WILL CONSIDER TRADES. TELL ME WHAT YOU HAVE.*************************************************************************
UPDATE -- Reduced to more than 60% off original direct sell price.
Essentially a FRD + super tweeter + self powered woofer, wrapped in an incredibly built ~150 lb enclosure. Easy to drive with low powered amps-- even single digit. Having shoulder surgery June 9th so I won't be able to move these beasts around after that.
If local, stop by for a listen.
************************************************************************************************************** UPDATE 2 -- These are now setup and sound fantastic with my 10wpc SET amp. Big speaker but since it's effectively a full range driver, still suitable for nearfield. I'm currently listening from 6.5 ft away, speakers are spread 9 ft. with lots of air around them. Balanced, well integrated and harmonically complete. Huge and dimensional fall into soundstage -- layered, deep and wide. Speakers just disappear. Immersive involving sound where all musical threads are easy to follow, without losing organic wholeness. Great flow and timing. Real toe-tappers. With my vinyl, vocals are spooky real and tone is quite satisfying. Woofers are self-powered, adjustable, and mirror image side mounted. Fire them in or out. In my experience, this makes room integration a snap. Bass is powerful, detailed and fast, but no overhang, boom or bloat. These speakers will tell you about upstream gear. Vaughn is not a household name, but as a cottage industry sold direct speaker you get big buck bang. Put your biases aside and stop by for a listen. Bring your vinyl....bring your cd's...bring your amp. You'll likely be impressed. I've been in this game a long time, at this price tough to beat. ************************************************************************************* UPDATE 3 -- I finally dug out the original ship cartons and find them to be in much better condition than I remember. Double boxes, heavy corrugated cardboard, with 2" thick foam inserts all around. All in great shape. I am now quite confident they can be shipped very safely. Due to the weight / size (about 150 lbs per carton) palletized freight shipping is still required, paid by buyer. *********************************************************************************** Bills piling up, don't have funds or space to keep two pair of large floorstanders, so these must go. Vaughn is a lesser known direct-sell speaker company that offers great value. Vaughn competes sonically with the big names, at a fraction of the price.
I've owned this pair -- the last of the original Triode v1 model -- for 3 years in a child / pet / and smoke free home. It has the more expensive exotic veneered baltic birch cabinets, in figured, quarter - walnut finish. This is the actual pair that Jim Jordan (Vaughn owner / designer) used at shows. Several years ago it won "Best of Show" from Tone Audio at the Rocky Mountain Audio Festival. In conversations with Jim he confided that he felt the v1 midrange was superior to subsequent Triode versions (v3 was current at the time). He explained that the v1 was discontinued because the hefty cabinet and Extended Range Driver (ERD) used were becoming too expensive to meet his desired price point. Later Triode versions were indeed cheaper, but they employed different (and lighter) cabinets and different ERDs. The tweeter and powered woofer sections remained the same. STEREO TIMES Review: "The Triode IIIs have a very intimate presence and ease about them. I didn’t expect these little known babies to sing like they did, and compete with speakers twice their $8,000/pair price, but they did indeed. I kept saying to myself as they improved day after day, “Are you kidding me?” No loudspeaker at this price should sound this good. For those outside of this hobby that price tag may sound like a lot of “ka-ching,” but we know better now don’t we? Especially for a quality loudspeaker that does it all well from top to bottom. Excellent, smooth high frequency extension, check. Deep articulate bass, check. But their biggest strength is beautifully textured, weighty midrange, highlighting subtle nuances in vocals. A bit of toe-in and the Triode IIIs completely disappear leaving voices dead center with instruments hanging in the air. Only a low powered SET amp is needed, since there is a built-in 300 watt class-D amp driving a 12 inch subwoofer. Yet, the Triode IIIs are smooth as silk and well integrated from top to bottom." http://www.stereotimes.com/post/unheard-unknown-and-unbelievable-sounding/ A quick Google search will turn up many positive show reports on various Vaughn models. DESIGN:
