"I haven’t heard Vandersteen speakers, so I couldn’t comment on their sound. Though the consensus is they are good value speakers at their price point."
If you want Vandersteens just toss towels over decent speakers. Vandersteens are for folks who want to mellow out everything so it sounds smooth, often they confuse detail with brightness.
That’s the problem with speakers though, everyone has different goals and taste. I LOVE detail, BUT that always has my system on the razor’s edge, if a recording was recorded brightly, your ears will be bleeding on my stereo, on Vandersteens you may finally hear a little detail. I once bypassed THREE capacitors IN SERIES on a pair of Vandersteens with V-Caps, the tweeter was unlistenable. They used 3 capacitors in series to dumb down the signal. If the driver sounds like crap out of the box, why would anyone use it? Ask Vandersteen, I sure don’t get it!
I have gone full range. Ditch the crossovers and then the B.S. about "XYZ was in the room" becomes true with the right electronics. Call Don Sachs, he’ll set you strait, but he has a long lead time for building amps and preamps, but they are worth the wait. He uses Roy Mottram designed electronics. Roy sells the same gear, but Don limits out Roy’s designs. If 90% will suffice, you can save time and money buying from Roy. If you want to tweak, go with Roy, either way you’ll have amazing gear for reasonable prices, but Don will be able talk speakers with you. He’ll refer you to David, and you’ll swear that David is full of it, but he has a 30 day return policy, so if he is, take advantage of it.
I have had, and tweaked a lot of speakers many would consider to be great, but they never came close to Quad 57’s in realism, my full range drivers smoke Quads. NOTHING else that I have ever heard made me think that Quads were not the best mids I have heard! You can get into some inexpensively with Mark Audio Alpair 10.3’s. Madisound has them on sale for $88 a driver, all you need to do is find a cabinet maker. I’d go MFD, if you don’t like them you not out much, if you love them, they can veneer them in about any flavor of wood you prefer. Don would recommend Audio Nirvana Classic 15 ALNICOs ($1199/pr). That’s what I went with. Don does live music all the time and has a great ear.
Don’t forget, that advice is worth every penny you paid for it!
If you want Vandersteens just toss towels over decent speakers. Vandersteens are for folks who want to mellow out everything so it sounds smooth, often they confuse detail with brightness.
That’s the problem with speakers though, everyone has different goals and taste. I LOVE detail, BUT that always has my system on the razor’s edge, if a recording was recorded brightly, your ears will be bleeding on my stereo, on Vandersteens you may finally hear a little detail. I once bypassed THREE capacitors IN SERIES on a pair of Vandersteens with V-Caps, the tweeter was unlistenable. They used 3 capacitors in series to dumb down the signal. If the driver sounds like crap out of the box, why would anyone use it? Ask Vandersteen, I sure don’t get it!
I have gone full range. Ditch the crossovers and then the B.S. about "XYZ was in the room" becomes true with the right electronics. Call Don Sachs, he’ll set you strait, but he has a long lead time for building amps and preamps, but they are worth the wait. He uses Roy Mottram designed electronics. Roy sells the same gear, but Don limits out Roy’s designs. If 90% will suffice, you can save time and money buying from Roy. If you want to tweak, go with Roy, either way you’ll have amazing gear for reasonable prices, but Don will be able talk speakers with you. He’ll refer you to David, and you’ll swear that David is full of it, but he has a 30 day return policy, so if he is, take advantage of it.
I have had, and tweaked a lot of speakers many would consider to be great, but they never came close to Quad 57’s in realism, my full range drivers smoke Quads. NOTHING else that I have ever heard made me think that Quads were not the best mids I have heard! You can get into some inexpensively with Mark Audio Alpair 10.3’s. Madisound has them on sale for $88 a driver, all you need to do is find a cabinet maker. I’d go MFD, if you don’t like them you not out much, if you love them, they can veneer them in about any flavor of wood you prefer. Don would recommend Audio Nirvana Classic 15 ALNICOs ($1199/pr). That’s what I went with. Don does live music all the time and has a great ear.
Don’t forget, that advice is worth every penny you paid for it!