yes, how blessed and fortunate. I am lucky to own several pair of Vandersteen, including the mk II. I get endless hours of enjoyment from them in a mostly all digital system. I use a Revox B-77 and Master tapes as an analog reference as well.
I have visited most of the USa dealers who display them, all quite competent and excellent support. They all carry IMo excellent ancillary gear, most are very analog oriented. I might be the blacksheep..ha
I have also heard the Blades, I never say anything bad - go listen, form your own opinion.
what room, music, volume level, upstream equipment?
enjoy the journey !!! and the music
IF I may be of service, just let me know. IF you get to Seattle, you are welcome to hear ours.
Jim |
Fantastic event last eve with Richard Vandersteen at Stereo Unlimited in San Diego
7 mk 2 with Richards unique high Pass amplifier running along with Quattro and the more affordable m5 high Pass amp... fun
treo CT with sub 3 w 11 bands of analog EQ
HRS also represented by Michael Latvis, great sound, hospitality and 100+ people there till ten at nite.
the OP hopefully has had a chance to go listen
music is the goal
fun
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@gdnrbob. Totally different rooms and systems... the Quattro in the largest room they have and powered by the new smaller solid state high Pass amp sounded very very nice.
i hung around dges giving others the great seats
the Treo were in a smaller room - about 15 x 15and had big time slam with the sub 3
i left wanting to somehow squeeze a sub 3 into the condo and squeeze the amps in budget also....
fun
i am back in Seattle tonite so I will fire up the 7’s and enjoy some music
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@dep14 There is a replacement in work for the 5a carbon - fall delivery
yes used Vandersteen with carbon are rare as hens teeth.....
owning both 7 mk2 and TREO ct
i can tell you how special they are....
enjoy the music, that is what it’s all about |
looks like the 5a Carbon is now out of production....used would provide stellar value.... before buying Blades seek out used 5a Carbon or talk w dealers about what Vandersteen model ( forthcoming ) will replace it..
Just my $ buck-fifty..
Jim and Dave
Global Vandersteen Fan, sometime not for profit vintage crack audio dealer.... |
speaking of music, just enjoyed 8:17 of Loggins/Messina - Same Old Wine at 39 volume on the ARC into the 1.2 KW a side 7’s w Vandersteen amps......holy cow......
big fun.....
also, so much for KEF dealer expertise......building a big speaker taller than ear height not needed.......
Jim and Dave
Local Axe dealer pissed at chainsaw dealer located a few miles away....
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@jetter yes and what if the performers were the Dead with 60’ high wall of sound ?????
i do have some bootleg cassette from that era......will check after I build a 57’ tall stand for the KEF 105.2 I have lying around here...somewhere.....
all good..... |
lets start with the basic...
the spatial info ( what there is horizontal and vertical ) is already encoded in the source.
the waveform is complex and includes both fundaments, harmonics and the time and phase information in the waveform.. IF you have not spent anytime in a studio, page thru your album LP gatefold covers and look for microphones, ten -15’ off the ground...Rudy Van Gelder of BlueNote fame, famous for this....or look at symphnony recording microphone placement, especially well done stuff with less than DG 30 microphone stuff.....
so to properly reproduce this complex waveform we need to simulate a point source wave launch, would be good IF we do that at ear height, unless you want different arrival times...which is audible. The more drivers ya add the more different arrival times ya get
a coincident driver solves part of this problem and introduces other wavelaunch issues like bouncing HF off a lower frequency moving surface....ponder that as you invest in cabinets and footers that dont move....
The Vandersteen setup and engineering depend on an accurate measure of listening ear height, most other speakers will benefit IF you know this dimension.
they are not just a good choice. I would not hesitate to put Quattro CT up against any KEF product and there would be MORE $$$$$ left over for electronics, etc
listen to any number of great recordings w spatial info encoded...Live in Paris is one such IMO......does Diana Krall really need to be another 2’ taller..
Keep selling the reflections OFF a big tall box....
your admiration Troy for the brands you carry is understandable, you have a Vandersteen dealer a few miles from you. The world thinks they are more than a good choice. Your competitive urges cloud your thinking....Let’s meet on neutral ground, say in Munich where we can listen to both..my guess is Helmut Brinkmann will get great sound there with his 7’s
and yes for some people the KEF are a great choice. |
see you in Munich with the Legacy
I suspect the Blade will be there without your help.
and you forget, Vandersteen makes a concident driver speaker, with first order slopes because it strikes me ( and others ) odd to physically align the wave launch and then @#$& it all away with a steep slope crossover that screws up phase...
there are lots of better than good choices on the market, as I said the Blade is a great choice for many people. As mentioned for competitive reasons, you struggle to use the word great for anything but what you sell.
back to the music. Dialing in a pair of Thiel’s today..... |
Jim and James
current owner / operator of the following non-vandersteen speakers....
