Tower Speaker Reviews

Setup
With three identical VS 224 LCR speakers hunkered down in the front left, center, and right positions, it was pretty easy to achieve a coherent front soundstage, even while the left and right VS 224s were oriented vertically, and the center VS 224 was deployed horizontally. The bookshelf VS 240s were placed on stands on the sides of my home theater.

While running my Onkyo TX-SR805 A/V receiver's test tones to set speaker levels, I was also impressed by the speakers' timbre matching. True, the vertically oriented left/right VS 224s had a slightly brighter, more forward sound than the center-channel VS 224. Then again, the left and right speakers were placed on stands in free space, while the center VS 224 was on the shelf under my Panasonic plasma display. No wonder they sounded slightly different.

So sure, wall mounting all three VS 224s would no doubt improve their timbre matching. Not that I'm complaining about the way the five VS speakers sounded together—their soundstage was right up there with the best I've heard from this type of system.

After a little experimenting with my Onkyo TX-SR805's speaker setup/bass management, I wound up crossing over the VS 224s at 90Hz and the VS 240s at 100Hz. That's in the ballpark of what Onkyo recommends—anything between 80 and 120Hz.

The VPS 210 as one of the best under-$2K subs to come my way in a long time, and it did a great job matching up with the VS satellites. There was nary a hint of the "hole in the bass" malady that afflicts so many systems with lifestyle aspirations. The Boston ensemble simply sounded like a larger floorstanding system—which is, after all, the whole idea.