Vapor Audio Cirrus? - Page 2

After a little more research on the drivers and parts selection used plus a guess on the time build of the tank like built cabinet I would guess to say there is not much profit built into the speaker. Definetly not something that was just thrown together in a box with a basic crossover network. If anyone knows another speaker line in this price point with this build quality I sure would be interested in taking a look at it.

He means there are people from those publications reviewing his speakers.

I was one of the early Cirrus owners. Putting aside claims of performance, these speakers are not 'expensive'.

The base model has $1500 in cost of drivers alone. Cost of the birch ply sheets and getting the layers cut by a CNC shop was going to cost over $400 on a quote I had.

Adding the quality crossover components and you are well north of 2k in materials cost, and this is before the time consuming and very thorough cabinet construction.

So at the current price they are a bargain and yet are the best speaker I have ever heard. I would order one now before Vapor get too busy and raise the intro pricing.

I did not get the base model but have the upgraded RAAL tweeter and Teflon V-Cap bypass capacitors on the crossover. You need to give these speakers free air and space to hear them at their best.

They are not 'little' bookshelfs flying_fool. The pictures do not give sense of scale, they are actually very large, massive, for a standmount. The bass is huge, tight and powerful. Because the RAAL has such large range, the crossover point is quite low, which allows the Audio Technology woofer to just handle low frequencies and not the midrange.
This is why the bass is so good compared to any other standmount I have heard, even ones with 7" drivers.

The cabinet is utterly non-resonant and this no doubt contributes to the great bass performance as well.

A bargain? If you have $3500 to throw at a pair of speakers that's great! But $3500 is still a whole lot of money for just two speakers. I don't know if I would classify it as a bargain. Perhaps you could say it is a better value in relation to it's competitors at its price point?

I get what you mean, but why should we bend the knee to your definition of what price range should constitute a bargain? You could just as easily say a $200 pair of speakers is also NOT a bargain because there are $50 speakers available. Most non audiofools would actually say $200 is too expensive!

Yes $3500 is not small change, but in the ridiculous world of high end audio and it's overpriced speakers, 10k-20k and higher in cost, all of which to me sound worse than the Cirrus, this is a real bargain.

Yes, I see what you mean. It's like I said earlier, the cheap monster comes out in me when I see prices well into 4 figures for a pair of speakers.

Wow! That Arcus sure looks like it'll be awesome!

Now, i wonder how their lower model Breeze compares to the cyrus. Obviously the cabinets are alot cheaper off the self ones, but it uses the raal 70-10 which says alot at that price point. Hope Turbo can provide some perspective.

They do look impressive. As a very happy Cirrus owner I'm sure these will be quite something as well.

The Arcus is sick, seriously! I have a man crush on it ... I don't even own my own pair yet, drivers alone are well over $2000. The ones I've built are for customers, and it's something that I wish everybody could hear. It combines virtues in a way like I've never heard before, how it fills a room with a massive soundstage is addicitive. Of course if you think the Cirrus is expensive, you won't like the price of the Arcus ... but fortunately for my business, the high end customer seems to be alive and well.

As far as I know the Arcus is the World's only monitor speaker easily capable of 115+ db SPL, AND equally capable in a 2-channel Audiophile sense. Someday I hope to own a pair

Wow, at $3500 it definitely shouldn't be "vapor"ware.

It's Cirrus btw, like the cloud ... since I have a Masters in Atmospheric Science I name all my stuff after Meteorological terms.

One guy who comes over a lot said I should name the Breeze "Taste of Cirrus", because that's basically what it is. Tonal balance and top to bottom resolution is all there, the Cirrus delivers more scale and dynamics. But the Breeze is really an amazing speaker for the price ... I have about $750 my cost in parts alone for it. I'd personally have no problem living with the Breeze and a capable subwoofer for a long long time.

