Vandersteen

Why don't you answer the questions raised in the replies by describing the rest of your system, how it's setup in the room (including dimensions) and let people try to give you some meaningful suggestions? 

Vandys can rock pretty well IMHE, this might be as simple as tweaking your placement, etc. Cheers,
Spencer

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts

 I've heard Vandys on a handful of occasions over the years... 
 Many years ago I had the 3A Sigs here in my house for a demo, w/ Parasound Halo gear that I had at the time and I loved them. From what I remember, they had the sound that everyone describes from Vandy... I was quite inexperienced then and had yet to experience real 'hi-end' audio, just then coming out of HT and into 2-ch, so I don't know what I would think of them today, 15 years later. Was it the Halo gear that made them sound good to me?

 Five years or so ago Richard V. was in town with a SimAudio rep. They did a controlled presentation / demo of some new huge (and expensive) 700w or so Sim SS amps with the Model 7. After a long introduction by the Sim guy, he played some somewhat odd tracks of island-fusion something or other. It sounded a lil cold and emotionless. Could it of been these new amps not wormed up or not fully broken in?

 Two or three years ago I had a Quatro demo (for serious consideration) at the same local dealer, w/ SimAudio gear. The tone was so off that very familiar music sounded like it was being played by different people with different voices and diferent guitars. Sounded like a weird facsimile of what I was used to hearing from this band all my life --not natural and real sounding at all. I was very surprised at what I heard (but my current system excels at real, natural and proper tone and timber, so I could be spoiled). Was it the mid level Sim gear or the cables to blame for the bad tone?

 Same year as above, I listened to the Trios a few times at AXPONA w/ C/J gear. I played a reference CD track of mine, a bluegrass version of Another Brick In The Wall. It has a segment of some fast picking of two acoustic guitars. It totally fell apart. A jumbled muddy mess, but sounded good when the tune was in its clean and simple stages. Is the CJ gear to blame for the lack of clarity?

The point here?  I know people love Vandys, and I did one time too, but as mentioned from others, they need gear and cable matched very very carefully to sound great. There are many out there that can attest to having great sound with Vandys...just to many bad demos for me.  As a reference, I like Daedalus, Devore and sometimes Harbeth (set-up dependent), just bad luck with Vandy.

this hobby would be a lot easier if the recordings were better.  That is the main issue a lot of times, our expensive gear makes some of our favorite music sound like crap.  I don't get how they could make something like Dark Side of the Moon sound so good in 1972 but yet in modern times with all of the knowledge and techniques most guys can't come close to making recordings like this. 

I understand the OP’s point - but I’d say it’s really only valid in the context of overall high end speaker designs.

The Vandy 2 and 3 series are not goosed through the presence region and can sound less dynamic to those used to the many, many high end speakers that are. They also both feature a gently falling overall FR, desirable IMO for natural sounding tonality in most rooms. Both speakers (The 2, in particular, IMO) work amazingly well on their own terms, but neither is perfect in every respect. IME, no speaker is going to satisfy every listener on every recording, and the 2 and 3 are designed to the relative strengths the OP identified at the expense of the relative weaknesses the OP identified. Just MHO, but for me:

The net result is that the 2 and 3 virtually always sound great with smaller scale music, but may feel less satisfying on "bigger" music.

I've heard the 3a and Treo ct many times and they are absolutely fantastic. They do justice with all types of music especially complex classicals and rock. Then again, the source and amp was all Ayre acoustics.  I don't think it's the speakers.  Tell us what components your using and the type of speaker wires. 

I've been listening to mostly hard rock and the blues through my 3A Sigs for the last 5 years.  In no way are these speakers deficient while playing that music.  You received some good insight in the last 4 posts.  

The Sigs will do justice to some fine quality gear so the point-of-no-returns is likely elsewhere in your system. Vandersteens are very sensitive to toe in, tilt, and distance from walls but "falls to pieces" on complex works sounds more like a speaker control (signal) problem as noted above.

I am not understand what falls to pieces means.  Symphonic works could be the way your source and preamp send the signal, same for rock.  

What speakers were you using previously in this same system where this did not occur, and what equipment are you currently using?

Very very unusual situation .......

What is the rest of your system? Sounds like the new VANDY speakers are an extremely poor mismatch with the rest of your particular gear.
system synergy matters --big time -- and one size does not fit all.

When you say they " fall to pieces..." , can you elaborate please?