Have Slim Floorstanding Speakers "Had Their Day?"

[MarkS]

Very old thread, but since this is my last day after 20 years with my original Audio Physic Virgos 1, I thought I would share!

Arrgh! Did you sell them? Are they gone?

I would love to see these measured!

 

[dlaloum]

Today I came upon an add for what looks like a good condition pair of B&O Beovox Penta's - I'm going to take a long drive into the country to take a look at them.... we shall see

 

[bec143]

Arrgh! Did you sell them? Are they gone?

I would love to see these measured!

Really procrastinated- didn't want to see them go. but finally dropped them off yesterday at my local shop. They will sell very fast-in great shape and sound amazing when setup in a real listening room. I tried hard to use them but could not and silly to keep around unused in the basement.

Serial number is very early- before the moved the woofers further sown the side in the Virgo 1's

 

[MarkS]

I heard the Virgos at a big Stereophile show in LA in the early 90s. I was just going from room to room, and these really grabbed my attention: playing some classical music (a chamber piece I think, one I didn't know), it just sounded very lifelike. (I listen to a lot of live classical music.) I started raving about them to the exhibitor, who got annoyed with me, because it was actually the room of some European amp company, the Virgos were just what they were using for speakers. I was a good ASR objectivist even back then, so I didn't care about their amps. Anyway, I had never heard of Audio Physic before. Later, the Virgos got attention from the audio press, and IIRC were at point by far the least expensive speakers on Stereophile's A-list of recommended speakers. @MattHooper, as he notes above, also thought they were something special.

So today my objectivist question is: why??? What was it about their sound that many people found captivating? I'm going to guess that it was some sort of deviation from linearity, but I would really like to know what that deviation was.

 

[dlaloum]

Today I came upon an add for what looks like a good condition pair of B&O Beovox Penta's - I'm going to take a long drive into the country to take a look at them.... we shall see

Well their cosmetics aren't perfect... but the speaker surrounds are good (previous owner refurb?)... and an initial cursory listen at the vendor sounded ok (but not meaningful)

I have done an initial quick and dirty setup, as there are thunderstorms in the area... so no quiet for measurements! - and the family is on my back about getting the lounge room back....

Initial response.... yep - that is a full range surround channel!

I'll do more testing later - but this is me preparing for a deployment of ARC perhaps late this year... full range surrounds - and with the initial cursory setup, they are sounding very good as surrounds.

I've been saying for a while that I think the Dirac-ART Paradigm shift will move the focus from multiple subs, to multiple full range... and I am getting ready to test that theory.

And yes slim column full range speakers with a response down to 40Hz... (I will post some Dirac measurements later when I have the chance)

I'm "putting my money where my mouth is"... I think this is the way forward.

 

[flysouth]

yes a buddy had Vienna acoustic flat speakers. looked coo sound bad

 

[MattHooper]

I heard the Virgos at a big Stereophile show in LA in the early 90s. I was just going from room to room, and these really grabbed my attention: playing some classical music (a chamber piece I think, one I didn't know), it just sounded very lifelike. (I listen to a lot of live classical music.) I started raving about them to the exhibitor, who got annoyed with me, because it was actually the room of some European amp company, the Virgos were just what they were using for speakers. I was a good ASR objectivist even back then, so I didn't care about their amps. Anyway, I had never heard of Audio Physic before. Later, the Virgos got attention from the audio press, and IIRC were at point by far the least expensive speakers on Stereophile's A-list of recommended speakers. @MattHooper, as he notes above, also thought they were something special.

So today my objectivist question is: why??? What was it about their sound that many people found captivating? I'm going to guess that it was some sort of deviation from linearity, but I would really like to know what that deviation was.

Aside from their mid bass hump they measured pretty flat (relative to many other high end speakers):

Audio Physic Virgo loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 4: Measurements The Audio Physic Virgo is a reasonably hard load for an amplifier to drive, as shown by its plots of impedance magnitude and phase against frequency (fig.1). Not only does the impedance drop below 4 ohms for pretty much the entire midrange, but the phase angle is also...

www.stereophile.com

To my ears, and from the many comments/reviews I've read others feel the same way: the first thing is the Virgos do such a neato "disappearing and imaging" act, it's so prominent it's hard to miss. There is just no sense of anything being stuck in or coming from the speakers - the air around them just populates with sonic images.

