tips for Vandersteen 3A sig

When I had 3aSigs, I found the following made significant differences:

1) Using a McCormack DNA amp with them really brought out their way powerful bass & helped alleviate some of the slowness.

2) Using biwire speaker cables made a big difference.

3) Following the setup instructions to a T. Use the room mode calculations provided & the forward/rear tip-in charts for listening heights. It seems all vandersteens are sensitive to proper setup/tweeking.

I had both the mccormack dna1/revaGold and an arc vt100m2 on the van 3aSigs. I thought the mccormack was a much better match for the 3aSigs. I found the vt100 sounded great, but was a little slower than the mccormack - as you would expect for a tube vs solid state. I also had some 160Watt sfm-160 tube monos on the 3a signs. Less resolution, warmer, but with more power than the vt100. The mccormack was head and shoulders the best amp for the 3aSigs. It brought out the bass & quickened up the speakers. Vandersteens are inherently warm sounding. I think this is why they don't really need a tube amp (imho) to sound good. Steve mccormacks hot-rod outfit actually uses the 3aSig to voice the revA,b,c modifications to the dna series amplifiers. A match made in heaven imho.

John.