Vandersteen VLR Speaker Review

[PatentLawyer]

I “grew up” with Vandersteens. My father has the most recent iteration of the 5. I am fond of those speakers to this day, and they have tremendous bass power. It seems like the models reviewed in Stereophile always had pretty flat frequency response, so at least that contrary aspect in this review surprised me a bit.

I’d say that I hope Richard himself chimes in, but those who know him know that would probably go poorly!!!

 

[heflys20]

While the very best remains very expensive (think Kii 3 with BXTs), it is nowhere near the cost of a Wilson Chronosonic complete with complementary overpriced electronics. And when the slicks pinp the idea that those million dollar systems are better, they are simply lying to their readers.

Reminds me of when what-hifi lambasted the Kii' for not "touching the soul" on certain songs. When in truth, the reviewer likely had not dealt with a truly neutral speaker in sometime.

 

[Endibol]

This is a review, listening tests and measurements of the Vandersteen VLR coaxial bookshelf speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $1,815 a pair.
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The VLR is quite dense and heavy. Construction seems nice other than bulging out driver. The cherry finish is to my liking as a woodworker:
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Seemingly the design has not changed in decades given the screw terminals. The VLR like other Vandersteen speakers uses first order crossover to keep it "phase coherent." I got a kick out of this statement in the manual:
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And this:
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Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

Likewise listening tests comply with the latest research into proper evaluation of speakers calling for mono, instead of stereo listening:

Reference axis was that of the tweeter.

Vandersteen VLR Measurements
As usual, we start with our frequency response graphs:
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Oh boy! What the heck is going on here? We have rising chewed up high frequency response. Response is much smoother down low but sensitivity drops like a rock to just 80 dB. We have variation of 10 dB between that and the peaks in treble! Did they ever bother to measure this speaker? We also have large directivity error between 2 and 5 kHz.

Paradoxically, off-axis response looks good:
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This results in predicted-in room response which again, is surprisingly better than on-axis:
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Slope though is almost horizontal which means the speaker will sound bright. And with sensitivity of just 80 dB, will require tons of power.

There is essentially no directivity control:
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So room sensitivity will be high. Due to coaxial design, vertical directivity is similar to horizontal:
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Impedance dips very low at high frequencies:
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Distortion is OK at 86 dBSPL but not at 96:

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Waterfall shows resonances corresponding with those peaks in response:

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And here is the step response:
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Vandersteen VLR Listening Tests
I started listening without seeing the measurements. The first track was a duet of a male and female. I could barely hear the male while the female came right through! This theme continued with tracks segments with lower frequencies almost producing no volume Yet high pitch sounds would come through, albeit, a bit much. It is like someone constantly changing the volume control on you depending on the spectrum. And not a little, but a lot.

Conclusions
It is clear to me that the VLR is designed based on ideology and not any objective or proper listening tests. In both domains, performance ranges from OK to dismal and does so within the same piece of music! The brand must have strong carrying power to get people to buy flawed speakers like this. I rank the Vandersteen the second most broken speaker I have ever listened to or measured.

Needless to say, I can't recommend the Vandersteen VLR. Company needs to wake up and completely retool its thoughts about speaker design. Customers deserve better.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

On the Vandersteen website they state that the VLR Wood costs 3200 USD/pair and that the sensitivity is 86 dB/m/2.83V.
Is this an improved version? Or are their specs too optimistic?

 

[Katji]

+ It's going to be a while until the comment about the name fades from mind. My mind's still generating alternatives.

 

[renaudrenaud]

Igor, go and find me a speaker...

And now the Frankensteen.

This speaker, what's the name brand?

Ab, something.

Ab what?

Err... Ab Normal?

 

[MattHooper]

I don't have any particular love for Vandersteen speakers, and those measurements sure look wonky. But perhaps we should be careful about judging their engineering skills based mostly on this product review.

This doesn't look so bad, as far as I can tell:

Vandersteen Quatro Wood CT loudspeaker & M5-HPA monoblock power amplifier Loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Loudspeaker Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Vandersteen Quatro Wood CT's frequency response in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. I left the loudspeaker's grille in place for the...

www.stereophile.com

 

[amirm]

But perhaps we should be careful about judging their engineering skills based mostly on this product review.

Well, check out the answer Richard Vandersteen gives (first speaker) vs Kevin Voecks (of Harman) on advancements in the last 20 years in speaker design:

One is stuck in the past, devoid of advancements in our understanding of speaker design, and the other fully takes advantage of such.

 

[MattHooper]

Well, check out the answer Richard Vandersteen gives (first speaker) vs Kevin Voecks (of Harman) on advancements in the last 20 years in speaker design:

One is stuck in the past, devoid of advancements in our understanding of speaker design, and the other fully takes advantage of such.

