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In Reply to: Audio Ideas veritas 1.8?? posted by jeremy on September 26, 2001 at 23:53:13:
I have a pair of the Veritas 2.4's and I am very happy with them. To me they are a fantastic pair of speakers. They are mated with a pair of Vandersteen 32q'2 and both subs and speakers blend well.I did have a pair of the 2.3's but traded them in for the 2.4's. Much better bass and imaging.
Mike
Follow Ups:
I'd like to get some more detail on you impressions of the Veritas 2.3 and 2.4. I've been scouring the Web but there are very few reviews or opinions available on the Veritas line.Could you give some info about your equipment, room and musical tastes? I'd also like any comparisons between other speakers you auditioned before (or since) you chose the 2.4s.
With regard to the lack of reviews, my impression is that the Veritas 2.3 & 2.4's are not popular with reviewers. However I do not know how speakers get reviewed, so being popular may have nothing to do with it. There is one review in a Canadian magazine, but the review is not online.As far as my point of reference, I can tell you more about the differences between the 2.3 & 2.4’s, than I can about the differences between them and other brands, as I only have limited experience with different speaker brands.
Here is my equipment list:
Audio Research Reference One Preamp
Sony 777ES
Sony DVP-9000ES
Parasound AVC-2500u
Parasound HCA-2250a
TIVO
Energy Microstar 12.1 (movie subwoofer)
M&K 5000 THX II (movie subwoofer)
Veritas 2.0c – center channel (biwired)
Veritas 2.0r – rear channel
Veritas 2.3 – mains (biwired)
Vandersteen 2wq (2)
PS Audio P600 & various power cords
Granite Audio 470 Silver interconnectsMy musical tastes are all over the map. Classical, jazz, new age – anything. As for movies, its action-adventure with great sound. My room is my living room with a big fireplace on the left (with a first reflection), a bay window in the center and a big open area on the right. I am three feet from my back wall.
If you decide on the 2 series, and are only interested in home theater, I would say stay with the 2.3's and you will get your money’s worth. I used them for a few months and they were really nice. However, if you are into music and stereo imaging and presence is important to you, get the 2.3's. When I did the swap, the instant I put them in the difference was clear. There was more "presence" to the music and the imaging was more focused.
I find the Veritas approach very interesting as all of their speakers start with the same drivers and then you work up. So the 2.3’s have the same tweeter as the 2.1 and each succeeding model layers something on the original. The only difference to this is the 2.3 and that is the cabinet is 4 to 5 inches deeper.
For a while I was listening to all two-channel music through these speakers with out any subwoofers and they were good. They have bass to 30 Hz +- 3 dB. That is not bad. They say they have useable bass down to 25 Hz at +10 dB. I am not sure what that means. I did email Energy about it, and one of their guys even called me to answer my question. Their company has very nice people in it and they are very friendly. Anyway I found that the bass response was enough. For a while I was hooking up my M&K subwoofer off of a “Y” connector to get additional bass – but this only made a difference in the most esoteric new-age recordings so eventually I took it off. So what I am trying to say is that the 2.3’s are a good pair of full-range speakers.
Having said that however, they did not go down all the way all of the time, and that is important to me. So a friend of mine suggested that I try a pair of Vandersteen 2wq’s. This offloaded, at increasing levels, sounds lower than 80 Hz before they got to the amp. The benefits of this are that your amp does not have to work as hard because there is less to handle, and has more headroom as the amps on the subs handle the deeper bass. Also, this cleans up your speakers, as the same drivers don’t have to carry such a wide range of bass. When I put the 2wq’s in, the system went to another level with a crispness and clarity and depth. The point of my mentioning this is that the 2.3's mated very well with the Vandersteen subs - so I am inferring that the innate quality of my 2.3's are good because they did match well.
Other things about the Veritas are that they image very well. The manual suggests a ratio of 1.5 to 1 for distance between the speakers to the listener. The common wisdom on this is to create an equal lateral triangle with all distances being the same. I tried both with these speakers and they imaged as nicely at 1.5 as they did at 1.
Also I am biwireing them, and I got a improvement in clarity when I did, so I would recommend that if you settle on either the 2.2 or the 2.3 that biwireing is a good way to go.
As for listening to other speakers, I bought these at the Good Guys and got to listen to all the other speakers. These sounded the best. Lets see, there were Polk, Kiplish and others I do not remember.
The other thing I want to say is that I am evolving my system as I go along by adding more high performance audio gear. From a system perspective, the Veritas are going to be one of the last components I upgrade – if that. I used to drool over pictures of Dunlavy’s, and from time to time I wonder how a pair of 4a’s would sound. But I really don’t think about it much because I am so satisfied with the 2.3’s now. If I had it to do over again, I think I would take a listen to the Vandersteen Signature 3A’s. They are a few hundred dollars more and are time and phase correct – but that is another story.
Hope my ramblings help.
Mike
Thanks alot, but I'm unclear wheter you were talking about the 2.3 or the 2.4. Also did you try to mate them with the Microstar? How does this sub bound in comparison to the Vandys?
I was writing about the 2.4's.I bought the Microstar and replaced an Energy 10 because the bass in the 2.3's (my original pair) needed something heavier.
The Microstar is a great home theater sub and mates well with the 2.4's. I actually was going to sell it after I bought my M&K 5000 because I wanted a sub that I would call more musical (I did not know about the Vandersteens at that point).
But there were times when the Microstar actually gave me more of a visceral feel. Saving Private Ryan is an example. There were scenes in there you needed to feel – like the explosions. While the M&K did good and puts out bass that has finesse, the Microstar is a brute. Having said that, the Microstar was actually disappointing by itself in the Haunting where you needed extremely deep bass but clarity as well. So I decided to keep both of them. I have the Microstar’s crossover set all the way at the bottom at 50, and have it in a corner to give a boost to my M&K.
With regard to the Vandersteens - that is a different conversation. It seems to me that the pairs were designed to accomplish different things.
While the Microstar becomes another component in a home theater system, the Vandersteens, in an abstract way, become part of your main speakers.
The Vandersteen subs have an external crossover, which sits between your preamp and amp and rolls off bass starting at 100 Hz. The crossover point is around 80 Hz. At the same time you also attach a cable from your amp to the subs. The amp doesn't drive the sub; the sub samples the signal so its onboard amp knows how much to pump out. The Vandersteens are very fast and because of this they are great for music. They are a system kind of a deal where you are not supposed to hear the sub, you are supposed to listen to the music, if you know what I mean. When I first put them in, I thought they were broken because you don't hear them directly. After they break in (at least 100 hours) the music your system presents is different.
The really great thing about the Vandersteens is that now I don't need bass management anymore. I can listen to two channel SACD's, and my speakers, 2.3's & 2wq's, as a unit, go from 20kHz to 18Hz. I don't have to worry about how I am going to get my subwoofer in the mix because sub and main speaker are now truly mated.
When I watch movies now, the benefits go there too, because with full range mains, the sound is more dynamic. I now have the LFE channel only going to the subs as before I had them go to the main speakers as well.
Mike
NT
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