Talk to the teenager first! What he wants may be very different than what you, or his father, envisage. If you don't find out what he has in mind, his father runs the risk of spending a lot of money but ending up with something his son doesn't want. As you are one of the long-time posters on Audiogon, and I am relatively new at this, I offer my own views with some degree of circumspection. Still, you might want to consider the following.
When my older son graduated from high school, he resolutely refused to accept as a graduation present my offer of a traditional audio system of standalone components. He did not want, and would not let me buy him, a CD player, integrated amp or receiver, or bookshelf or floorstanding speakers, regardless of brand. What he did want, and what I ended up getting him, was a Dell laptop PC with a fast processor and large hard drive, a pair of Sennheiser m@h80 headphones designed for laptops, and a Cambridge Soundworks MicroWorks multimedia amplified sub/sat system designed for computers. After having this setup for a year and a half, he's very happy with it, and wouldn't trade it for anything.
Why? He's going to college, and he lives in a small dorm room with another student. Audio components and bookshelf speakers would take up too much room on his desk and shelves. There's enough ambient noise outside (taxis, buses, police sirens) that sonic purity is fundamentally unobtainable. There are also enough other people studying hard nearby that playing music at high volume for any length of time is socially unacceptable. (Hey, it's a tough school, and this is a different generation.) His setup lets him use the computer to play CDs and MP3s, and also to research and write papers, send and receive e-mail, and surf the web. The Sennheiser m@h80s sound decent, are very comfortable to wear for long periods of time, and don't bother his roommate the math major. The satellite speakers take up very little room on his bookshelves, the sub tucks away under the desk, and they sound good enough and play loud enough to enjoy when friends drop by to visit, without screaming "steal me."
You'd be incorrect to assume from these choices that he is a troglodyte addicted to lo-fi rock MP3s. He listens more to classical music than to rock, attends live classical concerts, broadcasts a classical music show on the campus radio station, and plays in the school's wind ensemble. He's broadcast Alisa Weilerstein live in person from his radio studio, and he's heard Hilary Hahn, Joshua Bell and Renee Fleming perform live in concert (cheap student tickets are a wonderful thing), so he knows what well-played music sounds like. He is, however, a college student, so what he wants is a laptop-based multipurpose system that fits into his net-centric, dorm room lifestyle. Things change over time...
My other son, who's in high school, was willing at least to consider a more traditional component-style audio system. He did not, however, want it to take up too much space or cost too much money. He definitely did not want three or four components stacked on top of each other. I hunted around for a while, and found an NAD L40 available as a demo. If you're not familiar with the unit, it's a CD player, 20 wpc integrated amp, and tuner built into a single chassis. The CD player and tuner both produce very clean sound, the amp seems to have more reserves of power than the rating would suggest and has no trouble playing cleanly at any volume he wants to listen to, and the price for the demo unit wasn't much more than one would expect to pay for a single component. NAD got this one right. ("Hey, Dad -- this sounds, uh, clearer than what I had before.") Good compact speakers come next; I'm still working on those. PSB Alpha B's, maybe.
If your son's friend wants a more traditional set of separates, and his father doesn't want to break the bank, you might consider the following $1,537 system which, although not the ultimate in sound, would probably sound good for the money. These items and prices were located on the net using Google without much effort. Others would doubtless offer alternate choices for any one of the components, but the general point would be to allocate the budget reasonably between components and get decent but not overpriced cables.
-- NAD C320BEE integrated amp, $399
-- Cambridge Audio D500SE CDP, $429
-- Vandersteen 1c speakers, +/- $449 used
-- Kimber PBJ ICs, $84 for 1m pair
-- Kimber 4VS speaker cables, $80 for 6 ft. pair
-- Cardas Twinlink power cable for CDP, $96 for 5 ft.
-- Total = $1,537 plus shipping
While the Vandersteen 2 speakers you mentioned offer excellent sound from everything I have heard, they may be too expensive, and require too much in the way of amplifier power, to be affordable for the kind of budget-oriented system the father of your son's friend has in mind. A lot depends on how much he's willing to spend, of course, and how good you are at sniffing out bargain prices for equipment. Still, by the time you are done finding an amp, a CD player and some cables good enough to do justice to the Vandersteen 2 speakers, the total cost of the system will probably exceed the budget available.
Well, there you have it, three completely different approaches to pick from. I don't know which one will work best for your son's friend and his father. Before you decide, talk to your son's friend first, ask him in an open-ended way what he wants, and listen carefully to what he seems to have in mind before offering suggestions. It's not just about sound quality, it's also about the way he lives. Talk to his father about budget, too. The closer you are to the living situation, type of system and budget that he and his father have in mind, the more likely they both are to be satisfied with your recommendation.
