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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?
gjinwi

Showing 2 responses by stereo5

stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,524 posts
 
I had 2CI’s for over 20 years and loved them. A friend sold me his 2CE’s Signature for an extremely cheap price. Replaced the 2CI with the 2CE in the exact same spots, sounded like s**t. Figured it couldn’t be the speakers so replaced all system components right down to all the cables, plus experimented with different positioning. They still sounded like s**t. Stopped listening to system for 6 months. After 6 months, tried it again and still hated them. Stupidly, I gave away the 2CI to a fellow Audiogoner for free and ended up selling the 2CE. For whatever reason, they did not sound good in my system.

I was using a 175wpc Classe’ amp and an AI Modulus 3A pre, VPI HW19mk II turntable, Pioneer PD65 CD Player, AudioQuest cables and speaker wire.  I bought Von Schweikert VR33 speakers which were an even bigger disaster.  
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,524 posts
 
@audioconnection ,

Johnny...........those speakers are long gone now, as are the VS VR33 speakers.   It never did occur to me that the speakers could have been damaged.  They sounded distorted.  I was with my friend when he bought them up in Nashua, NH and he never changed any drivers.   He wouldn’t know how and would have had me do it.  Maybe he blew something in the X overs.  At any rate, I spent a lot of money on the rest of the system and it really did sound bad.  
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