The other is they had beautiful, realistic, warm tone. Clean and clear without being thin and anti-septic or mechanical. Trumpets have that worm metallic "blat," saxes that warm reedy quality, voices have a human timbre etc. I was besotted with them. I mostly couldn't get past the bass slight hump with them, at least in my room.

 

[bec143]

Et as

Aside from their mid bass hump they measured pretty flat (relative to many other high end speakers):

Audio Physic Virgo loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 4: Measurements The Audio Physic Virgo is a reasonably hard load for an amplifier to drive, as shown by its plots of impedance magnitude and phase against frequency (fig.1). Not only does the impedance drop below 4 ohms for pretty much the entire midrange, but the phase angle is also...

www.stereophile.com

To my ears, and from the many comments/reviews I've read others feel the same way: the first thing is the Virgos do such a neato "disappearing and imaging" act, it's so prominent it's hard to miss. There is just no sense of anything being stuck in or coming from the speakers - the air around them just populates with sonic images.

The other is they had beautiful, realistic, warm tone. Clean and clear without being thin and anti-septic or mechanical. Trumpets have that worm metallic "blat," saxes that warm reedy quality, voices have a human timbre etc. I was besotted with them. I mostly couldn't get past the bass slight hump with them, at least in my room.

This is exactly right- friends would come over and had never heard such a stereo image projected into the space between the speakers. It's almost disconcerting it's so realistic.So I compromised and lived with anemic bass for 20 years. They definitely do some things better than the SCM40s that replaced them. Nonetheless, I have a new low octave now ( although the the Virgo's measured freq response bests the Virgos). Overall an improvement, although I will miss the Virgos.

 

[Gorgonzola]

I'm find with my skinny speakers: best sounding I've owned. Esthetically they were a relieve after 15+ years of Magneplanars.

 

[MarkS]

I was besotted with them. I mostly couldn't get past the bass slight hump with them, at least in my room.

Ah, Matt, if only you were open to some EQ. That kind of thing is so easily fixed these days ...

 

[MarkS]

This is exactly right- friends would come over and had never heard such a stereo image projected into the space between the speakers. It's almost disconcerting it's so realistic.So I compromised and lived with anemic bass for 20 years.

You could have added a subwoofer ...

 

[bec143]

You could have added a subwoofer ...

Nah. I had two rels for a while and never liked that. I tried again with one velodyne dd some years later. Just didn't sound together. I preferred them on their own.

 

[Purité Audio]

Subs just need to be properly integrated and this is a bit of a hoo-haw with traditional loudspeaker designs.
Keith

 

[MarkS]

Aside from their mid bass hump they measured pretty flat (relative to many other high end speakers):

Audio Physic Virgo loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 4: Measurements The Audio Physic Virgo is a reasonably hard load for an amplifier to drive, as shown by its plots of impedance magnitude and phase against frequency (fig.1). Not only does the impedance drop below 4 ohms for pretty much the entire midrange, but the phase angle is also...

www.stereophile.com

I see nothing in these measurements to indicate what the source of their magic was. I'm still puzzled by it after all these years.

 

[MarkS]

I'm find with my skinny speakers: best sounding I've owned. Esthetically they were a relieve after 15+ years of Magneplanars.

What speaker is that?

 

[MarkS]

Subs just need to be properly integrated and this is a bit of a hoo-haw with traditional loudspeaker designs.
Keith

And with most 2.x-channel electronics. Very few preamps come with high-pass filtering capability, which IMO is essential.

 

[Axo1989]

I heard the Virgos at a big Stereophile show in LA in the early 90s. I was just going from room to room, and these really grabbed my attention: playing some classical music (a chamber piece I think, one I didn't know), it just sounded very lifelike. (I listen to a lot of live classical music.) I started raving about them to the exhibitor, who got annoyed with me, because it was actually the room of some European amp company, the Virgos were just what they were using for speakers. I was a good ASR objectivist even back then, so I didn't care about their amps. Anyway, I had never heard of Audio Physic before. Later, the Virgos got attention from the audio press, and IIRC were at point by far the least expensive speakers on Stereophile's A-list of recommended speakers. @MattHooper, as he notes above, also thought they were something special.

