Von Schweikert Audio
204 Greenfield Dr. Unit F - El Cajon, California 92020
Phone (619) 444-7136 - Fax (619) 444-2847
E-mail: albertvonn@aol.com
NEW COMPANY
December 1, 1999- Dr. Edward Gonzaga of
the Gonzaga Investment Group, is proud to announce the formation of a new audiophile
speaker company, Von Schweikert Audio. Headed by noted designer Albert Von Schweikert, the
new company has announced the release of two all-new speaker systems, the VR-5 and VR-7.
In addition, service and updates will be offered for all former VSR speaker systems.
Please contact the company at albertvonn@aol.com for
further information regarding service or updates.
DEBUT: CES, LAS VEGAS
Von
Schweikert Audio will be debuting the new VR-5 and VR-7 systems in the Presidential Suite
#1903 at T.H.E. SHOW being held at the St. Tropez Hotel in Las Vegas January 6-9,
concurrent with CES next door at the Alexis Park Hotel. Room partners are Bel Canto
electronics and Analysis Plus cable company.
NEW DESIGN GOALS
Albert Von
Schweikert’s new design goals are to increase transparency and lower distortion in
the quest for sonic realism. Towards that end, all new drivers were specified and/or
engineered, including soft-dome tweeters and aluminum woofers for greater accuracy and
musicality. A new cosmetic styling is evident as well, with premium woods and contemporary
furniture in mind. Stunning great looks using elegant simplicity is the key to user appeal
and the new Italian cosmetics will complement any décor. The sound quality of the new
VR-5 and VR-7 is impressively musical and natural, surpassing the earlier VR speaker
designs by a wide margin.
NEW MODELS:
VR-5 ($5,950/pr to $7,500/pr depending on finish)
The VR-5
is a four way Reference Grade speaker system using the world’s finest drivers,
crossover parts, and internal wiring. The VR-5 can be regarded as a bargain as it will
compete sonically with any speaker several times
its price and is one of the most beautiful speakers available.
CABINET
The
elegant 42” wood tower features 1.5” thick walls and heavy cross bracing, with
an internal damping layer consisting of 1” thick rubber and felt lining the walls.
This level of sound deadening is unprecedented at this price point and permits the VR-5 to
have breath-taking transparency with no coloration. Standard finish is light maple, with
other finishes available.
WOOFER
SYSTEM
Twin 180mm
aluminum coned SuperDuty woofers made in Europe reproduce the bottom octaves with
authority and delicate clarity, using a modified transmission-line tuning to achieve
response flat to 28Hz (–6dB at 20Hz). Bass definition and punch are at
state-of-the-art levels due to the long-throw aluminum woofers. These premium-grade
drivers use a special low distortion motor, allowing very clean midbass along with
thundering deep bass. To eliminate the noise caused by a conventional dust cap, a
specially designed phase plug is used in the center of the cone. The modified transmission
line tuning utilizes heavy stuffing to eliminate cavity resonance, the source of midbass
boom in competing systems. To reproduce the bottom octave with authority, the 3” vent
is foam-lined and has a 6” flared mouth to eliminate wind noise and coloration. When
listening to the VR-5, you’ll be able to discern the individual mallet strikes in a
drum roll or feel the deep impact of a Fender bass!
MIDRANGE
SYSTEM
Midrange
frequencies are very accurately reproduced by a French state-of-the-art 5.5” driver
using a composite cone made from carbon fiber, Kevlar, and cellulose acetate pulp. This
new cone material, along with the edge-wound ribbon voice coil and special suspension,
allows transparency equal or superior to any
driver, whether electrostatic or ribbon. This extremely light cone has very high internal
damping due to the composite cone structure and can trace very delicate waveforms with
stunning precision. Coloration and distortion of mid frequencies are virtually
unmeasurable, allowing the VR-5 to reproduce voices, piano, and other difficult sources
similar to
a live event. This superb driver is backloaded by an infinite transmission line using
progressive Gradient Density absorption. This proprietary technique consists of 4”
thick felt and foam rubber wedges edge-loaded to eliminate coloration in the vital mid
frequency range.
TREBLE
SYSTEM
The Excel
soft dome tweeter is one of the world’s finest tweeters, using the transmission line
principle to eliminate back pressure. The Sonotex fabric dome is internally coated with a
proprietary damping material to eliminate flexing and distortion that compromises lesser
fabric domes. Using an ultra-linear long-throw motor system and Ferrofluid cooling,
distortion is lowered beyond that of conventional dome tweeters, resulting in
electrostatic-type clarity. Moreover, dispersion and smoothness are at state-of-the-art
levels, resulting in one of the most transparent yet sweet treble ranges available, and
far surpassing metal domes.
