Q” refers to a unitless quantity that describes whether or not the woofer is overdamped (producing a decent and well-defined bass) or underdamped (producing a looser and fuller backside finish). Between right loudspeaker placement, the 11-band bass equalizer, the woofer-level management, and the “Q” adjustment, it’s doable to exert great management over the sound of the bass in your room. Even my room, which was constructed from scratch with optimum dimensional ratios and elaborate wall development (ASC Iso-Wall), drastically benefited from this adjustability. The advantages of this bass adjustability will probably be even better in typical dwelling rooms.

The twin 11″ woofers are mounted on both aspect of the cupboard in order that the vitality they communicate to the cupboard cancels, a method Vandersteen calls “CounterForce Bass.” The woofers function under 100Hz, handing off bass duties to a 7″ mid/bass driver. The midrange and treble are reproduced by a 4.5″ midrange driver and 1″ dome tweeter. A .75″ rear-firing tweeter reproduces ambient info. The new Seven’s design is constructed round these two 11″ woofers fairly than a single downward-firing 12″ within the unique Model Seven.

The mid/bass driver, midrange, and tweeter are all Vandersteen’s personal patented design, with cones (or dome within the tweeter’s case) comprised of a sandwich of carbon-fiber skins over balsa wooden. Vandersteen believes that it’s necessary that every driver is comprised of the identical materials as a result of each materials has its personal distinctive signature. Employing the identical materials throughout all of the drivers avoids a sonic discontinuity. The drivers, which Vandersteen calls “Perfect-Piston,” characteristic very stiff cones that reportedly haven’t any breakup modes till very far above their passbands (the frequency vary over which they’re operated).

Vandersteen was motivated to develop drivers that may stay pistonic outdoors their passbands due to the corporate’s basic dedication to time-and-phase coherent habits, which requires first-order crossovers. Let’s unpack that sentence and clarify the connection between driver stiffness, crossover topology, and time-and-phase coherent habits.

We’ll begin by explaining what “pistonic” means in a driver. A loudspeaker cone will function as a piston (that’s, all components of the cone transfer collectively) as much as a sure frequency, above which it begins to flex; some components of the cone are shifting ahead whereas different components are shifting backward. This is known as “breakup.” All drivers expertise breakup—the stiffer the cone the upper the breakup frequency. When a driver goes into breakup, distortion immediately skyrockets, as you possibly can think about. Vandersteen has created an excellent six-minute YouTube video explaining breakup and displaying an animated measurement taken of precise drivers that graphically demonstrates the phenomenon.

The second a part of understanding Vandersteen’s quest for stiffer cones and their concomitant larger breakup frequencies goes again to the corporate’s basic requirement that their audio system be time-and-phase coherent (all of the drivers transfer in excellent unison). The solely crossover topology that’s time-and-phase coherent is the primary order, which has the slowest and most light roll-off of all crossover varieties. A primary-order crossover has a slope of 6dB per octave. That signifies that one octave above the crossover frequency, the sign amplitude is attenuated by solely 6dB. For instance, within the Seven the mid/bass driver crosses over to the midrange at 600Hz. At 1200 Hz, one octave above the crossover frequency, the mid/bass driver is receiving and reproducing 1200Hz however attenuated by 6dB. Another octave above that, 2400Hz, the mid/bass driver receives and reproduces 2400Hz that’s attenuated by one other 6dB, and so forth.

A problem for designers of audio system with first-order crossovers is {that a} midrange driver crossed over to the tweeter at, say, 2kHz will nonetheless be receiving a major quantity of vitality at 4kHz. If that driver goes into breakup at, say, 3.7kHz, you’ll hear that breakup as distortion.

This is one purpose why most speaker designers use crossovers with steeper slopes. A second-order crossover has a slope twice as steep as a first-order crossover, 12dB per octave. A fourth-order crossover is even steeper, with a roll-off of 24dB per octave. With steeper slopes, it’s simpler to forestall the drivers from receiving vitality that might drive them into breakup (offered that the drivers and crossover are well-engineered to start with).

But such audio system can’t be time-and-phase coherent as a result of the crossover complexity rotates the section of the sign, forcing the designer to attach a number of the drivers in reverse polarity. The varied drivers not transfer ahead in unison in response to an impulse; some are shifting backward whereas others are shifting ahead. These designers sacrifice time-and-phase coherence for the benefits of crossovers with steeper slopes.

