vandersteen 2ce sig/ 3a sig power requirements


just auditioned both speakers with ss and tube gear what a difference. tubes blew away ss big time. listened to the 2's with 60 watt audio research integrated amp vs. 200 watt seperates which cost twice as much. unfortunately only listened to the 3's with 100 watt tube seperates (newbie error). prefered the 3's alot more compared with the 2's.
my question, do you think that 60-80 tube watts is enough juice for the 3's i'm considering cary sli-80 and rogue tempest magnum. room is 18x14 with 9' ceiling. mainly classical and jazz.
aloha keith
aloha keith
atagi

Showing 1 response by agaffer

I currently am on my second pair of Vandersteen 3A sigs (nothing wrong with the first pair, just tried something different for awhile). I don't think you will be satisfied with just 60 watts of power.
In fact, they are really best when vertically bi-amped which means two amps per speaker. That doesn't have to be as expensive as it sounds. I first started out with a Audio Research 100 mk amp which mated well with the Vandys. Then, to experiment with vertical bi-amping, I switched to a used Theata Dreadnaugt with 5 channels. One, of course, goes unused (now I have a back up :) ). I would never go back to a single amp per channel with the 3A sigs.