Aperion Audio Verus Surround Dipole/Bipole Speaker Preview

When we first reviewed the Verus Grand speakers from Aperion Audio our first thought was, "What, no dedicated surround?" Sure, the Verus Grand bookshelf speaker is a quality offering, but in a dedicated home theater, you don't want a bookshelf on a stand for a surround. No, you want something wall mounted. We immediately started bugging Aperion for a surround speaker. Finally, they come through and have introduced the Verus Surround Speaker.

To be honest, the Verus Surround speaker is designed to be paired with the Verus Forte line more than the Verus Grand. It shares the same coaxial driver as the Verus Forte Satellite speaker though it is priced more in line with the Grand line at $299 each. Like many dipole/bipole designs, the Verus Surround has a trapezoidal shape with the drivers on the two angled faces. In the case of the Verus Surround, this equates to a single 4.25" Aperion PhaseSync driver with integrated 1" Aperion ASR tweeter on each side. They are mounted fairly high up on the baffle with a small, flared port near the bottom. We're not sure if there is a port on each baffle or if there is only one.

The back of the speaker is fairly spartan with a single set of five-way binding posts and two rubber nubs that cover threaded inserts for use with the included wall bracket. The speaker is a relatively heavy 13 pounds and is 9.5" tall by 13" wide by 7" deep. Like the rest of the Verus line, the Verus Surround eschews the industry standard MDF for the more rigid (and expensive) HDF for the enclosure material. The speaker comes in either a high gloss black or high gloss cherry furniture-grade veneer with acoustically transparent, magnetic grilles. A 10 year warranty, free shipping, and lifetime technical support are included as they are with all Aperion offerings.

There are a few concerns with the Verus Surround speaker from Aperion. First, the "pictures" on the site look more like renderings than actual photographs. From what we could see, there is no bipole/dipole switch. In fact, we looked in the downloadable manual and there is no indication anywhere in the text how to change the speaker from bipole to dipole. Also, the frequency response rating is a bit concerning. The Verus Surround is rated down to 90Hz at -3dB and 80Hz at -6dB. We generally like to see a surround speaker play down to -3dB at 80Hz for easier integration with a subwoofer.  We're curious to hear how this speaker would hold up in a real world environment, especially with boundary gain helping out the bass response when mounted against a side wall.  We still recommend an 80Hz crossover setting as a starting point for your system.  But, if you have the ability to set the crossover higher for the surrounds, you may achieve better results with a 90Hz setting.  Remember though that its usually inadvisable to set a global crossover much higher than 80Hz which will bring the subwoofer into the range were even casual listeners can localize it.

Conclusion

The Aperion Audio Verus Surround speaker fills a hole in the Verus line that has been begging for a plug. While we still have some questions about the speaker (how to switch it from dipole to bipole, how well it will integrate with a sub) there is no denying it is a welcome addition to the line. Meant (from the driver choice) to be paired with the Verus Forte line rather than the Verus Grand, we look forward to the Verus Surround's bigger brother. Right, Aperion?

For more information, please visit www.aperionaudio.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.