This is correct. I saw on the site that it's 85db efficiency and a 6" woofer. The frequency response graph shows that it achieves a MASSIVE low frequency bass response at 30Hz having dipped just 2.5db. The question is, at what SPL? Every time I've ever seen a driver smaller than 8-inches on a speaker claiming bass response like this, when I push up the volume, it bottoms out quickly and gives out lots of distortion. There's simply no way that little driver will produce more than about 85db-90db SPL of clean 30Hz response. I admire that it's a flat response at "some unknown" SPL, but that's hardly an impressive spec as many very cheap speakers produce a similar response when measured. The real question is how it performs when pushed to average SPL levels of 95db or so (a typical musical listener's volume with most rock music) at the typical listening position of 8ft-10ft. There is NO WAY a 6-inch driver produces 30Hz or even 50Hz without distortion at a typically used volume of 95db average. Forget about "peaks" from drum hits, they would 'fart' out those.

By all logic and experience, this is your typical "nice sounding" easy-listening speaker at best and you can get serious bang for your buck with powerful subwoofers and smartly high-passed cheaper bookshelf speakers that together would blow these things out of the water in terms of quality output at typical enthusiast listening levels. Nothing personal. That's just my experience based on previous listening experience and after having looked at the drivers and specs from the site. There is no way these things achieve quality, low distortion full-range sound with the dynamics typical listeners expect. This thing will need a subwoofer and a powerful amplifier to achieve what's needed to impress someone and at $3,500 this is fully achievable with mass market gear and you get the whole shebang including powerful amps, a quality pair of bookshelf speakers and a big, dynamic & accurate subwoofer.

None of your speculation really has anything to do with how my speakers sound, or any others for that matter. You have to realize that generalizations never hold water, and posting them so matter of factly is a bad idea.

Adding bass is the easiest part of building a system ... you can't add better midrange transparency or resolution, you can't add better driver integration. So even though I know it's FAR better at bass than you say, I really don't care if it can do 30hz at 100db ... my customers know that's what subs are for, and that the Cirrus is for producing the heart of the music as well as or better than anything else.

It's a 7" driver btw and 87.5db sensitive. I'm sure you've never heard an AudioTechnology woofer, but that's what I'm using ... best of the best.

Like you said generalizations never hold water. Yes at what SPL?

As a midrange, yes, that driver is well respected. But a lot of perception comes from the listener. Many people simply can't tell the difference between driver distortion specs by ear. This is why speaker companies often need to use trained listeners with a natural-born ability to hear distortion in speakers. Infinity/Harman in their old CMMD videos walk you through exactly (www.youtube.com/watch?v=epVDFZIVN2Y) what it took to develop their speakers. I'm not sure if that direct video discusses the portion where Infinity trained naturally gifted listeners to recognize distortion but keep clicking on the neighboring videos and it should come up.

My point here is that not many people have either the natual-born ability nor the training to hear speakers with superior distortion specs. Most people select favorite speakers based on dynamic impact and pleasing tonality (for me it's also how 'easy on the ear' & 'true to life' it sounds). I have many times in the past found myself preferring the sound of speakers that didn't test well for distortion and/or had a cabinet design that wouldn't be making anyone think 'quality', but despite what the "specs" say, I ended up buying more than one pair of low cost speakers because I simply preferred the way they sound.

Over the years I have listened to many speakers which look similar to yours and they simply lacked punch, dynamics and weren't all that 'pleasing' to listen to. I have often preferred heavily damped speakers over higher efficiency ones, but I still crave a bit of dynamic punch also.

I'm not saying your speaker doesn't sound fantastic when it's paired with a nice subwoofer and powerful amplifier, but for the $3500 cost of just your speakers, most of the enthusiasts on this forum can buy a top-of-the-line subwoofer, a high power amplifier and still have their choice of many hundreds of different speaker models to audition, where they are likely to find a pair of speakers they would prefer in a blind comparison to even your speakers. I've found listeners often prefer different speakers from one another and there is no "universal awesome" speaker. Most people who are serious about finding the speakers they will enjoy most, must go out and audition many speakers before falling in love with a particular speaker's unique 'sound'. What I always do before recommending a speaker is get a general idea of what characteristics in sound production the person likes to hear. Then I try to steer them in the direction of a speaker that is popular or well liked within their price range that has the character they prefer and also maybe give a few alternates they can look into also.

