I recently moved to a larger dwelling with a living room of app. 50 m2 (twice as large as the one in my old home). After I noticed that my speakers, Audiostatic electrostatics, lacked stamina to fill up the room with air I decided to buy new speakers. (BTW my amp is AVM M4 40 W class A, a german brand.) Because my wife wasn't too impressed with the looks of the big electrostatics it had to be something smaller, yes I have a family too! After reading some audio magazines and consulting several experts, I decided to go for either Thiel 2.3 or Audio Physic Virgo. Thiel proved to be a very neutral speaker with dry bass, nice focus and wide sound stage, but in combination with my amp and cables (Syltech) the sound was too harsh and the presentation quite intimidating, not my cup of tea. A matter of 'amp and cables' I guess. The Audio Physic on the other hand combined very well with my amp and cables. What a speaker: beautifull, wide and deep sound stage, neutral (though nut as pure as the Thiel), lots of detail, transparant, and good looks, just right for me... and my wife. I bought them. It is not very difficult to set them up, even in my L-shape living room. The designer advises to audition this speaker at very close range (about 1 or 2 meters distance, although not very practical in my room), to avoid room reflections. I tried it and the result is amazing. You can almost touch the musicians.BTW, it's strange that in the Netherland the Audio Physic Virgo ($ 4.200.-) is about $800.- cheaper than the Thiel 2.3 ($5.000.-). In the States its the other way around. The Thiel 2.3 is about $ 3.000.-, the Virgo $ 5.400.-. I wonder how prive differences like these influence the appriciation of a product, especially in shops and audio magazines.

I have been looking for new speakers and listening to tons of them. NOTHING has come close to the Virgo's... EXCEPT the $20,000 offerings from Audio Physic. Thought I did find the Virgo's to be a bit picky when it came to Amplifiers (I LOVE them with the BEL mk.3, HATED it with Spectral & tube amps), I found the bass to be SO unbelievable I thought I was in a GOOD club! The stereo image was the best 3d image I have heard... and the detail was within 2% of Martian Logans driven by a Krell PSB600!
There are so many impressive TECHNICAL details -- like the fact that the tweeter is "floating" on the front of the cabinet... that the front is only as wide as it needs to be... that the twin in-phase side firing bass speakers are DESIGNED to have their bass waves wrap around the front of the cabinet to form a "virtual" bass speaker that is MUCH larger than the smaller, simpler to control 6"-ers on the sides... PLUS the side firing waves add extra late bass waves IN PHASE with the front firing "image".... that the speakers are not only matches left to right, but from tweeter to mid to bass... and that the indivudual speakers roll off so well that the only "crossover" is a inductor for the bass and a cap for the tweeter is SIMPLY GENIOUS!

Plus they look kewl as all hell!

I have GOT to get these speakers! They sound MUCH better than B&W 802's, Ariels, Martain Logans, Genesis, EVERYTHING!

http://homepage.interaccess.com/~dkelly/mystereo.htm

I have owned the Virgos for about 2 years and continue to be amazed. I was shopping for Thiel, Martin-Logan, Dunlavy--until I heard the Virgos. All the positive attributes discussed in the other submissions apply, though I have to emphasize an overall coherence and spatial accuracy simply not found elsewhere for anything near the price. Surprisingly, they do well in my smallish (17x11')room if set up on the long wall. These are speakers to build a system around! BTW, they are also easy to live with; the narrow, deep design being unobtrusive, the finish quality first-rate. (Virgos don't come with grilles--why do other manufacturers bother?) Highly recommended.

Nice speakers, but not to drool over... So they disappear, so what? Any decent speaker disappears in those well-treated dealer rooms.

I still feel that they are not close to electrostatics. In my opinion, once setup properly, SL3 and above Martin Logans or Soundlab Aura are far superior products. For the box designs, I prefer B&W.