AMBIENCE
SYSTEM
The
rear-firing ambience driver is a 1” cloth-dome unit made in Norway and features very
low distortion due to a Sonotex coated dome, Ferrofluid cooling, and a transmission line
vented rear chamber to eliminate distortion and back pressure. There is an adjustable
volume control for this rear driver and it’s ambience circuit, enabling just the
right amount of “air” and “space” to be generated for ultimate
soundstage depth. The Dimension control can compensate for any acoustic condition and/or
room placement and can be switched off if desired.
CROSSOVER
DESIGN
The
crossover design is based on acoustic fourth order slopes combined with first order
slopes, using a minimum of parts in the signal path. In the quest for greater transparency
combined with ultimate smoothness, Hovland capacitors are used in the treble range, along
with Eagle metal film resistors and Solen air core inductors. All woofer components can
handle up to 1500 watts before saturation or distortion, allowing tremendous dynamic range
without boom or compression. The woofer circuit is physically separated from the
mid/treble crossovers for elimination of crosstalk and distortion and permits bi-wiring if
desired. The midrange crossover circuit uses a minimum of extremely high-grade components
to reduce parasitic absorption of the signal, enabling very realist vocal reproduction.
Internal wiring is custom designed for the VR-5’s drivers, with 9AWG woofer wiring
supplied by Analysis Plus and midrange/treble wiring designed and supplied by Robert Lee
Audio.
VR-5 Specifications:
System Type: Dynamic-driver four way system using
transmission line loading.
Size: 42” high, 9” wide, and 16” deep.
Wall construction uses heavily braced 1.5” MDF.
Internal damping consists
of 1” rubber and felt layers on all walls, with veneered exterior.
Weight: 90 lbs.
Driver Complement: 2-180mm aluminum woofers, 1-5”
aerogel cone
midrange driver, 2- 1” Sonotex fabric dome tweeters, one rear firing.
Crossover: Acoustic first and fourth order, at 200Hz and 3kHz.
Ambience Driver: 1” fabric Sonotex dome with
Dimensional volume
control to compensate for room acoustics and soundstage depth.
Frequency Response: 28-20kHz, +/- 1.5 dB, 20Hz-25kHz
–6dB.
Impedance: 6 ohms avg. (4 ohms 20Hz-200Hz; 8 ohms
200Hz-20kHz).
Recommended Power: 10 watts up to 300 watts (peak power
for 50ms).
Sensitivity: 91dB @ 1w/1m using 2.83v.
Warranty: Five years Parts and Labor, excluding
burned voice coils due to amp clipping.
Finishes: Standard finish is blond maple.
Available at extra cost with 4 week lead time are light
natural cherry, dark red cherry, medium walnut, birds eye maple, and piano black.
VR-7 ($15,000/pr to $19,000/pr depending on finish)
This is a
new replacement for the VR-6 that was awarded “Product Of The Year” by Audioland
magazine, Hong Kong, in December 1998. The VR-6 also won “Best Sound Of The Show, 2nd
Place” at the Stereophile Show in San Francisco, 1997, and has appeared on the front
cover of leading magazines in Germany and Holland. As many magazine reviewers, leading
audiophiles, and famous musicians use the VR-6 as their reference speaker, calling it
“one of the best speakers in the world,” the VR-7 has to be something special.
And that it is: using the world’s finest engineering and component parts, the VR-7 is
a sonic powerhouse and although expensive, the 7’s are a bargain due to their
incredible realism, stunning cosmetics, and heroic build quality.
CABINET
The
Italian-designed cabinet is a graceful 52” tower with a swept-back top and swept-back
side cheeks that are carved from solid hardwoods. The cabinets are damped by
multi-composition walls using constrained layer laminations, with a 2.5” thick front
baffle and 1.5” thick side walls. Internal damping/sound-proofing includes a 1”
thick internal wall coating composed of felt and rubber layers. This exclusive combination
of engineering and materials allows the VR-7 to be the most neutral sounding speaker
available, without resonance or coloration. The VR-7 can easily take it’s place in
the most elegant of rooms, and sonically, it simply disappears, generating a holographic
image that has to be heard to be believed.
WOOFER
SYSTEM
In order
to reproduce the high impact and punchy bass of today’s recordings, combined with
ultra-detailed midbass clarity, the VR-7 utilizes twin magnesium metal-coned 200mm
Superduty woofers. The magnesium cone is the lightest yet stiffest cone available,
enabling incredible volume levels to be attained at very low frequencies without
distortion or coloration. In addition, the metal cones allow heat to be radiated from the
voice coil, lowering the distortion and compression found in other cone materials.
