I wouldn't consider myself a fanboy, just resistant to change. 😎
I've heard other excellent speakers I like at hi-fi shows, and read the hi-fi magazines, but I can't afford to "scratch the itch" and make frequent changes like some people seem to be able to do. And I am lazy! When you change speakers and then have to adjust amps etc to better match the speakers, that gets expensive and complicated. The one speaker I would like to listen to before I buy Treo CTs is the Larsen 9, because it's so different than most anything (AbSound did a good review of them). I like the idea of having some Magnepans for a second system, but they have to be placed so far out from the front wall and I don't have a spot for that. The Legacy Audios seem to be a good value, and a friend's dad loves his, but they are huge. Too big.
But no matter what else I have listened to, the Vandersteens acquit themselves very well, for my taste. The Quatro CT is imho as much a great value (in its class) as the 2CE Sig III is, even with the price increases. The Quatro CT is the sweet spot for performance vs cost. For more money (a lot more!) I'd have the Kento in a heartbeat, I think, and there are only a handful of other speakers I would audition when deciding.
There are a dozen or more elite speakers which intrigue me, but they are all REALLY expensive, and I am not sure why I bother knowing about them. The MBL Radialstrahler 101 for $70k (the 120 is "only" $24k), the Rockports, Estelon, Joseph Audio (actually pretty competitively priced to Vandy), Magico (maybe), Wilson, Stenheim Alumine (very efficient). I'd prefer USA made, like the Vandersteen. Robert Harley loves the Rockports, but they are really expensive...so far out of my league it is silly.
Good discussion on the Vandersteen Forum about the Vandy DNA, incl the consistency of design principles among all their speakers. Richard V chimes in. TOMIC is someone who let me listen to his Vandersteen 7s (with matching Vandy monoblocks) and they were amazing, but he swears that when he listens to his Treo CTs at 1/5th the price (and with more modest amplification) he gets nearly the same satisfaction and the sound is consistent in quality.
Thread:
Vandy Forum thread
Happy listening!
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Roger that on the MBLs, though the "affordable one", which is $14k, is a bit shy on bass. I've heard the Linkwitz, which is similar, at a show and the soundstage was almost 360 degrees. Eerie! You have to bring them WAY out in the room though, and I am not able to do that.
The Larsen 9 interests me too. It's not an MBL, but the way the drivers fire makes them much more room placement friendly, and create a wall of sound. This review is good:
LARSEN 9 review
"If I may borrow one of HP’s phrases once more, this is a speaker that should be heard by every student of the audio arts. The idea of using boundary placement to reduce the influence of the listening room on the sound has been around for a long time and tried in various ways. But it remains rather unusual. All you have to do is look through audio magazines to see that almost all contemporary speakers are really quite a lot alike in their general nature. Some are better than others, and we all have our favorites according to various theories and listening experiences. But there is a considerable sense of “déjà vu all over again.” The Larsens are members of a family, too, in some sense. But their family of boundary-placement speakers is a very much smaller one. The Larsens offer a unique sound that to my ears is unusually true to actual music, and they are unusual, too, in their ease of effective placement in the room. They offer their unique sound with a truly minimal disturbance of domestic life. Whether their unique sound is for you is something you need to experience for yourself. You will have not heard anything else much like the sound—except of course in live music."
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"If he said something negative it would make people sit up like the dead in a horror film."
LOL!
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I do know that MY hearing (at age 65) at high frequencies has been rolled off! I can hear maybe to 12,000 Hertz now. So I laugh when I see speakers that tout specs of 30,000 HZ frequency extension. What’s the point? Give me amazing performance between 30hz and 15,000 and I’m good. Am I wrong?
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re: "Is it possible he reviews a lot of things but politely only publishes the ones he really likes?"
Don’t know, but I would guess that manufacturers—knowing it’s a safe bet he won’t air anything too harshly critical (the closest he comes seems to be "damning with faint praise")—offer lots of gear to him for reviewing. A steady supply of new, nice gear to listen to...maybe that is his ulterior motive? I know there are some people making BIG bucks on YouTube doing those product unboxing videos (WTH?)—does anyone know if he makes a nice living from this?
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dayglow re: Never understood the need or interest for product validation or brand forums. Steve Guttenberg praises everything he reviews.