So today my objectivist question is: why??? What was it about their sound that many people found captivating? I'm going to guess that it was some sort of deviation from linearity, but I would really like to know what that deviation was.

When I first heard Audio Physic we were into later series of Virgo with their own driver designs/customisations built by Wavecor in the very nicely built round-backed cabinet. And out of my price range at the time. I experienced the sonics positively and very similar to the descriptions here—from you, @bec143 and @MattHooper—so bought a smaller pair in the same style, Sitara iirc. They were also a bit warm in the mid-bass but projected that excellent stereo image so I was quite happy for a couple of years with them.

Naturally I asked myself the same question you did. In terms of on-axis deviation from linearity I also used them with Sonarworks (a Dirac competitor) full-range EQ which you set up via ~40 sine-sweep measurements in a wide radius round the listening position. That fixed the mid-bass, extended the lower bass and improved the stereo image specificity even more, at the cost of headroom that limited the maximum SPL.

While that type of EQ won't completely suppress non-linear on-axis characteristics it will mitigate them, and as there was no apparent degradation of holography or the disappearing act, I think logically that there are some other characteristics to their design/implementation in play.

Incidentally, Virgo was superseded by the four-way Codex model (and even a little cheaper) and I replaced the earlier speakers with these during the covid time (music being one thing we could maximally indulge in then). They have drier mid-bass and more lower bass extension naturally, but a somewhat elevated midrange in my room so I still run the EQ, but the difference is less dramatic and maximum SPL is much better. Mostly it fixes the lowest room modes at LP especially cutting a modal peak atround 50 Hz that wasn't so noticeable with the smaller speakers.

But back to your question. The narrative I find relevant is that both AP designers (founder Gerhard initially, and now Diestertich) have pragmatic mechanical engineering obsessions, so instead of using exotic materials to justify high pricing they've gone certain lengths toward dealing with vibrational behaviour of their drivers. Using double baskets (plastic inner, aluminium outer, KEF touted a similar approach recently) and pre-tensioning rings, mounting to the cabinet via specifically torqued resilient inserts, constructing cabinets with multiple layers of different density (MDF, ceramic foam, plastic honeycomb, elastomer and lately also glass) and so on. We can speculate that resonances draw attention to the driver/cabinet location and absence of same supports the disappearing act.

Speculative analysis on my part of course, it would be fascinating to see detailed empirical evidence which may or may not support these stories.

 

[MattHooper]

Ah, Matt, if only you were open to some EQ. That kind of thing is so easily fixed these days ...

Yeah. That was just before I bought a Z-Systems RDP1 digital parametric EQ. Not long after Audio Physic came out with another model, around the same size, the Libra, which I reviewed for an on-line mag. It sounded more linear in the bass. In fact most speakers I had from then onward were generally satisfying and I rarely touched the EQ. I finally got around to selling it in 2018.

 

[bec143]

I see nothing in these measurements to indicate what the source of their magic was. I'm still puzzled by it after all these years.

And yet the magic happens; Listening tonight the difference with my new ATCs (which I like better than the Virgos) is dramatic in terms of the imaging trick.

And therein lies the problem. It is very hard to measure what you think is everything and use those data to explain what you experience as imaging. The speaker measurements may be straightforward (assuming you know everything that needs to be measured) but the neuroscience is not.

Someday (soon) we will be able to map every biologic process and chemical reaction that lets me recognize my daughter, from the first photon to the last synapse. Yet those measurements won't provide much insight into what I experience when I see her. And I say this as a scientist.

 

[MattHooper]

And yet the magic happens; Listening tonight the difference with my new ATCs (which I like better than the Virgos) is dramatic in terms of the imaging trick.

I take this to mean that though you prefer your ATCs overall, the Virgos were still 'dramatically different' (more impressive?) in terms of their imaging capabilities? Is that correct?