I'm a leftie; left-handed and left-eared as it turned out. That's because on which way to go, I preferred my monitors raw not filtered. That smarted the inner expert. Theoretical rightness favours the high pass. This I already execute in this and the upstairs system with my own speaker/sub combos; albeit—and perhaps decisively—in the precision active not passive domain. With Jun's passive 210Hz filter and 2dB shelving likely by resistor/s, I heard some energetic reluctance and veiling of directness. To me 3½-way mode of VC1 running wide open was more immediate and exciting. Whilst that configuration's upper-bass bulge became its own little compromise if you favour linearity, I thought it the lesser weevil. So I binned grey theory and banked on my pink bits instead. You could fancy the opposite. That's what options are all about. The next question was whether to drive super or regular unleaded: with/out Beryllium tweeter. This time past experience and associated preference stayed put. Bueno Beryllium. To explain why, some Mark Levinson the man. With his Daniel Hertz brand, the Maria amplifier platform bundles class D Ncore with DSP crossovers for his own speakers, an A/D converter and his already patented C-Wave algorithm embedded on his Mighty Cat chip. Mark was a big proponent of DSD and strongly favoured it over PCM. With his C-Wave for 'continuous wave' processing, he claims that even MP3 gains a tacit analogue master-tape quality. The interesting aspect? His algorithm injects strategically delayed reverb likely bandwidth specific. That points at the difference I hear between native DSD and PCM already. To me DSD sounds softer, sweeter and has more spatial 'connective tissue' of subliminal reverberance which simultaneously mellows PCM's higher separation and focus.

Here we see 3½-mode with the Sanctus jumpers. The arrows point at the channel markings.

In my Re:Mixed review for John Darko, I'd called VC1 a believer in the Crispianity faith. That was for its notable lack of common box talk aka blur/fuzz aka warmth. Its presentation was drier, better damped and for it, most articulate, enunciated and precise. With the Beryllium tweeter engaged, more recorded reverb stepped up to the plate to be served. Like DSD and presumably Mark Levinson's C-Wave algorithm, this mellowed VC1's subtly clipped crispness beyond just bolting on darkness from the 1st octave. On said bass subject, I also thought that not bypassing the monitor's own ports made for a texturally more seamless presentation with the triple-ported woofer even if ideally I'd want sealed bass. Because VC2 isn't a truncated 4-sided pyramid but only angles out its sides whilst front and back remain vertical; and because that angle isn't severe; Jun only has room for an 8" woofer. He'd probably lose nearly an octave's worth of extension if he gave up ports. I fully appreciate why they're there; and that the stack wouldn't look as svelte if the base grew wide enough to accommodate a 12" woofer. Of course I arrive from dual 15-inch Ripol bass. That's an extremely well-damped alignment free of port ringing. Meanwhile its asymmetrical very directional radiation doesn't involve a room like box-based omni LF. Here I must always give conventional bass systems a break. Their MO is fundamentally different so can't be held to the same standard. That said, Jun's multi-port system was surprisingly well controlled. He's clearly sensitive to group delay issues. The upshot of my first impressions was simple. With VC3—shouldn't VC1 + VC2 = VC3?—the monitors not only acquired low-down mass and its usual injection of blackness. The super tweeters also shifted them a bit into DSD's more reverb-enhanced milieu. That mellowed textures to register 180° out of step with any knee-jerk super-tweeter presumptions of more brightness or forwardness. Not! But more sweetness from ambient filler, less 'nearfield' gloss? Absolutely. Bring on the mind funk.

This includes Club Aluminator membership where we rub shoulders with the likes of AudioMachina, Burmester, Genelec, Magico, Piega, Stenheim, T+A and YG Acoustics. If we assume that hard inert cabinets sound hard and inert i.e. clinically precise but sterile and overdamped because theory likes the connection or we've heard actual examples behave so, VC3's dual attack on the frequency extremes tricks us again. From what I've heard of its loose kin, Stenheim's house sound is probably the closest relative. In this recipe, so-called dead cabinetry and soft cones combine such that we exploit the absence of box resonances typical for softer ringier boxes with the richer tone typically ascribed to cellulose membranes. Crossover tuning and venting are further variables. The important distinction is a slightly darker fleshier sound not generated by imprecision disguised as 'musical' warmth. Again, the VC3 stack shifts VC1's crisper drier hi-rez personality a few clicks over toward Harbeth/Spendor turf whilst stopping well short of crossing over. If you saw this coming, I salute your prescience. It surprised me. Let's call this destination more organic than driving VC1 solo off the same electronics. Meanwhile VC1's subjective resolution notches down a click or two. That's partly (mostly?) psychoacoustics but no less real for it. It's the compound effect of lower bass and enhanced ambient retrieval. It frames the midrange. Even if we don't change that one iota, altering the framing frequency extremes still shifts our midrange perception. That's no different than mounting a photo in a mat then frame. The colours which surround an image have a direct bearing on how we perceive its own colours. Of this oscilloscopes know nothing. They measure no change. Our ear/brain very much does. Since that's what I listen with rather than test gear, that's the only relevant actuality. In parallel 3½-way mode¹, VC1 remains completely untouched. It simply sits atop a separate base which adds bandwidth to either end even if the upper portion's effect relative to the provided measurements remains a bit mysterious. But again, the brain responds as it does and a sensitive skilful designer like Jun exploits it. Well played, Sir!
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¹ Relative to the distortion-lowering mechanism of high-passing a smaller 2-way, I probably don't play loud enough to make VC1 telegraph those gains. I do however play loud enough to hear them with my upstairs far smaller SuperMon Mini. This aspect is relative to SPL whilst the ultimate state of high-passing could just be the high-end active domain.

For confirmation by subtraction, I also listened to VC1 solo which devolved VC2 into a fancy stand; and to VC1 high-passed at 100Hz with my active filter plus usual 2×15" sub. Minus far reduced room interaction which gave considerably more insight into and articulation and pitch definition of the two bottom octaves for my stereo 2.1 signal routing, on general linearity VC3 in 4-way mode came closer than as a 3½-way. Either way, eliminating VC2's Beryllium bonus made itself felt to reiterate its unique presence in a bass extender. Whilst honesty demands mention of this resolution gap between actively filtered/driven and passively filtered/driven bass, it's immaterial when very few people will copy my approach. On its own merit, Jun's recipe really does admirably convert his bandwidth-restricted VC1 into a full-range performer for bigger spaces and the type modern music which contains actual data at 25Hz. Injecting that particular ne sais quoi in the opposite extreme via tunable super tweeter counteracts getting darker or heavier than existing admirers of VC1 could cotton to. Just be aware that introducing such bass power and reach into a 6x8m space without bass traps or room EQ isn't a walk in the park.