I heard them connected to ARC VT100 MKII amp, Theta Miles CD player, MIT megabucks cables. I also noticed that the dealer was switching the speaker cables during the demo, conveniently connecting cheaper speaker cables for other speakers.

I have to admit I was surprised, but not amazed, to hear the bass that was coming out of these based on their size and shape.

Off the tangent, there is something wrong with this whole speaker market. Any decent speaker costs $5K+. No matter how you calculate, it just does not add up to that amount. I don't see $5K in Virgos when each driver costs probably $100, and it has 4 drivers and MDF afterall. Well, it is our hobby and hype that drives this whole thing and we just live with it...

I am a musician, and in my experience listening to the Virgos, which I now own, these speakers get me closer to the music. No other speaker theat I have experienced, can dissappear like they do. And that is just not a parlor trick, when you consider what is required to create realistic and natural holographic imgages from speakers, you must respect what these speakers are doing. Because it is NOT just that they dissappear, it is also that the instruments truly sound real, and not just like sounds emanating from different points in space. When I recently visited IMMEDIA's new website, I also found a wealth of information that helped me to truly set-up my system as it was designed to be played. Kudos to you Audio Physic.
5 stars

I have been overwhelmed by the email I have been receiving about these speakers. I have letterally received probably 200 emails over the last 6 months asking about my experiences with these. Two people have ended up actually buying them, or at least so they said.
I am very glad to have helped so many people in the direction of these fine speakers and cannot recommend them enough.

I listened to many speakers at diffrent dealers, Aerials, B&W, Theil, Wilson, Joseph Audio, Paradigm(HORRIBLE), ProAcs, Meadowlark, JmLabs and others. I was willing to spend up to 10k or so, didnt have to... These things do it for me!!! I listened to 50s and early 60s jazz, blues, folk and some rock. I heard nothing more smooth and alive then the Virgos. I auditioned them on krell equipment at Sound by Singer in NYC and it was over in 10 minutes. I bought them through and ad in the back of stereophile for 35% off retail new in the boxes. I have them connected to all Pass amp and preamp and an Audio Research CD-2 with a synergistic refrence power cord (big diffrence). I also have a Magnum Etude and a Wilson Benech turntable and all Nordost SPM cabling through out. This is some way to listen to Ben Webster at midnite!!! Buy these and spend the rest of your money on music....
By the way... I bet none of the negative reviews of these speakers are by people that own them and listen to them at home.

Can't convince her to buy them...(she didn't go to Sound by Singer, that's why). Should I divorce, fellows? :)
This real object of desire will make you go to heaven. Well, to the concert hall, at least. Just make this test: Listen to "The Trout" from Schubert (A.Schiff and co.) in your system. Not an spectacular CD really, isn't it?
Now go listen on the Virgo's: That cello can almost be touched (it is some 4 meters back, 1.5 -maybe 1.6- meters at the side. The viola is somewhat closer). The same for each and every other instrument. Listen how they touch the cords with the bow!
The only other place i have heard that realism is at the fourth row of the concert hall.
The only thing making some competition is the Nautilius 802, but these are much, much better at 50% less money.

Transparency, soundstaging, detail

Slightly lean bass

I am an audio enthusiast who has always envied those with enough money to buy audiophile equipment. Until two weeks ago, I had a very typical mid-low-fi setup consisting of a NAD AV713 receiver, Phase Tech PC-80 speakers (currently replaced by the Phase Tech PC-2 speakers), and a fairly old Sony ES-series CD player. But I finally saved up to buy a better system...and arriving two weeks ago, I am now the proud owner of a Mark Levinson 383 integrated amp, an Arcam FMJ-CD23 cd player, and the Audio Physic Virgo loudspeakers. I've spent the last two weeks breaking everything in...

I'll start off by saying that I am completely thrilled by the sound of my new setup. Even my wife, who is usually satisfied listening to cassettes on a small boombox, sat up and took notice when I first turned on the new setup. Right out of the box, this new system produced a very deep, transparent and detailed soundstage. I did notice a thinness in the lower bass, and sometimes there was some roughness in sustained vocals or brass instruments.

