After many months of stress and disappoint my Aperion Verus Grand Towers and Center arrived today. I took just over a month between my order and its arrival. When I saw the boxes, I was nervous as it seems they took quite a beating during shipping. However the packaging by Aperion was excellent as the speakers arrived intact.
I managed to stuff the speakers in my little wagon and took them home. I noticed that Aperion states how to unpack the boxes and I followed and it was so easy.
So let’s cut to the chase, how do they sound? Fantastic, Excellent, Mind boggling good, and then some.
Let me say though that speaker placement is very important. They sound good out of the box, but with correct placement, they are great. I spent a couple of hours of fiddling around, moving couple inches front and back and side to side and in the end I got them singing. I know that over the next few weeks they will be tweaked until perfect. They are about 6 ½ feet from each other, about 2 feet from the back wall and almost 3 feet from the side walls. I crossed them over at 80htz with my dual SVS PB12nsd.
After I had them set up I pulled out my Tracy Chapman – love her voice- and inserted the disc. Right off the bat, I could hear the guitar clear as day, and when she began singing my eyes welled up with tears and my mouth fell open. I closed my eyes and I thought that I could almost hug her as was there!!!!!!!! Her voice was right there in front of me. Not just there, but in close proximity. I could hear when she inhaled and exhaled to hit every note, it was outstanding.
But to be honest, Tracy does not hit multiple notes as other female singers. So I decided to try Susan Boyle “I dreamed a dream” this should really give the Verus Grand a workout, and it did. But, it seems that that is what they wanted. Susan as never sounded that good. At the beginning of that song, there is only her and a Piano and that was surreal, but later all the instruments come in to play. On my other speakers, this section would sound severely congested, not so with the verus grand. All the sounds were channeled properly and precisely to my untrained ears. It did not sound congested at all, I could easily hear Susan and all the instruments, I was ecstatic. I then thought to myself, these are the speakers that I have wanted for many many years, money well spent.
I could not get enough so I decide to try some male voices. I took out Michael Jacksons “ Thriller” and the best of Teddy Pendergrass albums.
First up was Michael. I played, # 3 “Girl is mine” with Paul Mccartney, and I perhaps played this song 6 or 7 times as I could not believe how good it sounded I was again awestruck, Michael had been resurrected, and the voices were a clear as bell. There is a section in the latter part of the song where Paul speaks to Michael, this gave me goose bumps, for a moment I thought he called my name, it was sooo real!!!
What about Teddy P? As most of you may know, Teddy has a deep but smooth voice. There is a song on his album “ Hold Me in your arms” with him and Whitney Houston which is a lovely duet. However, the transition between the male and female voices especially those two can be a bit of a handful for speakers- those that I have owed- I know as this is one of my favorite songs. Again theVerus Grands was up to the task, they took it on as if they knew it was coming, and served it with warmth as I have never heard before. Whitney and Teddy have never sounded better to me.
Unfortunately, I was not able to listen to any movies, Just the TV so I can’t comment extensively on that area. But, what I heard from just watching the Olympics, the VGC is a nice sounding center channel. Oh, did I say that this thing is HUGE. Yes its, big but sounds clear. I will offer my comments on the movie experience at a later date.
So am I impressed with these speakers? YES, YES, YES. Thank you Aperion for a lovely set of speakers.
I have been criticized in the past for saying that I think the Verus Grands would be a better speaker than the EMP E55Ti that I previously owed. Well, while my opinion is highly subjective, it is MY opinion that they are not in the same league. The Verus Grands are better in every way in MY room. They are also better than my Paradigm Phantoms that I also sold a while back.
I would highly recommend these speakers to anyone who is on the fence. Are there better speakers? I am sure. But for me, these will be in my room for many years to come.
I can’t wait to leave work and go home to listen to more music. I love these speakers.
Now if I could just figure out how to post some pics. Arrrgh