Speaker designers desire steep crossover slopes for 2 different causes. The first is that the facility dealing with functionality of the person drivers is elevated as a result of the drivers aren’t receiving a lot vitality under their passbands. For instance, a midrange driver crossed over to the woofer at 200Hz with a first-order crossover remains to be reproducing 100Hz at a reasonably excessive degree (particularly, 6dB decrease in degree). This places added stress on the drivers and limits their means to play loudly with out pressure. With a fourth-order crossover, the vitality at 100Hz reaching the driving force is attenuated by a whopping 24dB—an enormous distinction. The second compelling purpose to make use of steeper slopes is that the exact alignment of the drivers with respect to the listener is much less essential. In a time-and-phase coherent speaker, the speaker’s rake angle (its backward tilt) is vital to realizing the speaker’s efficiency potential. Rake angle will fluctuate with the listening distance and listening top and should be calibrated within the listening room.

Vandersteen has overcome these challenges in a single stroke with the Perfect-Piston drivers, together with a rake-angle adjustment system that delivers completely exact rake angle and thus driver alignment on the listening place.

The Perfect-Piston drivers have a a lot larger breakup frequency than different cone supplies and development, and after they do go into breakup, the amplitude of the breakup is a fraction of that of different driver varieties. This permits Vandersteen to make use of first-order crossovers with out the drawbacks of shallower slopes. Most driver diaphragms with a “sandwich” development make use of skinny carbon-fiber skins on both aspect of a light-weight foam comparable to Rohacell. Vandersteen’s innovation is to make use of balsa wooden because the core. Balsa wooden remains to be light-weight, however a lot stiffer than foam. The balsa wooden’s stiffness, together with the sandwich construction (a “beam part” in engineering parlance), leads to a cone with a a lot larger breakup frequency. The penalty, I think, is that the balsa cones are heavier than people who use a foam core, a hypothesis urged by the Seven’s lowish sensitivity of 85dB. (That’s 85dB measured with 2.83V throughout 4 ohms; if measured with 1W enter the sensitivity can be 82dB). It took Richard Vandersteen 10 years to excellent the carbon-fiber-balsa driver, for which he was awarded a patent.

The second innovation is a straightforward but ingenious alignment technique that gives excellent and simply repeatable section coherence on the listening place. Here’s the way it works. You take away the grilles and insert into the grille-mounting holes a particular jig to which a laser is mounted. You measure the listener’s ear top and put a chunk of tape on the seat on the listening top. Then, utilizing the Seven’s rear spike top changes, tilt the speaker ahead or backward in order that the laser strikes the mark on the tape. This course of is repeated with the opposite speaker. A aspect profit is that this laser alignment assures equivalent toe-in for every speaker. You can see this course of within the YouTube video with Richard Vandersteen in my listening room that I reference later on this evaluation.

Between the Perfect-Piston drivers and the laser alignment scheme, you possibly can have your cake and eat it, too—no fear about audible cone breakup, together with excellent coherence on the listening seat it doesn’t matter what the listening distance or listening top.

The Seven’s enclosure is a box-within-a-box, comprised of a layer of carbon fiber, a layer of HDF (high-density fiberboard), a viscous membrane, one other layer of HDF, after which the carbon-fiber outer layer that’s completed in an automotive paint. The enclosure was stored small deliberately; it’s simpler to maintain a smaller enclosure quiet, and the smaller panels have a better resonant frequency that’s extra simply become warmth by the viscous membrane. Internal bracing additional damps the cupboard.

An innovation that distinguishes the XTRM model of the Model Seven is the addition of the Bedrock base, a 100-pound slab of granite about 3″ tall with dimensions that exactly match the speaker’s footprint. The Seven is bolted to the Bedrock, including 100 kilos of mass to the cupboard backside. Vandersteen discovered that though the enclosure panels have been resonance free, the sheer dynamic forces generated by two highly effective 11″ woofers may put your entire enclosure into movement. The Bedrock anchors the Seven to the ground, eliminating any risk of cupboard motion. The Bedrock additionally damps resonances of the underside panel, which isn’t braced into the cupboard’s construction as a result of it should be detachable to carry out upgrades.