Which speakers have you listened to that resemble this Vapor Cirrus speaker? Have you attended any of the high end audio shows like RMAF or CES etc...
Are you familiar with RAAL tweeters?

Timothy91,

I can't speak for the Cirrus, but when I heard the Vapor Aurora (waveguide with an 8" woofer, crossed over at 1000Hz) at an event in Chicago, I was pretty gobsmacked by the impact and clarity at some pretty decent volumes in a pretty large room (so much so that my main question remained whether that speaker was too much for my 13 x 15 room). I'd love to hear the Cirrus, but I can tell you that the Aurora really made me reconsider what could be expected from a speaker that size...

last i know, Vapor isnt the only speaker builder/manufacture that has expensive speakers. equivalent salk, selah will run you in the ball park of 3000 and still not quiet as artistic look as the cirrus. The good news is, their breeze are much more affordable that it is offered with raal for those who prefer ribbon. For a bookshelf that plays down to 37hz, thats quiet impressive though not at ear bleeding level, how many bookshelf does anyway? And you just cant get low frequencies without having large boxes witch is something i can afford to have in my small living room. Sure you can do alot for the money, is just like saying, you can buy a few of corvette if you dont buy a ferrari.

Alot of speaker look alike, for example a box made of mdf with two drivers, but to say that it look like the cirrus?

It's even worse to speculate a speaker is going to sound displeasing by there looks or you have to match a subwoofer with them or they won't sound good.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

It'll sound fine without a sub, just don't expect it to be an SPL monster at low freqs.

This is where a JL Audio sub or two comes in handy. Most would go with subs unless in a smallish room perhaps. It's the mids and highs that should soar the most with the Cirrus. Some think this is one of the best monitors made period. Running with the likes of TAD CR1 which is much bigger and runs a cool 30k. Can it go toe to toe with any monitor out there? I wouldn't bet against it and I have never heard this speaker.

Timothy91 I wish you could hear the Cirrus and your perceptions of what a monitor can do would be changed.

Your claims about not being able to punch out huge bass without distortion are just wrong. Low distortion bass is the main strength of this speaker, let alone the great highs of the RAAL ribbon. The Cirrus can project music at high spl, without compression, better than any speaker I have owned or auditioned.

Why this is, is because the Cirrus is not just another monitor, the cabinet construction is unique and extremely non resonant. It has a dual wall that is filled with a sound absorbing epoxy of some sort which reduced db (by a large amount I cannot remember). The cnc cut layers of the cabinet are tensioned down with 4 rods running vertically.

This just means the bass driver can project sound free of cabinet resonances and colorations that are always present in the normal monitor, hence giving such good bass performance.

Combine that with the very expensive Per Skaaning designed woofer, crossed over at a low point so it does not have to do much mid range work..... you get the idea.

I've noticed Salks being mentioned here since they also use the RAAL tweeters in some of their models.

As a Salk HT2-TL owner, I'm very curious if anyone has directly compared the Cirrus to the Salks.

BTW, I LOVE the RAAL tweeter!

The most irritating thing about these forums is reading responses from people that have no idea what they are talking about. Criticizing products they have never listened to and using words like "I know several speakers that cost less that would trounce..." They say in such matter fact, expertly tones, citing engineering speak, amazing!
What about the Magico Minis? You talk about expensive, and I have heard them and I have heard the Cirrus and the Magico's are multiples more and they are not better (nor more musically satisfying). I am a musician not an engineer and have owned and listened to a lot of speakers (Talon's, Thiel's, VMPS, etc.), the Cirrus do some amazing things, period! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I suggest you taste the food before commenting on it's quality or you are being unfair to the chef.
I just bought a Ducati Diavel motorcycle and if I listened to the blogs of people that speculated on the ride quality and had never seen let along ridden the bike I would have never experienced one of the greatest bikes in existence.
It's me Ryan Mike from Atl (cabinets?) Sent you an email...

I had the opportunity to put the Cirrus side by side, same room and gear, with a pair of Salk Soundscape 10's. And with my obvious conflict of interest I'd rather not say here my thoughts, but PM me if you'd like to hear. I can also give you contact info for a couple other people who were there as well.