kb54 re:
Sorry, I know this is off topic, but I am interested in the difference between the Sig IIIs and Treos. What is causing you to consider upgrading?
Welllll, how much time do you have? 😂
I am resistant to change and changing favorite brands (loyal to a fault). When it came time to replace my 20 year old Vandersteen 2CEs about 3 years ago, I found a like-new pair of the well-reviewed Treo CTs at Audio Connection (Johnny Rutan) for $6k. So, I went and auditioned them against the newest 2CE Signature III at my local dealer, at great length. The Treos lived up to the reviews, and are superb but were $9000 new then ($10k now) and $3300 for the 2CE SigIII—no small difference. As I went back and forth between the 2CE SigIII and Treo, what jumped out at me is that the 2CE was excellent in comparison. I think it really deserves its place on the Absolute Sound List of 50 Greatest Buys in High End Audio. But—the Treo CT is also on that list! So, I got a new pair of 2CE SigIIIs to replace my old 2s.
50 Greatest Buys:
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/50-greatest-bargains-in-high-end-audio-3/
- The bass goes lower on the 2CE, but though the bass extension isn’t as low with the Treo CT, the quality of the bass is absolutely better, tighter, more accurate. Quantity vs quality.
- As Richard Vandersteen admits, the 2CE is still a great speaker (they have sold >100,000 pairs, iirc!, which no doubt launched Vandersteens’s success and all his other great speaker development), but with the Treo the goal was to build something that took it to the next level, fixing the shortcomings of the 2CE. Hence the Treo has a cabinet within a cabinet which is VERY solid and reduces cabinet resonances; the carbon tweeter really is special and an improvement; the Treo is designed to be placed very near the front wall (2CE should be out at least 24", but more is better); and last but not least, the Treo is gorgeous (not wrapped in a big black sock) and has a great spouse/partner acceptance factor. My dealer told me many times men have brought their wives to hear the 2CE and their comment was "It’s ugly. No." Then they look at the Treo and say "I want that one" even though it is 3X more expensive!
- Did I think the Treo was 3X better than the 2CE, because it is 3X more expensive? Not even close. Not 2X better. Maybe 10-15%, though that is so subjective and I am terrible at auditioning gear. I do think the Treo CT is like the superb Quatro CT (which I cannot afford) but without the powered onboard subs in the Quatro. The Treo sounds great and looks great, and I can’t get it out of my mind. It really is special, but for bang for the buck, the 2CE SigIII is a no-brainer and I don’t ever feel inadequate because that is what I chose. I have kicked myself for not buying the near-new pair for $6000 though! The Treo CT has a musicality that is superb, imo.
- Part of my reasoning at not getting the Treo CT is that it is a next-level speaker, and I think to get the most benefit from them, I would want/need to do some expensive system upgrades to bring my whole system up several notches. So, $7k more for (a new pair of) Treos, maybe another $5-10k upgrade in amp/preamp/DAC at least, and especially upgrading my speaker cables to Audioquest Mythical Creatures or their upper level cables, which is $3-5K for a short run (using monoblock amps). The slippery slope of upgrades! Treos would cost me at least $10,000 in upgrades besides the speakers. Ouch. Maybe not mandatory but why do it if I am not going to realize full benefit from the speakers? By doing all those, the results would really be excellent and substantially better than my current system.
- Oh, one thing my dealer salesman said to me, as someone who also owned 2CE SigIIIs but loves all the Vandys, is that the 2CE rises to the occasion when paired with much more expensive gear than one typically would do. He said they had paired them with a $30,000 Audio Research stack and they sounded great, rather than being totally outmatched. So I believe they will give me results as I improve my front end.
That is the long-winded answer. The 2CE SigIII is a great speaker (and value) imo, and so is the Treo CT. It is all about budget, and there is no wrong answer if you love the Vandersteen sound, which I do. Had I big bucks, I would get the Quatro CTs—or better yet the Kentos—and Vandersteen monoblocks.
(If @tomik, who has both the Treo CT and the Vandersteen 7, is reading this he will want to strangle me because he has seen/heard me do this back and forth too many times! Sorry!)