Not Thrilled with Vandersteen 2CE Sigs - where is the first place to work on?
Trying to build up the system this year, bought some Vandy 2CE Sigs. Have the anchors, following instructions for placement, built bass traps and a couple of acoustic panels in my medium-sized but odd-shaped basement listening area - still not thrilled. Using laptop with Tidal and Dragonfly Red - and some stuff sounds GREAT (Steely Dan, SRV, Beck, Dire Straits, Wilco) - but disappointed in a lot of other stuff. Some objective opinions on where my issues might lie? Expectations too high? Hearing the truth of production variations? Running an NAD C272 at 150WPC and an original 1979 APT Holman Pre Amp. Not MAC, Bryston, etc - but was expecting more. Thoughts? Rebuild/recap the APT? Amp upgrade? Where might the low-hanging fruit be?
Teh Vandersteen’s are actually very easy to drive. I’ve driven them with lower and higher power amps and all have sounded incredible. I’ve never heard anyone say they sounded like crap.
Most of the time it’s poor recordings. Way too often we are hearing poorly recorded music or possibly damaged speakers or amps. It can happen with any good gear.
Guys, I have done that comparison of a pair of 2's with covers on and covers removed. It was in the late 90's at a dealer who had to install new socks for a customer so we started to play. None of us hear any difference. Richard knows how to design a top sounding speaker in the price ranges he plays in.
I did some bypassing in a 2CE Signature's crossovers. They were using 3 electrolytic capacitors in series to filter out something in the tweeter. I bypassed them with Teflon V-Caps. The caps were .01uf, well, very well within the normal +/- 10% tolerance for capacitors, and the tweeters sounded horrid. I substituted other tweeters, and they sounded fine, so it was definitely a problem with the tweeter they used. When you use 3 electrolytic capacitors in series, you are compensating for quite a problem as normally you just use 1 capacitor. Capacitors of low quality, like most electrolytic capacitors are, are like dound sponges, absorbing detail. Anyway, normally I would suggest upgrading the components in the crossovers, but don't try it in the 2CE Signatures. This may not be true of the original, or any other versions, but the original Signature models had thid issue.
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Vandersteen has never in 46 years ever used an electrolytic cap on any tweeter! Don't know what you bypassed, but they use electrolytics only for resonant peak filters or impedance compensator networks for phase.
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