This is a quick review/update on Rev's VMPS RM40 speakers. They look amazing in dark Brazilian Rosewood - beautiful speakers w/o a doubt. The first time I auditioned them I was thoroughly disappointed: how can speakers that cool looking sound so mediocre? Then there was the issue of a buzz coming from one of the ribbons of the left speaker. I drove home thinking "crap, that was a mistake, put the DIY monsters back on".
IMG_0956 by
Jose Sifontes, on Flickr
Rev eventually traced the cause of the buzz to a bad tube in one of the monoblocks. He then cleaned the mid and high pots, and adjusted the position of the speakers and toe in - the usual crap. And he added a Def Tech subwoofer set to barely do anything below 40Hz. I dropped by last night to fix the azimuth of his Nak LX-5 cassette deek and listened to them again. Wow what a %^%#@ difference! Night and day from the 1st time! Credit to the adjust-ability of these VMPS series spikas and Rev's patience - the things sound and look amazing now. I did a quick sweep using my laptop and the UMIK 1 mic and got the curve seen below (showing a 300ms sweep, which is where most problems lie according to the geeks). The graph shows some issues between 20 and 125 (as Klaus pointed out separately) that may need to be tamed with room treatments, but otherwise it reflects how good they sounded to me.
rm40 by
Jose Sifontes, on Flickr
To conclude - and I am sure the Carverites will like this *rare* statement by me - the RM-40s "make the Carver 305 mono-blocks sound good". Recommended.
OBG