Overall, the Model Seven’s look and operation are fairly totally different from most different loudspeakers. It is significantly smaller than many audio system approaching $100k, which has its personal virtues and verities. It can be a mistake, nevertheless, to take a look at the Seven’s comparatively modest cupboard measurement and kind an opinion of its bass capabilities earlier than listening.

Listening

Richard Vandersteen and Brad O’Toole, Vandersteen Audio’s Sales and Marketing Specialist, visited to arrange the Model Seven XTRM. You can see a video of Richard in my listening room explaining the know-how behind the Model Seven on The Absolute Sound’s YouTube channel.

As talked about, the Seven is ready up for bi-wiring, with two pairs of inputs (on a barrier strip fairly than binding posts). If you join the Seven with bi-wire cable or use jumpers between the terminals with a single-wire connection, the system will probably be bi-amplified due to the Seven’s integral amplifier. It is feasible, nevertheless, to tri-amplify the Seven with two stereo amplifiers, which is how we arrange the Sevens for evaluation. The CH Precision M10 energy amplifiers have monumental adaptability to totally different setups. They can function as a mono amplifier, stereo amplifier, passive bi-amping, energetic bi-amping, or in bridged monoblock mode. Moreover, their means to regulate the suggestions in 1% increments from the listening seat makes the M10 a reviewer’s dream (to not point out its state-of-the-art sound high quality).

Even earlier than the audio system settled in, it was instantly obvious that the Model Seven XTRM had a relaxed ease and heat that fostered musical engagement. This isn’t a “look-at-me” speaker that brings element to the fore and impresses the uninitiated in a fast demo. Rather, the XTRM’s sound invitations you to take a seat down, sink into the listening chair, and placed on some outdated favorites.

I’ll return to this high quality all through the evaluation, however first I wish to let you know in regards to the XTRM’s extraordinary bass. This is the efficiency side most in contrast to that of different audio system due to the Seven’s intensive adjustability.

I’ve usually discovered that there are two elements that discourage one from turning up the quantity to a satisfying degree. The first is a hardness and glare within the higher midrange and treble; saxophone has a glassy sheen, vocal sibilance is intrusive, and cymbals sound metallic, to call a number of. We’ve all skilled that “cringe” second when a loud instrument or an orchestral climax snaps us out of musical immersion. These artifacts are exacerbated with quantity.

The second limiting consider how loudly you possibly can play an audio system is commonly bass bloat and boominess. The larger you flip up the quantity, the more durable you drive your room’s acoustic resonance modes and the extra audible they develop into. A relentless midbass drone is extremely distracting and a non-starter for me.

The Vandersteen Model Seven XTRM overcomes these two limitations, first with its lovely timbral smoothness by the mids and treble, and second with its means to dial out the worst of the room’s bass resonance modes and set the bass degree and “Q” exactly to your room. The result’s a form of bodily immersion within the music and sound by advantage of the full-bodied visceral backside finish that eludes many different audio system in real-world rooms. You can hold turning up the quantity with out listening to the room begin to howl again at you.

The means to fine-tune the bass response to a room pays different dividends. Reducing midbass bloat has the attention-grabbing impact of creating the midrange sound extra open and clear, with better readability and backbone. It’s as if the musical particulars within the mids that we wish to hear are unmasked by eradicating midbass thickness. Indeed, decision of actual musical element by the midrange is among the XTRM’s nice achievements; this speaker has the power to sound relaxed and laid again but concurrently stuffed with finely filigreed interior element—element that carries actual musical that means and that contributes to a way of the system disappearing and leaving solely the music.

Reducing bass bloat has the identical impact on the different finish of that frequency vary—within the low bass. Getting rid of midbass smear permits the lowermost octaves to be reproduced with better readability, texture, dynamic shading, and weight. The different night time I used to be listening to the excellent straight-ahead all-acoustic jazz album Originals by the sadly underappreciated saxman Gary Meek when all these qualities that I’d been serious about have been made manifest. The nice Brian Bromberg’s acoustic bass solo on the observe “Pacific Grove Fog” illustrates what makes the XTRM’s bass so nice. Bromberg explores the instrument’s full register, and as he traverses the frequency spectrum the instrument sounds utterly coherent, steady, and “of a chunk” from prime to backside. The instrument’s sound was clear and free from variations in amplitude, timbre, and assault or decay, irrespective of the register. Plus, the burden of the bass was powerfully current in my room with an enormously satisfying physicality. The articulation of every word, coupled with the nice and cozy textural density, fantastically conveyed the instrument’s sound and his virtuosity. It helps that the XTRM additionally goes very low within the bass (it’s rated at 2dB down at 22Hz). You can hear this prodigious bass extension on Rutter’s Requiem on Reference Recordings, a title I’ve utilized in nearly each evaluation I’ve written because it got here out 30 years in the past. On the observe “Pie Jesu,” the organ pedal tones have a solidity and energy that many different audio system merely trace at. If you dare, play the opening observe of Blade Runner 2049, which has the bottom bass I’ve ever heard on a industrial recording. Midway by the observe, a bass word progressively descends from low, to subterranean, after which slips under audibility. I felt the room being pressurized with out listening to the tone, indicating that the Model Seven’s bass extends under audibility.