I’m not that familiar with him, and had a friend send me this review. It seems that is his m.o. though. Some "critics" don’t like to be actually constructively critical, and some are too critical. That said, the Vandersteens across the board have gotten consistent praise (both for sound and for being superb values) through the years/decades from respected reviewers, and having owned several pairs for 20+ years (and considering new ones) I am confident in my choice and don’t need it validated. There are other brands I would also own, were I able to have multiple systems.
As far as brand forums go, the only one I visit is Vandersteen’s own forum. It’s a good source for system, technical, and setup info. FWIW.
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Excerpt: "Note: I know people are sticklers for positioning and a proper listening experience means time should be taken to find the ideal axis to listen at and place the speakers in the room. While I did not have the OEM stands, I did, of course, take the time to try a few positions and sitting heights to find what worked best in-room. Looking around online, I found the OEM stands have a slight tilt to them so I experimented a bit with that as I moved the speaker about the room as well. Though, I do find it odd that so much attention was put into the physical offset of the drivers to time align them via the large step-stair enclosures yet the design still uses a stand that has a physical tilt as well to time align them. Seems a bit redundant to me. One would think you’d have one or the other and not need stands to do what the actual build of the speaker seemed intent on doing"
⏩ It would help for her to have listened to a very recent pair, and also to have read the Vandersteen setup manual. The stands are very important. I have mine weighted with about 30 lb of lead shot for coupling with the floor. And the rear tilt is critical to have the tweeter aimed at the listener’s ear height, and that depends on distance to the listening chair. Toe-in is also important. When Vandersteens are properly set up, the performance is excellent.
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holmz
🤣 Speakers powered by good Karma?
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Toe-in can certainly vary depending on the room, the distance between the speakers, and the throw to the listening position. I’m using more now than I did for a long time, based on the recommendation of somebody who’s set up a lot of Vandersteen systems
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Thanks, Jim @tomic601 ! I would love to.
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Hi— I would be curious to know which Larsens you listened to and what you did and didn’t like, if you care to share. I was mostly interested in the 6.2 and the 8.2 (the latest). From the reviews, they are supposed to be quite a different listening experience than typical front-firing speakers we are mostly used to. They throw up a wall of sound, more like a live performance, it is said.
One dealer said that to me over the phone once he listened to them a lot, he decided that listening to typical front-firing speakers is more "artificial", saying that hearing individual instruments so specifically arrayed within the soundstage is artifice, not like a live performance. I think it depends on what kind of live performance, but with recorded music that artifice is certainly is created when the record is produced, by the person running the soundboard, yes?
From AbSound review of Larsen 8:
<< The Sound In General
While the Model 8s have the consistency between room sound and direct sound of an omni, at the same time they are quite directional thanks to their wall placement—they are by nature half-space radiators. So the sound has a much greater directness than one gets from omnis. And this directness leads to extraordinary definition from the lower midrange on down. Trombones, for example, have the solidity and definition of attack that they have in reality. (Hearing a real trombone after listening to a trombone on a speaker tends to be a disconcerting experience. The speaker version lacks adequate definition of the complex initial structure all too often. But not here!)
This is not easy to quantify in measurement, but it is surely easy—and rewarding—to hear. The lower brass, the cello and basses, the bottom range of the piano, all such things acquire the kind of precision and sculptured sound that they really have. There is a good reason to have bass drive up against the boundaries. This is, of course, also the reason for the development of the corner woofer systems of TacT and Lyngdorf, and much earlier for the Allison speakers, which were placed either in corners or against the wall with woofer close to the floor.
This stuff works! One really hears the lower mids on down better. Not only is the presentation more even in frequency response but better in definition. (Because minimum phase matters, these two things are related, but in listening terms they are perceived as quite distinct.)
The stereo imaging of the Model 8s is again different from an ordinary speaker. The directness makes images seem very solid, but the focus of them is of a different character from free-space speakers. The images are either more “dimensional” or less focused, depending on one’s viewpoint. This is not an obvious matter in terms of realism, since the kind of focus of image that can arise in stereo is not really a feature of real sound. One can get to like it a lot, but in a real concert environment, the extreme image focus does not actually happen. The making of recordings has to some extent responded to this by using spaced microphone techniques that blur the stereo images in the recording no matter how one plays them back. Again, life is complicated. In any case, the Model 8s sound close to reality, but not exactly like other speakers as far as imaging is concerned. Imaging is convincing and hearing into the recording venue is excellent but the imaging is different in character. The wide pattern gives unusual stability, but focus is less precise. >>
AbSound / Larsen 8 review
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I own the latest 2CE Sig III and auditioned the Treo CT at the time I was deciding, and since. Also the Quatro CT, and have spent time in front of the 7 with the top Vandy monoblocks (AMAZING system). All are listed as Editors’ Choices in their price brackets by Absolute Sound in their Recommended Components guide, iirc.
