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Not Thrilled with Vandersteen 2CE Sigs - where is the first place to work on?

Trying to build up the system this year, bought some Vandy 2CE Sigs.  Have the anchors, following instructions for placement, built bass traps and a couple of acoustic panels in my medium-sized but odd-shaped basement listening area - still not thrilled.  Using laptop with Tidal and Dragonfly Red - and some stuff sounds GREAT (Steely Dan, SRV, Beck, Dire Straits, Wilco) - but disappointed in a lot of other stuff.  Some objective opinions on where my issues might lie?  Expectations too high? Hearing the truth of production variations?  Running an NAD C272 at 150WPC and an original 1979 APT Holman Pre Amp.  Not MAC, Bryston, etc - but was expecting more.  Thoughts? Rebuild/recap the APT?  Amp upgrade?  Where might the low-hanging fruit be?
gjinwi
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highend64
246 posts
 

I have the 2ci they do sound different from other speakers I had but I would say is is more of a natural, realistic sound with a warm touch. It is all personal preference. Room layout and speakers position are crucial for the these models. I have the 2ci in a small room and I do agree they can open up in a much bigger room but my situation, It is not possible so I have to compensate and fix certain problems. 

ctsooner
2,480 posts
 

 

lous's avatar
lous

190 posts

 

I did some bypassing in a 2CE Signature's crossovers. They were using 3 electrolytic capacitors in series to filter out something in the tweeter. I bypassed them with Teflon V-Caps. The caps were .01uf, well, very well within the normal +/- 10% tolerance for capacitors, and the tweeters sounded horrid. I substituted other tweeters, and they sounded fine, so it was definitely a problem with the tweeter they used. When you use 3 electrolytic capacitors in series, you are compensating for quite a problem as normally you just use 1 capacitor. Capacitors of low quality, like most electrolytic capacitors are, are like dound sponges, absorbing detail. Anyway, normally I would suggest upgrading the components in the crossovers, but don't try it in the 2CE Signatures. This may not be true of the original, or any other versions, but the original Signature models had thid issue. 

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Vandersteen has never in 46 years ever used an electrolytic cap on any tweeter!  Don't know what you bypassed, but they use electrolytics only for resonant peak filters or impedance compensator networks for phase.

 

The above is directly from Richard.  

 
qdrone
1,039 posts
 

That Era Vandersteens love Kimber Cable speaker cable. It's a match made in heaven.

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