keith wrote:thanks for that Ding.
So do you agree with him on his comments?
Keith, a resounding yes. I did not reply to the question right away because I want to be fully convinced myself that I really like what I am hearing. I think my gears are finally fully burned in and I am liking what I am hearing very much. From the beginning, the midrange is exceptional, but I was finding the highs a little bit edgy and the bass lacking the slam of the Accentus that it replaced in my main system. But as I put in more hours, and with the tube upgrades on the Lamms, I would say that my system sounds much better now. What prompted me to reply to this question now ? I was listening to Ray Loves Company cd rather loud at 10 pm (it's Friday, my wife lets me get away with it) and the realism of Ray Charles' and Michael MacDonald's voice singing "Hey Girl" caught my attention. I wasn't listening critically as I was surfing the net at the same time, but the depth, scale and texture of their voice was so realistic I actually had to look up (to check if they were actually there - bola na ito).
I recently hosted a group of 4 friendly local audiophiles - 3 own Sonus Faber and 1 own a Martin Logan. Before the session, we met at the place of the ring leader where we listened to his system and had me quite worried for a while because it sounded so good (SF floor standers, fronted by Oracle Delphi) and the main topic was how bad cd players sound. When they got to my place, they forgot about audio for a while (as usual - to look at my aquarium) but when they recovered, they analysed the sound of my system like I never imagined. One is crowling on the floor, peeking on the vent opening, another seating up and down in what I thought was the sweet spot, the other two were listening semi kneeling on the floor about 5 feet back. I'd been to a few listening sessions and had not seen anything like it. They switched places, played it loud, played it low. An hour later, the owner of the system we listened to earlier said "definitely has better mids and highs than my system, and before they left made a comment "probably one of the best sounding demo system in town". He named a few more expensive speakers that he thinks doesn't sound as good as the VR5 Anniv. And I think the NPMP changed their opinion about digital, everytime I switch from MBL to NPMP, they would always confirm the NPMP sounds better. They also concluded that the VR5 sounds better farfield and the sweet spot is about 5 inches higher and about 5 feet behind my designated sweet spot. Airier there, they said.
Well, I hope to wake up one day to find out that the VR5 has the slam and the visceral bass capability of the VR9 - but I wouldn't mind living with these speakers for a very long time. Even the Lamms, and my other stuff. I sometimes listen for 8 hours straight, loving it.