Second round of auditions under my belt

I had the opportunity to audition a handful of speakers the other day, and although my listening session was brief, I did get a feel for the "sonic signature" of several popular models. I didn’t pay much attention to the associated equipment:

Von Schweikert VR4jr – As a prior owner of the original VR4’s, I was intrigued by all the hype surrounding VSR’s current designs. Powered by solid state amplification, the “junior” bettered my original VR4’s in the midrange, and were slightly better in the mid-bass, but there’s no mistaking that these are VSR designs. Very heavy in the bass, they just aren’t able to present instruments in their individual form, and they still lack punch and percussive detail. Their bass-heaviness “blends” the low end of the spectrum which makes the system sound slow and lethargic, just like my original VR4’s. It also strips the mid-bass region of detail, so the overall presentation is anything but seamless.

Nola Viper 2 – I’m sorry to say, but I couldn’t even get through a whole song on these speakers. They were very, very thick in the mid-bass, the midrange was “nasaly,” and the highs left something to be desired. They were punchy, but so out of balance that listener fatigue set in immediately. Easily the worst of the bunch (to my ears).

Gallo Ref 3.1 – I expected quite a bit out of these speakers, given all the rave reviews, but I was totally unimpressed. They generate an enormous soundstage, but I found the presentation also out of balance. There’s a bump in the mid-bass that really overwhelmed the rest of the systems qualities, and their performance with vocals was also average. Definitely not my cup of tea.

Usher 6381 – Powered by Cary tube equipment, and exquisitely finished, this is a neat pair of speakers. Tight, punchy, extended bass, coupled with a wonderful, open midrange, extended highs, and detail out the wazoo from top to bottom. One of the best balanced conventional designs I’ve heard in a long time. Individual instruments were set in space very nicely, and the system was very fast, so intricate details were extracted that the other systems left behind.

In a nutshell, the Usher handily outperformed the other systems, at what would be considered a pretty decent price, given that MSRP’s of $10K+ for run-of-the-mill speakers are a dime a dozen these days. Of course, these are my opinions, using my ears!