Vandersteen 3A vs. ProAc3.8

I have 3.8's and would never describe them as bright. I find them to be laid back, with rich midrange. Very musical. Have not compared them to Vandys but have compared them to Coincident Total Eclipse. The Coincidents just don't have the midrange magic of the Proac's. Coincidents are great speakers, but they prefer tubes, 3.8's prefer solid state, so unless you are changing amps, these should not be on the same list.

Hi Marklivia, Coincidentspeaker.com.

Rayhall; You are right, I would listen before purchase-- at least in the case of the Vand. 5. In fact I've bought all my Vand. speakers (3 pr.) from my nearest HIFI shop-- about 150 miles. And they do have the 5s as demos. Looks like I'll also have to check out Coincident too. Cheers. Craig

For what it's worth I'm a former 3.8 owner, Super Eclipse owner, VSM-SE owner, Dunlavy SCIVa owner, Tyler Ref Monitor owner, and have listened at length to the Response 2.5's and Vandersteen Model 5's. The Coincidents were musical and sweet, but lacked overall coherence (and can be problematic if your room is too small because of their tremendous bass output). The 3.8's offered a level of refinement over the Coincidents, but I felt the 2.5's were an overall better balanced speaker (and a much better buy). The Tyler's were definitely the best bang for the buck (at less than 1.2k), The Dunlavy's did everything well, but are huge and never completely satisfying musically. The Vandersteen 5's are similar - they do everything well, nothing wrong, but as hard as I've tried, they never let me get involved emotionally with the music - it's hard to explain. I don't think I had the right equipment driving the Merlin's - I may need to try them again because they did exhibit exceptional speed and imaging. But for me the Maggie 3.6 at only $4k blow them all away. How's that for objective observation?

Hi Garfish, I completely agree with your observation. I also listened to the Vandy 5's. Some how it sounds a little boomy and a little more mechanical ! Don't know if others hear this or if I am just biased. Maybe the Vandy 5's require even better upstream equipment to really come alive. To improve on current 3a sig. set up, I am also considering adding two 2wq subs...do you have this experience ? I hear this greatly cleans up everything. Just that you do need one more pair of cable and Xover and more room ! By the way, I read the soundstage review on Sig 3 A and the reviewer used Nordost pulsar points under the speaker. Do you have these...Have you played with spikes under the speaker ? my current setup is vt130, audible 3a, linn lp12. Audioquest throughout.. mostly emerald x3, opalx 3. and cobalt speaker cable. Maybe you can make recommendations to make my system quicker with even more bass control.