Von Schweikert VR-2's

PARC - Parametric Adaptive Room Compensation. It's designed to deal with bass modes. In some rooms, and particularly the hotel rooms at the Westin with solid plaster walls the room dimensions are not optimal and it can reinforce certain bass frequencies causing the bass to sound boomy and the midrange unclear. This is not the fault of the equipment, but the interaction with the room. One room at HE 2003 had 10 x 20 x 30 dimensions. It doesn't take much to figure out this will be a big problem. It had a 16 db bump at 114 Hz--almost unlistenable without the PARC. Great equipment in that room--but the room was the problem--not the equipment.

There is a forthcoming review of the PARC in the July issue of Stereophile. Until then, you can get more information on the PARC on our website.

I agree with DMA. We are working with Von Schwiekert on other projects, but I have heard these and I am extremely impressed with performance/price ratio. I think Albert and Kevin are really making things happen from an engineering perspective at this company. It's so much harder to make a great affordable speaker--and I emphasize affordable.

I heard the VR-2's and on Friday they did sound muddy, but it wasn't the fault of the speaker. There were some interesting dynamics going on in that room (which I will refrain from discussing) and the PARC was not being used at that particular time. The room interaction was causing the muddy sound and I can tell you that when the PARC was connected the sound was much clearer with a far better soundstage. (yes, of course I'm biased to the PARC--but this isn't about the PARC--it's about the room) Keep in mind--if you have a good room you don't need a PARC, it's not compensating for the speaker, but for the room. In those hotel rooms with very solid plaster walls you do need a PARC. Speaker placement and cabling were also serious issues in that room. The cables being used had a PVC dielectric and really sounded bad (the muddiness you heard actually masked some of the cabling problems, but the cables still killed the soundstage that those speakers can deliver). I frankly felt pretty bad for Albert and crew because it was not the performance they are capable of.