Over the break-in period (which is clearly not over), there were definite changes in the sound presentation. Oddly, there was a day where things got a little worse, not better...the midrange became a little too pronounced and things sounded just a tad tinny. But it went away, and since then, everything has just gotten better. The bass continues to be lean, but I wouldn't characterize it as thin...it is much better than the first day I listened to it, and I actually like it better than very thunderous bass that some other speakers have.

I bought the Virgos without ever having heard them with the Levinson 383. I had demoed them with both the Krell FPB300 and the Krell KAV-300i...loved them with the FPB300, liked them with the KAV-300i...and took the chance that, having liked Levinson gear more than Krell in every A/B comparison, that the Virgos would match well with the Levinson. After two weeks of nearly non-stop listening, I must say that I couldn't be happier with the match.

I spent about 4 months researching for this new system. Demoed a ton of speakers and many electronics. Obviously, in the end, I picked the Virgos, but here are some comments about the other speakers I listened to:

Vienna Acoustics Beethoven - These were the first high-end speakers I listened to. I was blown away, but don't know if I would still be after having auditioned everything that I have. Got knocked off my shortlist after hearing many stories of quality control problems with the woofers.

Aerial Acoustics 8 - very similar to the Virgos, with fuller bass but less impressive soundstaging and transparency. Soundstaging and transparency are more important than fuller bass for me.

Dynaudio Contour 3.0 - Very sweet high-end, good imaging...but slightly sloppy bass.

B&W Nautilus 803 - Excellent all-around...not the best at anything, but #2 or #3 in everything. Primary issue is that they seem to need a lot of power to drive them, and the Levinson 383 is only 100wpc. The resulting sound was a little restrained.

Energy 2+3 - Arguably the best 3D soundstage; not only from left to right, but front to back. Listening to a recording of a live musical performance made me feel like I was in the concert hall like no other speaker I have heard. But while the soundstage was excellent, there was a definitely noticeable lack of detail.

Thiel S6 - Excellent...honestly, these were as good if not better than the Virgos in just about every respect. However, they did not pass my wife's "do they match our furniture?" inspection. If I were still a bachelor, it would have been a really tough decision between these and the Virgos.

I give the Virgos 5 stars for value (compared with speakers that sound as good, they are lower priced) and 5 stars for performance (compared with similarly-priced speakers, they are among the best I listened to)

ps. The Virgos do not have bi-ampable binding posts, but an authorized dealer can retrofit bi-ampable posts on request for a small fee. It took me forever to find this out...!

pss. The folks at Audio Outlet in Mt. Kisco, NY (www.audiooutlet.com) are extremely friendly! They are also extremely enthusiastic about the Virgos, offering tons of advice about speaker placement and such. I auditioned the Virgos at Sound by Singer in NYC, but they were so rude I went out of my way to find another dealer.

Similar Products Used:

demoed Aeriel Acoustics 8, Dynaudio Contour 3.0, Vienna Acoustics Beethoven, B&W Nautilus 803, Thiel S6, Energy 2+3

I had owned a pair of Magnapan MGIIIa speakers for more than ten years and I loved them. However, I was moving across country and my wife argued strongly that I should get smaller speakers - but good quality ones.

I listened to many many speakers such as Thiel, B&W, Ariel, Hale, Vanderstein, Meadowlark and many were good but did not GRAB me. When I listened to the Audio Physic Virgo's I knew I had found just what I was looking for. Floorstanding, but with a very small footprint, great mid-range, tight bass, top notch imageing, and a warm clean sound.

It is very important to place these speakers properly to get the best from them. I spent quite a bit of time carefully adjusting their placement but it was well worth it.

These are outstanding speakers at a fair price. To do better you will need to spend much more money.