Price Paid:  $7000.00 from 2005

Summary:
This is an amazing speaker, giving you a very natural and autentic portrait of your favorit musik. They are fairly critical of placement and the connected set-up. Placed on the right spot, you get a really good soundstage with perfect imaging. I have tryed a hole lot of speakers, true my nearly 30 years as a entusiast, but never been so happy, as with these speakers. I'v got a weaknes for female voices like Eva Cassidy, Sinéad O'connor, Patricia Barber, Diana Krall, Kari Bremnes etc. and this is where VA Strauss is a schere listening pleasure......
My setup is: SME 20A/SME V turntable/tonearm, and Denon Dl-103 cartridge. Gryphon Phonostage and Headamp. Audio Research LS-2B preamp. Mark Levinson No.29 amp. Denon DCD S10 MK2 + Marantz CD16 cdplayers. Kables are Kimber PBJ and Monocle X, Van Den Hull MCD-502.

Strengths:
Natural and open sound, with a very big and realistic soundstage. Can play very deep bass and loud without dynamic compresion. Nice woodwork and finnish.

Weaknesses:
Speaker terminals are with a very tiny hole, so if you want to use heavy thick cable, you can not use bare wire.....They have to bee terminated with bananas ore spades.

Similar Products Used:
B&W Matrix 801 S2, B&W Nautilus 805S, N804, N803 and N802. Mirage M1SI. Snell E3, C4, A3I etc......

Price Paid:  $6200.00 from Tweeter

Summary:
These are the finest speakers I've ever owned, period. They offer pinpoint imaging, which a warm musical midrange, deep bass and detail, yet none fatiguing highs. To hear what these speakers are capable of, you really need to be careful with placement and matching them with quality components. Tweeter wasn't the best at set-up, they had the speakers too closed in and they were driving them with a B&K receiver. Bass sounding boomy and over-bearing, and the soundstage was small.

When I tried them in my home, I pulled them farther from the surrounding walls, and drove them with high quality amps (Clayton Audio M100 monblocks). They opend right up. The bass tightened and the midrange, especially vocals, just floated out into the room. Imaging and soundstaging are as good as you can gets, as good as the Audio Physic Virgos' that I'd heard, but able to play louder with more bass.

The Santos Rosewood finish also has a very high WAF.

Strengths:
Warm, musical midrange, solid bass and smooth highs. Pinpoint imaging and soundstaging. Beautiful finish = high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor).

Weaknesses:
Careful room placement is madatory. You cannot place these speakers up against the wall, especially rear wall (because of the rear port bass bloat). Also, if you want to get the best out of them, match them with high quality components. Garbage in/garbage out.

Similar Products Used:
Audio Physics Virgo, B&W Nautilus 802, Sonus Faber Cremona, Soliloquy 6.3, Vandersteen 3A Signature, Legacy Focus, Silverline Sonata II.

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