Although the XTRM has 400W of on-board energy to drive the woofers, the speaker nonetheless wants a robust amplifier to understand its potential; the facility meters on the CH Precision M10 amplifiers indicated 350+ watts of output throughout loud passages.

Going again to the XTRM’s rendering of timbre, the sound had an natural wholeness that had the enormously satisfying mixture of textural heat with decision. String tone lacked the silvery sheen one so usually hears; fairly, it possessed greater than a touch of that gossamer-like delicacy you expertise within the live performance corridor. Listen to Hillary Hahn’s instrument on the Deutsche Grammophon double LP Retrospective, one disc of which was recorded direct-to-disc. It is completely liquid and scrumptious, with out grain, edge, or artifice. Or hearken to the brand new recording of Scheherazade carried out by Britain’s National Symphony Orchestra on Chasing The Dragon. This spectacular (musically and sonically) half-speed-mastered LP showcases the whole lot that’s so proper in regards to the Seven; the nice delicacy of the solo violin passages, the speaker’s means to delineate separate musical strains, and the richly textured and full-bodied bass part. Piano was additionally significantly effectively reproduced by the XTRM; the speaker conveyed a sense of the instrument’s measurement, heat, physique, and tonal richness whereas additionally avoiding the frequent affliction of a glassy or “shattering” character in fortissimo passages performed within the higher register. I appreciated this high quality as a lot on Chick Corea’s instrument in his all-acoustic album Friends as I did on the well-known Nojima Plays Liszt. As you’d anticipate from this description, the XTRM’s copy of the human voice was lifelike, heat, and alluring. I had the XTRM for evaluation simply as I found Joni Mitchell’s newly launched Archives, Vol.3, a set of beforehand unreleased demos, early alternate takes, and dwell performances from 1972–1975. The Vandersteens fantastically reproduced the timbre and texture of Joni’s bell-like soprano in addition to all of the subtleties of her inflections, making me glad to have found this album by the Vandersteens.

The Seven’s means to sound directly easy and relaxed but richly detailed is a uncommon high quality; most audio system lean somehow, the so-called “romantic” vs. “analytical” dichotomy. Vandersteen audio system have a repute for falling on the romantic aspect of that line, and I’d agree with that generalization. But the Seven’s nice achievement is that this smoothness and ease don’t come on the expense of element. You don’t respect the Vandersteen’s decision by listening for it or pointing to it. Rather, it sneaks up on you within the listening session while you acknowledge a beforehand unheard musical gesture, a newfound contribution by a participant at the back of the combo, the lifelike interior element of an instrument or voice, and different musically communicative facets of the sound that make listening to music involving. The XTRM delivers actual musical decision fairly than sonic fireworks. I may simply hear the contributions of very low-level devices within the presence of louder ones, together with the power to shift my focus from one participant to a different. For instance, on the album Like Minds with Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, and Roy Haynes, Chick, as common, gives harmonically fascinating comping in the course of the different gamers’ solos. His contribution is musically vivid with out being ahead sonically, and I may shift my consideration between him and the soloist. His piano was distinct as a separate entity fairly than turning into misplaced within the musical cloth, heightening the sensation of contemporaneous music-making.