Sure, Vandersteen clearly won't appeal to many here. They aren't at the forefront of anything.

But my point was that it's fair to look at some of their other products before judging the competency of their speaker design skills mostly based on the speaker reviewed here.

Again...that Quatro Wood speaker I linked to seems to measure considerably better.

 

[amirm]

Sure, Vandersteen clearly won't appeal to many here.

What appeals to us is taking advantage of 40 years of research into what makes a speaker sound good. It is not like we made up our own idea of what is good or is not. This is the second Vandersteen speaker I have tested that is a let down and a pattern is immerging.

 

[voodooless]

This doesn't look so bad, as far as I can tell:

At those prices it better not…

Well, check out the answer Richard Vandersteen gives (first speaker) vs Kevin Voecks (of Harman) on advancements in the last 20 years in speaker design:

One is stuck in the past, devoid of advancements in our understanding of speaker design, and the other fully takes advantage of such.

Actually the most striking part is the body language of they guy, especially when the others are talking. It says it all, really

 

[MattHooper]

What appeals to us is taking advantage of 40 years of research into what makes a speaker sound good. It is not like we made up our own idea of what is good or is not. This is the second Vandersteen speaker I have tested that is a let down and a pattern is immerging.

I can certainly see that point of view.

How do Stereophile's measurements of the Quatro Wood speaker fit in to that pattern?

 

[Toni Mas]

Well, check out the answer Richard Vandersteen gives (first speaker) vs Kevin Voecks (of Harman) on advancements in the last 20 years in speaker design:

One is stuck in the past, devoid of advancements in our understanding of speaker design, and the other fully takes advantage of such.

Do you really mean Vandersteen's based speaker design is ideology while Harman's is science?
Imho any state of the art is also ideology that sooner or later will be outdated by further research...
Better take all that academic AES jazz with a bit of... "Let s listen how It sounds and i will tell you if It fits my bill..."

And yes, Harman's stuff too...

 

[amirm]

How do Stereophile's measurements of the Quatro Wood speaker fit in to that pattern?

The measurements there are woefully incomplete to make any assessment. To wit, there is not even horizontal dispersion measurements to determine directivity. On-axis is some averaged thing that looks poor. So wait until we can measure it. Stereophile measurements of speakers is also stuck in decades back.

 

[amirm]

Do you really mean Vandersteen's based speaker design is ideology while Harman's is science?

Sure seems that way. You have another explanation for such things as first order crossover? Much research shows that phase alignment is not important in those frequencies whereas good directivity and flatness of on-axis is. Someone had that old notion and is sticking to it, damn the research.

 

[amirm]

Someone said on-axis errors are not important if off-axis is good. This simply is not the case. Due to precedence effect, we absolutely care more about on-axis response. Off-axis is supporting role, not primary. Maybe there are exception to this but it is rare.

 

[Toni Mas]

Sure seems that way. You have another explanation for such things as first order crossover? Much research shows that phase alignment is not important in those frequencies whereas good directivity and flatness of on-axis is. Someone had that old notion and is sticking to it, damn the research.

Yes heard this, been there, but still have not found anything sacred in any audio guru's (Toole, Geddes, etc...) bibles...

The most irritating statement is flatness on axis... What axis? Why such an obsession with one axis and make It your politically correct listing axis?

Average response is what matters, and what makes Klippels stuff useful... On axis in itself is widely overated and pretty useless

 

[voodooless]

The measurements there are woefully incomplete to make any assessment. To wit, there is not even horizontal dispersion measurements to determine directivity.

There is a limited one:

 

[MattHooper]

The measurements there are woefully incomplete to make any assessment. To wit, there is not even horizontal dispersion measurements to determine directivity. On-axis is some averaged thing that looks poor. So wait until we can measure it. Stereophile measurements of speakers is also stuck in decades back.

Ok.

I thought I'd read on the forum several times that, while Stereophile measurements won't give as detailed and complete a picture as a Klippel, they are still useful. That some general inferences can be drawn to help weed out generally good from bad designs.

(My memory is fuzzy on this now, but I could have sworn this was essentially Dr. Toole's position, at least in principle - as he has not expected everyone has access to klippel measurements for the majority of loudspeakers out there, some basic measurements about smoothly sloping frequency response, even off axis behaviour etc are viable).

 

[Rednaxela]

+ It's going to be a while until the comment about the name fades from mind. My mind's still generating alternatives.

Can’t read the name myself without thinking of this song.

For anyone interested, it’s about a certain Vandersteen’s third leg (derde been).

Sorry for the digression. I’ll show myself out.

 

[Weeb Labs]

Have you yet measured any speakers with 1st order crossovers that do well at all? I cannot think of any.

The KEF Q350s make use of a a first order crossover.