Furthermore, the motor system uses a patented method of eliminating “fringe”
distortion caused by the movement of the voice coil in the fixed magnetic field. These
design features and resulting sonic excellence is unsurpassed by any other woofer we know
of, at any price.
The
transmission-line tuning system uses heavy stuffing to eliminate cavity resonance and
midbass boom, while the bottom octave is reproduced with tremendous authority by the
rear-firing 4” vent with 7” flare to reduce wind noise distortion. This
combination of design elements enables the VR-7 to have the finest sounding bass
reproduction of any speaker we know of.
MIDRANGE
SYSTEM
In order
to move the large volume of air necessary for maximum dynamic range, the driver selected
is a cast frame 6.5” unit hand-made in France. To reproduce the vital midrange with
high detail and low coloration, the driver utilizes a very stiff but light cone made from
a composite of carbon fiber, Kevlar, and cellulose acetate pulp. This aerogel cone has extremely high internal damping,
enabling a very high level of transparency to be achieved surpassing that of any other
driver we have ever tested. To eliminate coloration, the backwave is absorbed by an
infinite transmission line using Gradient Density absorption, created by 10” thick
edge-on layers of foam rubber and felt wedges.
TREBLE
SYSTEM
To
reproduce the high level of detail required to match the aerogel midrange driver and magnesium coned
woofers, a very highly engineered Scanspeak dome tweeter was selected. This silk dome with
proprietary coating enables very high clarity without distortion or harshness found in
metal dome tweeters. To further enable high volume levels without distortion, Ferrofluid
is used along with a special underhung motor system which eliminates “fringe”
distortion caused by the voice coil leaving the magnetic gap at high excursion levels. To
eliminate the coloration found in conventional dome tweeters, this Scanspeak unit was
designed with the transmission line principle, using a rear vented chamber to absorb the
backwave. These engineering features allows the VR-7 to have the best of both worlds: very
high detail retrieval combined with utterly sweet musicality.
AMBIENCE
RETRIEVAL SYSTEM
In order
to generate a deep soundstage combined with holographic imaging for more than one person,
a rear firing ambience driver is utilized. This driver is a 1” silk dome tweeter
using a special ambience recovery circuit and Dimension control. This allows the ambience
effects to be controlled for every acoustic situation or can be switched off if desired.
CROSSOVER
DESIGN
To enable
a linear phase reproduction combined with ruler flat frequency response, both first order
and fourth order acoustic slopes are utilized. This combination of crossover slopes
enables the highest level of transparency by eliminating many crossover elements, but also
protects the drivers from distortion caused by undesirable out-of-band frequencies. Only
the finest components were selected, including Hovland capacitors, Solen air-core
inductors, and Eagle metal film resistors. All wiring is custom designed and is furnished
by Analysis Plus for the twin woofers and Robert Lee Audio for the midrange and treble.
The woofer circuit board is physically separated from the midrange and treble boards,
enabling bi-wiring. All crossover parts can withstand 1500 watts before distortion or
saturation, eliminating compression of dynamic range. In addition, the circuit boards use
9AWG copper buss-bars (instead of thin plated traces) and are hand wired point-to- point
for added transparency and freedom from distortion.
VR-7 SPECIFICATIONS
System Type: Dynamic-driver four way system using
transmission line loading.
Size: 52”
high, 13” wide, and 19” deep. Wall construction uses heavily braced 1.5”
MDF.
Internal damping consists
of 1” rubber and felt layers on all walls, with veneered exterior.
Front baffle is 2.5” thick and is
attached to front of cabinet with rubber damping layer.
Weight: 176 lbs ea.
Driver Complement: 2-200mm magnesium metal-coned
woofers, 1-6.5” aerogel cone
midrange driver, 2- 1” silk fabric dome tweeters, one rear firing.
Crossover: Acoustic first and fourth order, at
200Hz and 3kHz.
Ambience Driver: 1” silk fabric dome with
Dimensional volume
control to compensate for room acoustics and soundstage depth.
Frequency Response: 22-20kHz, +/- 1.5 dB, 18Hz-25kHz
–6dB.
Impedance: 6 ohms avg. (4 ohms 20Hz-200Hz; 8 ohms
200Hz-20kHz).
Recommended Power: 10 watts up to 500 watts (peak power
for 50ms).
Sensitivity: 92dB @ 1w/1m using 2.83v.
Warranty: Five years Parts and Labor, excluding
burned voice coils due to amp clipping.
Finishes: Standard finish is blond maple.
Available at extra cost with 4 week lead time are light
natural cherry, dark red cherry, medium walnut, birds eye maple, and piano black.
Please contact Von Schweikert Audio at albertvonn@aol.com for further information. Shipping of the new models will commence January 15.