OP, are you near any dealers?
Bob
Bob
Vandersteens, PSB or something else?
I’m looking to upgrade my speakers and would appreciate some input. My system includes ayre amp, aesthetix calypso preamp, and vandy 2c sig IIs. The room is relatively large at 23’ wide (speakers on this side) by 27’. I would like speakers that are good at both music and home theatre. I plan to run HT pass through and 5.1 overall. For music, I listen to a lot of classic rock, blues and jazz. Not too much classical. I do enjoy live Dead and Allman Brothers. I’d like the speakers to image well and present a nice soundstage but also really draw me in emotionally to the music. For home theater, I’d like to be able to include a center channel and get a decent theater experience. The vandies, really no complaints, they have served me very well. But I have budget to take the next step and was thinking maybe the Treos. But once I make this next step, I would not be making any moves for a while, so wanted to explore other alternatives as well. The PSB Imagine T3’s seem to have been reviewed well and may be worth a test. My budget would allow for these, and I guess I could possibly go up to the quatro for the right deal. Any other ideas that, given my musical preference, room, budget could be worth a shot? I have to admit, sometimes I do wonder if the live recordings that I’m listening too would really benefit from a big upgrade to the speakers.
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Don 1, I hate to break it to you, but as a professional theater designer, nobody uses panels of any kind in a real theater or a system designed to actually function as one. The best real theaters all use direct radiating loudspeakers with some kind of horn loading usually for the tweeter, with compression drivers and dsp. Look at Dts spin off Procella, or Paul Hales company PHC and you will see. The issue is dynamic range, and dispersion control and efficiency. A planar radiates sound out of phase with the front wave this is called diapole cancillation, and according to Newtons law an equil and opposite reaction cancels out, what this means to sound is there is no air spring effect and your bass is not good, a dynamic loudspeaker has much greater spl, and can launch a sound wave with much greater force. As an ex Maggie owner, 3.6’s these speakers have mondo issues, One the image is way too large, two the bass is weak, three the dynamics are constricted and four they are very inefficent, five they don’t play loud. If this gentleman has a large room and loves rock, speakers he should be considering are ATC and Legacy to name a few. As per PSB the T3 are excellent. loudspeakers, they sound very good, Paul Barton, is a very respected designer, and his designs for years have been highly rated. The T3 is going to have a ton more of resolution then an old Straus so you may not care for listening to a much more modern design with a Titanium tweeter vs a much more recessed sounding tweeter sound which you are used to. I don’t know of any dealer who carries speakers that they know are bad, it is not good business to do so. For all you Vandy guys out there, a pair of Vandy whatever plus their subs will not a theater make. The Vandy subs are not real subs compared to the world of subs like JL Audio or SVS. A JL audio Fathom 113 uses a long throw nearly 15 inch driver with a 3,000 watt amplifier 3 smaller woofers although they sound like they can move more air actually fail to move as much air due to the efficiency of coupling air to the size of the diaphram, not to mention a 300 watt amplifier is not enough power to really move three eight inch drivers. Vandersteen are nice speakers for music but the company is much more in the 2 channel camp then they are in the Home Theater world even their best center channel loudspeaker doesn’t use identical drivers to their higher end CT series drivers and as noted an 85db efficeint speaker with a somewhat limited power handling. Now lets look at a Legacy Focus Signature a $7k speaker which actually sounds a lot like a bigger version of a Quattro CT at half that speakers price or for a bit more money the larger Focus at around $11k The Legacy is 92db efficient Sig 95db for the Focus has high power handling 300 watts Signature 750 watt has very low bass 22hz Sig 18hz Focus is tall enough to throw a big soundstage has a series of matching center channels uses Heil amt tweeters and a heil AMT midrange for a smooth top end with good detail PLAYS loud! The only issue is the somewhat limited amount of Legacy dealers, We have the Legacy Focus Signatures in our small theater and they sound fantastic. Other great music and theater speakers KEF Reference who we use in our large theater and they also play loud and are 90db efficient depending on model and they have high power handling. You should go to your local dealer and try to listen to a bunch of good speakers and focus on those traits as I have listed above. Here is the movie theater we built for Rev Run of Rev Runs Rennovation and featured on TV: https://www.flickr.com/photos/58319891@N08/albums/72157650233548529 Here are the construction shots note KEF THX in walls with JL Audio Subs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/58319891@N08/albums/72157650239108910 If we can be of assistance to you please feel free to contact us: Audio Doctor NJ |
Thanks all for taking the time to provide me with input on the speakers. There are a few dealers in the area. For me, it is really a lack of time to properly check them all out on the right electronics. Hence, my post to get a few ideas and perhaps shorten the journey. I'll see if I can make some time to do proper auditions. I'd say I want my system to be excellent an the audio / stereo side and if I had to sacrifice, I suppose it could be on the home theater side. But I do enough movie watching that I'd like the 5.1 to be really good overall with a proper center channel. |
A Vandersteen fan for sure but not a dealer a center channel with the carbon fiber / balsa drivers would blow your whole budget - which is why they do not make such a beast.... Vandy HT is well thought out but is not sloppy Q bombastic stuff which is why he builds 2 different (3 now with the 9) sub models available obviously the Vandersteen bias is to SOTA 2 channel sounds like you have done some soul searching on priority I echo others get out and listen lots of dealers carry excellent 2 channel and HT where do you live ? |
The Five Quattro's Music film system we installed played at concert level so good I didn't want to leave, that's what it's all about quality instead of Quantity. Hey Troy, I give you a gold star for trying to penetrate all these folks threads. Remember you came by and I played you the Quatros and you thought they were the sevens. I think I trust this fellows judgment calls below to make observations. anyway sincerely wish you boys success in what you are trying to do. Best JohnnyR M7-HPA "Many loudspeakers have passed through my listening room in the past year, but the one I most missed after its return to its manufacturer was this expensive, full-range Vandersteen. Driven by its almost-as-expensive dedicated amplifiers, it produced a sound that was consistently to die for." -John Atkinson, Stereophile |
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