tips for Vandersteen 3A sig

Thanks Garfish and Gasman. Actually, I had a chance to talk to Richard Vandersteen. He says having 3A sig + 2w's would be 70-80% performance of Vand 5. Reason: Vand 5 is much more "inert" Looking at the sub option...you also have to buy quality wires and cross over. This would cost over $3000.00. Now I am really confused, should I do the subs, or save a little longer to move to Vand 5's ? That is the question.

When I had 3aSigs, I found the following made significant differences:

1) Using a McCormack DNA amp with them really brought out their way powerful bass & helped alleviate some of the slowness.

2) Using biwire speaker cables made a big difference.

3) Following the setup instructions to a T. Use the room mode calculations provided & the forward/rear tip-in charts for listening heights. It seems all vandersteens are sensitive to proper setup/tweeking.

Flying:
If you are just using your 3A's in a music setup, try to find (2) used 2W's instead of the 2WQ. They can generally be found used in the $500-$650 range. This eliminates only the adjustable Q feature which according to my conversations with Richard is not necessary in a strictly music system. It is not necessary to use the same wires to connect the subs as you use with the 3A's. I have tried several that I had lying around as well as standard HT installation Monster 16-4 and Soundking 12ga. I found no significant difference with the wires including the ones Richard includes with the subs. Once you determine which crossover is appropriate for your amp you are only talking $125 new. Many of the popular values e.g. 100 ohm are readily available used from other users who have changed amps. This makes the sub option come in at less than $1500 and for me this made a great improvement with the 3A's

Hi, Flying: all good suggestions so far. I also own Vandy 3A Sig's and love 'em. I think mine are clean, fast, and very dynamic -- properties you seem to want more of. It seems to me that there are three possible factors that could affect your speaker performance: room interaction / acoustics; need for a subwoofer (depending on your listening tastes); and need for a different amp. I can't provide much help on the room interaction problem, since I don't know about your listening area. I can say, however, that my living room is a suspended wood floor above a 3-foot crawl space, and I had a lot of room resonance which tended to make the deep bass sound rather tubby and slow. To address the problem, I made several baffles from a mass-loaded foam material called Sonolead, glued them to a 2'x4' piece of Masonite, and placed them against the wall behind my speakers. They work very well and reduce the "muddiness". Second factor: subwoofer. The only way to go is the Vandersteen sub -- either 1 or 2 of them. Home Theater Guide recently published an issue that re-capped several years of subwoofer tests, and one of the 5 highest rated subs was Vandy's 2WV (I think I've got the nomenclature right -- it's the "video" version of their sub). Last thought: your amp. About a year ago, I upgraded my amp to the Bryston 4B-ST, and it does a SENSATIONAL job of provided deep, powerful, controlled bass from the Vandy 3A Sig's. Since the Vandy 3A Sig is capable of pretty good bass extension (26-28 Hz), it really benefits from an amp with a large, tightly regulated power supply, and the Bryston amps have that in spades. The newest issue of Stereophile has the "Recommended Components" list, and the Bryston 7B-ST is rated "Class A", and the 4B-ST is rated "Class B". (I personally think both should be "Class A" picks, but that's my opinion). Hope you find a satisfactory solution to your problem -- when the Vandy 3A Sig's are really dialed in to the room, there are very few speakers even come close in full-range performance.

Thanks to everyone for the input so far. For room acoustics, I have just ordered some RPG foam to place behind my speakers. Will let you know how it worked out. Also, I just tipped my speakers a little more forward...it seemed to help some. I am now tilted back only .5". The Amp I am using is ARC Vt 130. I imaging this would be slower than a bryston...or even Mccormack ?