First impressions. VC layered like baklava. In hifi lingo, layering typically extends front to back. It describes different distances whereby images materialize relative to our seated position. In a symphonic orchestra, the kettle drums are behind the bassoons which are behind multiple rows of violas. Like all properly placed boxes, VC did that too. But it also layered left to right in a way I'd not quite heard before. Sounds like sympathetic sitar strings, embouchure leaks on a clarinet, intermodulated ghost tones materializing between recorded sounds, a voice reflecting off a planar microphone – all appeared strictly separated in a slightly different location than the event they associated with. Separation powers can often mean ability to separate as in, our attention can do it if we're so inclined. Rather than drown under a performance like a giant wave, our mind's eye can drill down into specifics because a particular system doesn't blur. VC didn't make me do it but did so itself. It was ultra specific and hyper focused in how it feathered or fanned out the left-to-right panorama into layers. Again, think thick slice of baklava stood upright. Now its crisply baked narrow end faces you. Hello multi-layered filo dough. We could peel it off like sheets of paper stuck together by honey. My ear/brain was most clear. The glassy spray of Jasdeep Singh's drone strings did not somehow amorphously surround what his main sitar strings did like a halo. They presented most obvious as discrete different entities in their own precise location. Likewise for Redi Hasa bowing his cello with two strings simultaneously. I didn't just hear two tones. I saw how they came off two adjacent strings; very close together but not in exactly the same spot. So VC was spectacularly unconfused at imaging. It mapped the stage's lateral spread with extraordinary focus. If you're a staging freak, this speaker should have your number. Think tripod-stable focus with the powers of a top-quality lens of excellent clarity. It can individuate out sounds which we might have thought were one into two or more discrete miniature items. That declumps like a grease-cutting agent. But it's not anything our attention spends nervous energy on. VC simply presents such details as blatant facts.

Together with its stiff-breeze clarity, VC also sounded particularly solid or anchored. Whilst the top end had plenty of air and sparkle, that quality didn't dominate. It didn't shift into something top-heavy, wispy, ethereal or all speed no substance. As I pumped SPL, VC's difference gained further distance from what I suspected was MDF mediocrity. Rather than turn subtly or overtly warm, soft, blurry and fuzzy when minorly flexing cabinets start to fight internal air pressures, VC stayed unfazed. It just got coolly louder. Unfettered by the usual brakes which dilute pristine clarity with compression and box-talk effects, loudness walked hand in hand with Scandinavian briskness. If you're used to standard MDF boxes, you could initially find VC's more linear scaling brighter as in, more energetic and crisp. It lacks the typical softening of focus with its attendant tepidness as volumes go up. I suspect that's because thick strategically damped aluminium acts different than sawdust set in glue. After all, medium-density fiberboard aka MD is speakerdom's most ubiquitous building block so practically fait accompli. That's no value judgment, just an attempt to describe how VC behaved in a clearly different manner; and presumably because it's made from another material altogether.

Bass is where Jun's smallest is obviously knee-capped. In this room it absolutely mandates a sub. I started VC with that so high-passed at 80Hz. That generated the above impressions. To learn how VC would fly or tank solo, I then extricated the active filter and sub. Though the company's published 53Hz spec could arch highbrows for a €6.5K sticker, I surprisingly didn't miss my subwoofer. Whilst rare 25Hz-ish pedals were MIA now, what seemed to be a strategic lift in the midbass before the system falls off steeply had the vast majority of fare lack for naught. What's more, the rear-firing vents caused no loading issues in the room's front corners. Was this because of Jun's trick paralleling of two port tubes of unequal lengths? How would I know? All I know is that in my smaller room, I found the bass balance and quality virtually ideal and not in need of or really benefitting from any subwoofer addition. To really feel out that aspect and where its limits might lay would require the bigger downstairs room.

Technically speaking, aluminium isn't hard enough to make an ideal ball-bearing race; and the spikes get too thin for these loads to risk bent tips.

On tonality you'd call VC cool only versus woodier alternatives whose more sonorous attributes it damps. Because it omits the weight of the first octave, it gives slight priority to precision, articulation and speed over ultimate grounding and mass. Suspicious that the 25/45wpc 8/4Ω Enleum might have been slightly underpowered though it went louder than needed, I swapped in the 64/90wpc Crayon Audio CFA-1.2. As shown below, its own attenuator was bypassed so at full-tilt 80 while the Vinnie Rossi preamp retained SPL control. Voilà, that filled out density to get my vote. With equal amounts of 2nd/3rd-harmonic THD at a very low percentage, Roland Krammer's circuit doesn't inject any rich triode-style octave-doubled enhancements which listeners into cuddlier warmer sonics might crave. Without overegging the custard, a Pass Labs XA25 would be an excellent choice but my review sample had long since packed up. For my personal tastes, the Crayon ideally split the gap between the Pass and earlier Enleum.

Obviously Jun's inert enclosure philosophy won't ever go fuzzy like more resonant materials. Even pre-loading our sonic stew with creamy tube-type THD will only go so far. Invoking show impressions minted over very many years of attendance, I'd peg VC closer to Stenheim's aesthetic than Magico's or the original YG's.