There is a consistency of sound, the "Vandersteen Sound", among them. I would say it comes down to budget. IMHO, the 2CE is a best buy and punches way above its weight. But, if spending $10k (vs $3500) is in the budget, the Treo CT is superb and is much better looking. I may soon get the Treos. BUT—again IMO—I think the Quatro CT is in the sweet spot of performance vs value in its price-range and in the Vandersteen lineup, when compared to the top of the line 7 (really great) or even the Kento. There is really no wrong answer. I would REALLY love a pair of Quatro CTs.
It is quite common to see Vandy owners move up from the 2 or 3 to the Treo, and then to the Quatro or Kento as/if funds allow. So, "worth the money?". Only you can decide that. There is the law of diminishing returns in high-end audio, and to some of my friends spending even $3500 on speakers is insane, but I would gladly spend the $$ on the Treo CT or Quatro CT.
There is a member here who has the Treo CT and the 7 with monoblocks (which I have heard). Maybe a 10X difference in price and I asked him specifically if he felt like the Treos come up short compared to his 7's. "No way," he said. He said there is a consistency in the sound, and that he loves the Treos but that the 7 is just more of a great thing.
CAVEAT: The Treo and Quatro are superbly-resolving speakers and will highlight any deficiencies elsewhere in your system. It is important that the components upstream are up to the task, including cabling. I have an Odyssey Audio Khartago+++ amp, and though it’s not super expensive I like it and it’s a Jon Valin best-buy, I think it would be adequate or fine with the Treos. A more expensive amp *might* even be better (I would like the Ayre VX-5/Twenty maybe, or mono blocks, for the Treo). Richard Vandersteen recommends "zero negative feedback" amps like Ayre, and so do many dealers. A good Vandersteen dealer will tell you about good pairings (Optimal Enchantment in Santa Monica, or John Rutan at Audio Connection in NJ are two...where are you?).
I am not a card-carrying fanboy, blindly loyal, but I have found Vandys to be speakers I can live with for a long time, and I don’t have the money to scratch every itch and jump from brand to brand. Vandys are extremely musical, for lack of a better term, and let you forget about them and just enjoy the music. For me, that is the goal. GOOD LUCK!
The 2CE and Treo are on this AbSound list of 50 Greatest Bargains in High-End Audio 50 Greatest High-End Bargains List
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NICE! I've wondered about doing that.👍
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holmz does make a good point about bass
If you want more bass then you need a sub or to move north of the Treos.
My 2CEs have a lower bass extension than the Treos, but the Treo bass is BETTER. Tighter, cleaner, more accurate. Quality vs quantity, though the bass from the 2CE isn't bad at all. It can sometimes be a bit bloated or "squishy" but I listen to a lot of acoustic music and not much of that is bass-heavy.
At "my" dealer, one of the guys has Treo CTs with 2 subwoofers and loves it, saying it's as least as good as the Quatro CT, (but not much less expensive to go that route if at all, esp with Vandy subs). The beauty of that combo is you can do it in stages: get the Treos, and if you miss the extra bass then add one or two subs. You may decide you don't need it.
The Quatro CT is in another league from several standpoints: 1) Each speaker has its own built-in powered subwoofer, with very adjustable output settings. Tuneable to the room and setup. 2) You won't need as much "horsepower" in your amp to drive the speakers, because the woofers are internally powered. So, you can drive them with a lower-powered amp.You will need the Vandy high-pass filter crossovers ("The M5 High-Pass Crossovers are ideally suited to the Quatro line of speakers as well as the SUB Three and are implemented between the preamp and the amplifier. ") BUT—I was just told that Ayre can modify both their integrated amps and their amps to have the high-pass crossover internally, meaning the external high-pass won't be necessary. I am told that other mfrs do this too, but not sure who.
The Vandy Forum is a good place to browse for info and ask questions
Vandersteen FORUM
Cheers
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tomic601
God save the generally factual !
Hey, I try my best too! 😎
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