Vandersteen 3A vs. ProAc3.8

Rayhall; You are right, I would listen before purchase-- at least in the case of the Vand. 5. In fact I've bought all my Vand. speakers (3 pr.) from my nearest HIFI shop-- about 150 miles. And they do have the 5s as demos. Looks like I'll also have to check out Coincident too. Cheers. Craig

For what it's worth I'm a former 3.8 owner, Super Eclipse owner, VSM-SE owner, Dunlavy SCIVa owner, Tyler Ref Monitor owner, and have listened at length to the Response 2.5's and Vandersteen Model 5's. The Coincidents were musical and sweet, but lacked overall coherence (and can be problematic if your room is too small because of their tremendous bass output). The 3.8's offered a level of refinement over the Coincidents, but I felt the 2.5's were an overall better balanced speaker (and a much better buy). The Tyler's were definitely the best bang for the buck (at less than 1.2k), The Dunlavy's did everything well, but are huge and never completely satisfying musically. The Vandersteen 5's are similar - they do everything well, nothing wrong, but as hard as I've tried, they never let me get involved emotionally with the music - it's hard to explain. I don't think I had the right equipment driving the Merlin's - I may need to try them again because they did exhibit exceptional speed and imaging. But for me the Maggie 3.6 at only $4k blow them all away. How's that for objective observation?

Hi Garfish, I completely agree with your observation. I also listened to the Vandy 5's. Some how it sounds a little boomy and a little more mechanical ! Don't know if others hear this or if I am just biased. Maybe the Vandy 5's require even better upstream equipment to really come alive. To improve on current 3a sig. set up, I am also considering adding two 2wq subs...do you have this experience ? I hear this greatly cleans up everything. Just that you do need one more pair of cable and Xover and more room ! By the way, I read the soundstage review on Sig 3 A and the reviewer used Nordost pulsar points under the speaker. Do you have these...Have you played with spikes under the speaker ? my current setup is vt130, audible 3a, linn lp12. Audioquest throughout.. mostly emerald x3, opalx 3. and cobalt speaker cable. Maybe you can make recommendations to make my system quicker with even more bass control.

all the posts above have good things to say - i tink ya really gotta listen to these speakers, as they really are different, in many of the ways described, and ewe may really not like one or the other.

for me, personally, i've never liked any of the vandy's - they always sounded kinda lifeless, veiled, no soundstage to speak of. perhaps poor setup? dunno, i heard 'em in many different places, & they always struck me the same way.

proacs, on the other hand - well, i've never heard a proac i didn't like! ;~) great soundstage & very transparent. they never struck me as bright, yust accurate & musical. thiels are wery similar in these regards, to me, also. some folks say they're bright, i've never found that to be the case, & for a while, my system consisted of a pair of thiel 3.5's driven by an adcom gfa555, which *also* had a reputation of having a crispy hi-end.

don't purchase new, unless ya *know* it's what ya like,or yule risk losing a lot of money, having to sell & getting something else. that said, i'm saving for a new pair of newform research r645's - based solely upon what i've read of others' experiences! :>) i honestly believe that they will be nicer than anything i can get for their delivered-price of $2265, even if i buy used. *but*, they have a 30-day in-home trial, & if i don't like 'em, i'm only out shipping.

regards, doug

Yangsp; I have not used subwoofers as I don't think think my 14 X 22 room really needs them. The 3As come with McCormack Tiptoes (cone feet), and they seem to work fine so I have not experimented with others. I would expect that with enough room, a good sub would help clean up the 3As mids. My listening biases are toward rich/warm rather than thin, cool, analytical, and the 3As do rich/warm very well-- especially with my amp pre-amp. They also image and soundstage very well in my room. Cheers. Craig