99 db efficient with self-powered bass drivers allow it to be driven with low powered SET amps. Larger solid state amps also fine with its 240 watt power handling. Frequency response of 25 hz to 40,000 hz offers true full range sound with excellent soundstaging capabilities. Simply put, the design is an 8" wide band driver + self-powered subwoofer + ribbon supertweeter. As such, it disappears, images and stages like a single point source, while giving true full-range performance. The ERD covers 100hz - 5khz (approx). The sub covers below that, and the ribbon supertweeter above it. The crossover is a very simple affair, very little to get in the way of the music, resulting in purity and transparency. It consists of a single high quality cap to high-pass the tweeter, and a quality core inductor to low-pass the ERD. I believe Bybee bullets are also used. With thick walls and stout bracing the cabinet is seriously overbuilt and inert, as evidenced by the approx 150 lbs per side! The upper and lower cabinets are separate via internal partitions. Both chambers are lined with no-rez. Both compartments are vented with passive radiators -- on the rear for the wide band driver, on the side for woofer. The signal is delivered to the onboard sub amp via supplied jumper cables, bananas all around. It has the usual adjustments: crossover, gain, phase, etc. It powers a 12" side mounted woofer. The woofers can be fired either to the outside or inside. This, combined with the woofer amp controls, provides great flexibility in room integration for best LF response in many room types. This is a true full range speaker that disappears into a huge soundstage like a single driver, but is not compromised at the extremes like a typical point source. The adjustable bass is deep, powerful and impactful. Very easy to drive, 300B SET amps are typically used at shows. Not many speakers can give the best of several design approaches, while remaining candidates for single digit amps. With such high efficiency, the amp universe is wide open -- can be driven properly by virtually anything. Not limited only to SET, they sound great with all the amps I've tried: Rogue Atlas Magnum, Alchemist Forsetti Signature, Will Vincent 6l6 Baldwin Organ Amp, Angela Instruments 300B monos, custom built 6as7 SET amp. Also great with my modest Redgum and Copland SS integrateds. The overall presentation is fast, transparent and neutral (but definitely not lean/dry/analytical!!), so these chameleons will let you hear your amp and sources. Fine tune your sound with upstream gear. COSMETICS:
A few small imperfections but overall look great. Around the tweeter I can see some faint drip marks in the stain, and some dull spots in the poly that are not as glossy as the rest. But it really is very faint. To see it, one has to look very hard in bright sunlight, at just the perfect angle, and even then almost impossible to see. I tried to capture it in the first 2 pics below (shot in natural sunlight) but as you can see, quite hard to discern. All photos are recent in natural sunlight. You get exactly what you see. More photos here: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;album=20172 INCLUDED:
* Soundocity outriggers -- bolted solidly to the bottom -- provide a very stable platform. Quick and easy levelling with top screw knobs. 8 pointy tips screw into the cones. Also included, 8 screw-in gliders to protect your wood floors. * Jumpers to deliver signal from main binding posts to woofer amp. * Another pair of solid core inductors. These will shave 3db off the top of the ERD. Obtained directly from Jim when I was initially having trouble getting them locked into my room. The problem turned out to be elsewhere in my rig, so they were never installed. Speakers sound great as is, but you have them if you need to fine tune. Very easy parts access thru rear passive radiator. * Cages that screw on over the woofers. I guess these are to protect the drivers during transit. Once speakers were setup in my room, I removed them. I do have the original cartons, but prefer local sale (zip 11561) as I don't trust them for shipping these 150 lb monsters. I will work with buyer to
get them pallatized and freight shipped, but he pays all costs. Original direct sell price was $10,000. Asking $3800. I will consider reasonable offers, but at this price I'm already absorbing a fairly hefty loss. Auditions are welcome, but please have a serious buy interest. Thanks for looking. ~John
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