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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
lous's avatar
lous
203 posts
 

Here's the thing. Everyone has different preferences where music is concerned. I love to hear differences between cables, I am not at all sure that I could do so with especially older Vandersteens. Some prefer that, Vandersteens are, shall we say, smooth and warm? Lovers of that sound would likely call my system cold and harsh. To me, my system is pretty close to being there. The sound stage is well defined and there are plenty of spatial information, instruments are pin point, I just lack depth of sound stage. Many would dislike that amount of information. Older Vandersteen speakers are a treasure if you like them. If not, keep looking. Don't argue about other people's druthers concerning music. Not all car lovers love old boat Caddys, or old muscle cars, or McClarens. 

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highend64
277 posts
 

I have the 2ci they do sound different from other speakers I had but I would say is is more of a natural, realistic sound with a warm touch. It is all personal preference. Room layout and speakers position are crucial for the these models. I have the 2ci in a small room and I do agree they can open up in a much bigger room but my situation, It is not possible so I have to compensate and fix certain problems. 

ctsooner
2,480 posts
 

 

lous's avatar
lous

190 posts

 

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.

 

The above is directly from Richard.  

 
qdrone
1,039 posts
 

That Era Vandersteens love Kimber Cable speaker cable. It's a match made in heaven.

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