I recently had a go with Vandy 2CE Sig IIs. Despite many attempts with various setup configurations, I just didn’t find them nearly as impressive as expected. It might be that 100watt/ch amps don’t provide enough juice, idk, but I couldn’t get them to sound nearly as good as what I remembered of the 1Cis. I found the midrange was recessed and only average imaging. Keep in mind this was in a dedicated listening room with plenty of space for speaker positioning and acoustic treatments.
Where I think you’ll find difficulty in replacing the 2CEs is the bass. Few speakers in this price range play as deep, and if they do, it lacks definition. I use good stereo subs in my system which made this a non-issue.
One speaker that immediately comes to mind is the Stirling Broadcast LS3/6. It won’t play as deep as the 2CEs, but in my room, they definitely have the upper hand in imaging and resolution, by a large margin. They’re easy to dismiss by their looks but that’d be a mistake. They are every bit deserving of their price tag, and even a bargain compared to many I’ve auditioned. The midrange is as good or better than any speaker I’ve heard, at any price point. Music Direct currently has an open-box pair for $4600. I’ve seen brand new pairs listed for an even $5K, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d accept $4K or just a little over. They do require stands, and the best option (Sound Anchors) command about $600.
Another speaker I really enjoyed is the Spatial Audio M4 Triode Master. This speaker imaged well in terms of width and depth but lacked the pinpoint imaging you can get from a good mini-monitor (think LS50 or LS3/5a). Of course everything in speaker design involves trade-offs, so what the Spatials lacked in imaging precision, they made up for in soundstage scale. They can play really loud before compressing and produce realistic scale better than probably any other speaker at that price point. Resolution was also quite a bit better than the 2CEs, with a tweeter/midrange driver that sounds more like beryllium than it does titanium.
Being as I value imaging precision over absolute scale, I decided not to keep them.
If you you’re not one of those who really struggle to integrate subs in your system, you might consider a small 2-way monitor that gets high-passed through high-quality subs. To my ears, this is the best approach for achieving full-range sound along with great, transparent imaging and not draining one’s IRA.
Many smallish 2-way monitors compete well with the megabuck speakers in the midrange and above, partially because they don’t have large cabinet surfaces to tame. I find more and more that I agree with the ol’ assertion that "large speakers have large problems" (can’t recall which speaker designer said it first).
Where I think you’ll find difficulty in replacing the 2CEs is the bass. Few speakers in this price range play as deep, and if they do, it lacks definition. I use good stereo subs in my system which made this a non-issue.
One speaker that immediately comes to mind is the Stirling Broadcast LS3/6. It won’t play as deep as the 2CEs, but in my room, they definitely have the upper hand in imaging and resolution, by a large margin. They’re easy to dismiss by their looks but that’d be a mistake. They are every bit deserving of their price tag, and even a bargain compared to many I’ve auditioned. The midrange is as good or better than any speaker I’ve heard, at any price point. Music Direct currently has an open-box pair for $4600. I’ve seen brand new pairs listed for an even $5K, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d accept $4K or just a little over. They do require stands, and the best option (Sound Anchors) command about $600.
Another speaker I really enjoyed is the Spatial Audio M4 Triode Master. This speaker imaged well in terms of width and depth but lacked the pinpoint imaging you can get from a good mini-monitor (think LS50 or LS3/5a). Of course everything in speaker design involves trade-offs, so what the Spatials lacked in imaging precision, they made up for in soundstage scale. They can play really loud before compressing and produce realistic scale better than probably any other speaker at that price point. Resolution was also quite a bit better than the 2CEs, with a tweeter/midrange driver that sounds more like beryllium than it does titanium.
Being as I value imaging precision over absolute scale, I decided not to keep them.
If you you’re not one of those who really struggle to integrate subs in your system, you might consider a small 2-way monitor that gets high-passed through high-quality subs. To my ears, this is the best approach for achieving full-range sound along with great, transparent imaging and not draining one’s IRA.
Many smallish 2-way monitors compete well with the megabuck speakers in the midrange and above, partially because they don’t have large cabinet surfaces to tame. I find more and more that I agree with the ol’ assertion that "large speakers have large problems" (can’t recall which speaker designer said it first).