How many instances have you ever listened to “Tin Pan Alley” from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather? I assumed so. Although I’ve heard this observe numerous instances, listening to it by the XTRM made me conscious of one thing I hadn’t seen earlier than: The experience cymbal has rivets. Riveted experience cymbals present a shimmer composed of densely spaced high-frequency transients that decay. The XTRM resolved this extremely effective treble microstructure in a manner that made clear how the sound was produced. It wasn’t a burst of high-frequency vitality, however a gently resolved side of the instrument that unconsciously makes you extra vividly think about the drummer and the drum package and thus expertise better musical realism. I’m positive that I’ve heard this earlier than however have by no means been consciously conscious of it. This is the form of decision the Model Seven XTRM brings to life, not hyped transients or fatiguing edge.

Conclusion

The Vandersteen Audio Model Seven XTRM is technically revolutionary, reflecting unique pondering fairly than following a “me-to” cones-in-a-box method. It is the end result of 47 years of steady improvement that may hint its basic design ideas to Vandersteen’s Model Two from 1977.

The powered bass, with its intensive room-specific calibration means, offers the Seven XTRM an enormous benefit in realizing its efficiency potential throughout a variety of listening rooms. The approach permits the speaker to ship a splendidly highly effective and visceral musical basis with out the standard bass bloat and thickness. The in-house-designed carbon-fiber-and-balsa driver array produces a harmonic magnificence and beautiful tonal realism that outline the Seven’s general character of heat and textural density with out the sacrifice of decision.

If I needed to sum up the Model Seven XTRM with one phrase, it will be “involving.” The sheer timbral magnificence, fabulously muscular bass with no bloat or increase, and treble element with out brightness, all add as much as a speaker that makes you wish to proceed the listening periods lengthy into the night time. A measure of a product’s high quality is how rapidly and simply you slip into that feeling of musical immersion that’s the raison d’être of high-end audio. I had that have repeatedly with the Model Seven XTRM, spending many evenings enjoying album after album. It has the fantastic means to speak musical expression in a manner that doesn’t sound like listening to “hi-fi.” The Vandersteen Audio Model Seven XTRM is a speaker for music lovers, and one which I may fortunately dwell with for the remainder of my life.

Specs & Pricing

Type: Four-way dynamic loudspeaker with powered woofer
Driver complement: 2x 11″ aluminum-cone woofers, 7″ mid/woofer, 4.5″ midrange, 1″ tweeter, .75″ rear-firing tweeter
Integral amplifier energy: 400W linear amplifier with power-factor corrected energy provide
Frequency response: 22Hz–50kHz ±2dB
Impedance: 4 ohms
Sensitivity: 85dB (2.83V)
Crossover frequencies: 100Hz, 600Hz, 5kHz, first-order slopes (6dB/octave)
Dimensions: 14″ x 42.5″ x 20″ (Bedrock base provides 3″ to top, spikes add 1.5″ to top)
Weight: 185 lbs. every (285 lbs. with Bedrock base)
Finishes: Candy Apple Red, Diamond Black commonplace; any automotive end upon request
Price: $89,300 (plus $3092 for HP-7 filter)

VANDERSTEEN AUDIO
116 West Fourth St.
Hanford, CA 93230
USA
(559) 582-0324
vandersteen.com

Associated Equipment

Analog supply: Basis Audio A.J. Conti Transcendence turntable with SuperArm 12.5 tonearm; Air Tight Opus cartridge; Moon 810LP phonostage; DS Audio ST-50 stylus cleaner, Levin report brush, Degritter ultrasonic LP cleaner
Digital supply: Wadax Reference DAC with Reference DC Cables, Wadax Reference Server with Reference PSU, Wadax Akasa digital interface, UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Ethernet swap
Amplification: CH Precision L10 Dual Monaural linestage; CH Precision M10 Dual Monaural energy amplifiers
AC Power: Shunyata Everest 8000 conditioner, Shunyata Omega and Sigma NR V2 energy cords; Shunyata AC shops, 5 devoted 20A strains wired with equivalent size 10AWG; two Göbel AC energy cords (powering the subwoofers)
Support: Critical Mass Systems Olympus gear racks and Olympus amplifier stands; Center Stage2 isolation, Arya Audio RevOpods isolation, Wilson Audio Pedestal isolation
Cables: AudioQuest Dragon interconnects, AudioQuest Dragon Zero and Dragon Bass loudspeaker cables
Grounding: Shunyata Altaira grounding system
Accessories: The Chord Company GroundArray noise discount
Acoustics: Acoustic Geometry Pro Room Pack 12, ASC 16″ Round Tube Traps
Room: Purpose-built; Acoustic Sciences Corporation Iso-Wall System