Sorry to hear you lost out Jimbo, hope some others opinions on here will not disuade you from ever hearing a pair of VSA speakers if you get the opportunity. Simon Phipps who runs the UK agency for VSA mentioned to me in our last telephone conversation that he is hoping to have a good VSA exhibit at the Hi-Fi News show at Heathrow later this year. I think he may be setting these up with Lumley (or is it LAMM,...can't remember) amps and Wadia
digital source, but not entirely sure, I know he carries Lumley's or LAMM's and his personal preference for a digital front-end is Wadia.
However, there is a wealth of knowledge, experience and talent on this forum to give you plenty more opinions on other speakers that could fit your requirements.
It's been a pretty good debate guys, just worth noting though, that anyone ever relying on purely Internet based information as a guide needs to be very careful. You only have to look at the policy for any higher level education work on references to realise that web quotes are not the most reliable form of facts.
Stereo Mic, your morals don't offend me, I don't know you enough to make any kind of judgement call on your moral principles, I was just simply making a statement about your grammatical terminology. As for the VR-1 being highly revealing, yes it is somewhat, but my earlier comments about 'revealing qualities' was primarily directed at WadiaMasters experience on the VR-4's.
Hope we are all still friends, beer at the next audio show anyone?

(although I don't drink myself).