Big time. A box only its mother could love? Grzegorz's disdain for yet another nothing-special cab explains itself in this photo. For all of its acoustic performance, hybrid brains and value for money, the bass bin of Qualio's IQ is just another stick in the mud. If the little box next to it can do all of the same things, who'd want the sumo wrestlers? Ultimate loudness potential might be one buyer, higher efficiency another, categorically no sub lust yet another, bigger rooms one more. It's all factual. But once she who must be obeyed intercedes, we can safely predict how this game plays out. Not over my dead body paraphrases the alternative. A lengthy tenure in the dog house. The sumo wrestlers curbside next to two suitcases. So – could the resident audiomaniac in a 50m² room be happy soloing it with Viper to not solo it as a divorcee? By normal family standards, my dedicated listening lounge is of rather good size. That's because I took over the biggest room of the house. By nabob standards it's more nano than mega. By banger standards, my occasional ~90dB peaks at 4 metres are quite genteel though a woman might disagree and ask you to lower the volume. That set our stage and staged my set:

Mayhem. Madness. Murder. At any SPL I wanted, a sub was once again completely utterly irrationally optional. Phatnominal. Whilst switching it in showed a difference, on actual reach it was very minor. The main difference from high-passing Viper were the increased dynamics and extra openness across its range; and extra dynamic crunch from dual self-damping 15" woofers. Versus my usual IQ residents, Viper wasn't as airy and 'spiritualized', trading upper-mid/lower-treble lucidity for greater meatiness. Despite my samples' white and being far smaller, the serpents played it somewhat darker and heavier. On bass growl and power, even hardcore cynics would have been incredulous. Yet unlike previous visitors whose goosed rear ports caused major room ruckus, Viper's auxiliary radiators did not. Non-messy murder without the blood you might say. I frame this cinematically because despite well-earned yawn from 23+ years on this beat, I was still unprepared for this reality of self sufficiency against a monster sub. Bring the mini howitzers, leave the cannoli. Adding themselves to the four prior reasons for why one would want the sumo wrestlers instead were two more for a proper six-pack: subjective resolution and dipole midrange dynamics. Given IQ's relative cosmetic imposition, one would have to really want those attributes and ace lengthy domestic negotiations not to reach for Viper instead. And yes, waiting in the wings already are the IQ30 as well as Cobra. But those are taller tales for another day.

In the hear-it-now, Viper really is the compact speaker which, had I the brains, experience and wherewithal—sadly negatory on all counts which means, three and you're out—I'd have designed myself. It's everything I hoped for. Whilst other eyes could blink, I happen to think the cosmetics very attractive. 'Honey I shrunk my IQ' suggests an unfortunate lobotomy. In this case it's a near miraculous enhancement hence cause for cerebral celebration.

With 380 mono watts into 4Ω and bog-standard 4Vmax balanced DAC outputs, on nearly flat-lined ECM productions set far below digital zero, I never had less than another 20 decibels in the SPL tank. Whilst this was a new low to confirm the published inefficiency, practically it was nothing but a small-print footnote. In mid August 2025 when I wrote this, Virtual was still a micro brand predictably off most radars. The big thing in its background is the Cube/Qualio connection. Equally big if still more of a novelty is the resourcefulness of Grzegorz Rulka to exploit 3D printing to this degree; and smarts to recognize then harness the potential of Dayton's dwarf-beast subwoofer as a widebander. It's so not what anyone else would have thought of or done.

Because it works like the proverbial hammer, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw others feel inspired and follow its footsteps. No matter, Viper was there first. An award to recognize this achievement was unmissable, too. Or as the book reviewers might say, unputdownable. What equivalent do poor hifi critics have? Unturnoffable? For today it suits the occasion rather nicely. Ditto for me knowing nothing quite like it though my narrative made the effort to point at other speakers which on driver types and layout are similar. Yet none of them rock a 3D-printed cab with two-sided deep texturization; nor a high-pass input. And I doubt that at just 7 litres of cubic volume, they have equivalent bandwidth or SPL stability. To hopelessly mix species, it makes Viper into a kind of unicorn like crossing a snowman with a vampire to arrive at frostbite. On that silly note and after 11 pages of noise, it's time for respectful silence.