By early April, the speaker project had grown into a different time-aligned shape. "I'm currently focused on a version for a broader audience. It features two SB Audience 15OB350 15" woofers—one in a slot, one front-firing—with a 7½" Satori TeXtreme midrange from the same catalogue and that large AMT. I assembled the first bass cabinet yesterday and another pair is already at the paint shop. The fit is perfect, the bass tight and impressive. I attached a graph showing the bass and midrange response without the AMT connected. I expect to have the speakers ready to ship in ~1-2 months though two months is probably more realistic. The upper 3D-printed waveguides are directional to equalize pressure. The ~20kg bass bins will get painted, the bolts remain visible. The only thing I plan to add is a front panel like Cobra's. It will cover the whole front of the bass bin in 5-10mm plate so that the bolt heads are visible only at an angle. I'll see how it works out on my first painted pair. I'll hopefully finish the crossover by then." Lest we think twin 18-inchers had left Greg's building, "the 15" drivers should satisfy all humans. Later I'll do a bigger version with 18" woofers for aliens like myself. I'm just getting ever more down the rabbit hole and expect an ultimate roller-coaster experience from such a system. It has to have plenty of horse power just for those dynamic moments when needed."

Grzegorz's atypical bass geometry would marry line-of-sight shove from a face-on woofer with highly self-damped crunch from the downfiring slot-loaded mate whilst the final form factor suggested a wedge from a Mayan step pyramid. The visual illusion of the full-frontal look toed-in—of an actual enclosure—should only crumble once we walk closer and look from the side. June 25th: "I noticed your preview of the Matter Axion open-baffle dynamic speakers. That should be interesting. Their tall AMT does look similar to mine but is definitely a different part. I can see that the back pole pieces are bent and the magnets smaller. About my project, I wasn't satisfied with the performance of the first woofers to source new ones for testing. This slightly delayed the project. An August completion date now seems more realistic as I also had to order new laser-cut steel enclosures. It's quite a pity that I had to swap woofers and redo the bass bins. However, it reiterates that most standard 15" woofers simply won't work properly in open baffles. I hope that the new SB Audience Nero15 will be my saving grace. Even a pair of recently best 15" woofers caused upper-suspension distortion in a big slot/H-frame to not support 30Hz bass at the same level as 1kHz."

The new wall treatment.

R&D. It's peppered with trials 'n' errors, prototype and parts rejects. It means losses of time and money. Especially for a sole operator, such losses are a challenge. One writes them off as costs of a valuable education but still must recoup such investments in sales. Given Virtual's boutique status, direct sales and madcap design style, we're not exactly talking mainstream volumes. It takes doggedly unique individuals to pursue such a path. July 12th then wondered whether said path had split; or elevated to a higher plateau. "For the rarest and most powerful stars, the next stage is as supernova. A spectacular event. Immense in scale. Impossible to ignore. For Virtual Hifi, Supernova represents the next stage in our loudspeaker journey; a new reference open-baffle project created to deliver more of what makes music feel real. Greater scale. Greater dynamics. Greater immersion. Greater reality. Our most ambitious loudspeaker project yet will unveil in August." Greg's attached render shows dual woofers, an SB Acoustics Satori Textreme spread-tow carbon-fibre mid and tall wide AMT in a flared waveguide resembling half a truncated pyramid. The structure clearly has sidewalls for some loading of the rear wave. Was this the next model past Basilisk? Or had the Basilisk project ended up on the cutting-room floor?

"Supernova won't replace Basilisk. It's the model before it. The transition to the new 15" Neo woofers eliminated the need for slot loading. Their performance is incredible without it. This allowed me to run with a classic open-baffle configuration for impressive kick and pressure. I updated the project accordingly and already finalized the prototype. It's essentially a classic OB executed the Virtual HiFi way. I still plan on an 18" Basilisk. That will require slot loading to keep height correct for proper midrange/tweeter placement. It'll give me more time to experiment with the MSLA 3D-printing technology I want to use for its waveguides." Now our detour through the bends of discarded permutations has arrived at today's review subject. Given this preamble, we understand that Supernova is the Basilisk project aimed at civilians though Grzegorz expects that even his forthcoming twin 18-inch beast for aliens "will conquer the hearts of a few earthlings". We appreciate that whilst Supernova looks more classically OB if somewhat industrial, the road to it was far from straightforward. We even understand the technical reasons for it. A closer look at the woofers which helped streamline the design because they were engineered specifically for ambitious dipole apps shows a 25Hz resonant frequency, 0.8 Qts, 91dB sensitivity, 11Tm force factor, 130g moving mass, die-cast aluminium basket, neodymium motor with extended copper cap, 4-inch voice coil, triple-pleated cloth surround and paper cone doped with fibreglass and graphene. Plug-in math knows that twin 15" woofers add to the cone surface of a single 21" whilst their dipole nature would achieve the raw air motion of a 30" unit were it not for the signature cancellation pattern and 1st-order acoustic roll-off. "The baffle section measures 125x42x20cm HxWxD. The footer array expands to 50x40cm WxD. Weight is 45kg, sensitivity ~90dB/4Ω. The crossover points currently sit at 250Hz with 2nd-order slopes on either side; and at ~2.5kHz with a 2nd-order low pass for the midrange and a 1st-order high pass for the AMT.

"These values may be subject to minor tweaks over the next four weeks as I finalize the baffles. Those use constrained-layer damping similar to Basilik. The triple-layer sandwich consists of two 3mm hard steel plates bonded to 2mm rubber. It's a highly rigid combination incredibly effective at resonance damping. Though the black industrial look with visible bolts of your lead-in image is an option, Supernova also offers magnetically attached panels in the buyer's colour choice to dress up the front. Minimum impedance is 3.15Ω/46Hz which should be manageable for most transistor amps though its dual 15" woofers predestine Supernova for rather powerful amplification that won't choke during more demanding playback. The side rails not only stiffen the baffle but add strategic driver loading. We're looking at 25Hz/-3dB with an overall +3dB bass tilt lowest to highest. This isn't another OB to enjoy the soundstage, openness, dynamics, vocals, clarity and kick bass only for dense instrumental music, organ, rock and electronica to immediately expose a low-bass limitation—or to put it more bluntly, complete lack of low bass. The Supernova is a totally different beast. See these measurements from my 40m² studio. The red line is the on-axis response, the blue line 30° off axis."