Kef 104/2 or Vandersteen 2ci - vintage shoot-out

Vandersteen is my favourite speaker, but I haven't heard the 2ci in a very long time. I've had Kef also, but not the Model you list. When you listen to the Vandersteen's keep in mind that setup is absolutely critical to get best results. Even though a lot of people own them, very few set them up properly. It would probably be a good idea to download the Model 2 owners manual and read through it to see what I'm talking about. If they only have the manual for the newest version, the setup instructions should be the same. Also make sure that have them on stands.

If this is your first pair of Vandersteen's the main thing to worry about is setting them up properly. The manual goes over that in great detail, its pretty easy to do. Also, Vandersteen's benefit greatly from full double biwiring. That's 2 separate runs of speaker cables, not internal biwire. The upside is that you do not have to use expensive cables to do this. You can if you want to, but I find 2 separate runs of cheap cable will outperform single runs of expensive cable. If you decide to do this, just make sure the cables are identical. Other than that, when you are done setting them up, they should sound quite a bit better then they did during the demo.