Klipsch Cornwall, Apogee Stage, Real Quad ESL 63, Thiel CS 2.3, and Dynaco A-25......
got to go flip the LP.....
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on chasing your tail because you like out of phase cone breakup....there is no moving forward there just endless flavor changes......might as well buy a crappy equalizer and really mess stuff up.....
the german company that builds the $40 K scanning machine to identify cone breakup modes and out of phase behavoir did not do this for just Vandersteen, there will be plenty of real designers who care, versus flavor changers...... |
Per KEF 652 mm
for the “ ideal soundscape”....
£ 400 direct from KEF..... |
Which of course differs from the manual....
which recommends even less....
one hallmark of engineering excellence is following your own advice...
well until you don’t....
i think i will stick by my initial point tweeter at ear height....
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hopefully the OP gets time to just listen to the music......
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Vandersteen anti-wonky since 1977
more than 250 K sold
my God, something must be right.....
yes designing a great speaker using first order slopes is very difficult and requires drivers that do not breakup for much larger operating bands. There are of course other brilliant speaker designers. Does KEF make a stand or recommend a speaker height in the LS50 manual ?
IF you were paying attention to reading others posts vs just selling, you would know that I spend a good bit of time in a studio with a pair of ATC... I am quite aware of what they can do. But I also know the whims of fashion in that business..JBL, genelec, Yamaha, etc....run by many of the same people bringing you loads of compression and albums with 10 dB of dynamic..range
for the record studio owner prefers his Focal mounted side by side....
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actually I was listening to the Thiels this evening, perhaps you missed that
tomorrow might be the real Quad ESL-63
and the next
the Apogee stage...
and the next modified Cornwalls....
I was selling KEF 105.2 and designing crossovers with an FFT when you were doing what in 1980 ?
you should reread the white paper on the LS 50 and look for intersections w Vandersteen philosophy...there are many...
where they diverge is sacrificing phase accuracy for frequency response...wiring the tweeter out of phase...
you should really bone up on engineering...... |
Again.... the carbon tweeter in the Treo CT is pistonic
but since you don’t actually read white papers ( for products you “ sell “ ) facts are going to be difficult to get across to you.
down to just two pairs of Vandersteen along with 6 other brands...
for a religous fanatic I seem to worship in many different houses of faith..
horns, panels, pustonic, phase correct, etc
see my effusive and glowing comments about the MBL 101
i have a set of Bryston mini A in my recording rack, small chorale groups love them.. well because my Stax only work for two ears at a time....
i know what microphone feeds sound like
and unamplified voices and instruments...
out of phase is just trash... sometimes it is pleasant trash but it does not move the art of the illusion forward...
keep selling flavors....
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you really are dense.....
I bought the stages becuase while they can sound good on certain material, I really wanted to understand how a flat panel with edge clamping stores and releases energy. I have a pretty good grip on that...there are about 2 octaves where they are magic. I bet most Apogee owners love the product even today.
I bought the Cornwalls initially as garage rockers but liked a few things they did with VERY low power, modified the crap out of them and yet......but I know what horns sound like. they have impact and drive and i understand the colorations......
BTW I was lugging a stacked pair of LaScala around for a band PA when you were doing what in 1978 ?
Yes the big petal metallic MBL driver is a wonder driven by a REAL amplifier like an AMS-100 which makes a Krell look toylike...on certain multitrack material with honked up spatial info or a BIg symphonic peice in a VERY large room they can provide a massive soundscape and do percussion, bells, etc very well.....in spite of the filter...RIP the great engineer whominvented that steep slope... the science of how people is important....you trade away time information for frequency response.....ask the cruciak question...can I have both.....it is very hard work, but the answer is yes.......
lets see, the Bryston do have steep slopes...I really dont care about the choral group hearing image....they are spread out on the stands w performaing shell as a big reflector...I do care about getting them excited to hear near instant feedback....which they enjoy....IF i was really a true Vandersteen zealot as you say, i would replace them wuth the VLR........now that you poked me, maybe I will do that.....with a bit of luck the chorale director will cut the reflector size in half.....( it is just a cheap horn.... )
I suspect you are not a Stax dealer either....when I do lend them these....well, they GASP !!! as they should...
the Thiels, ancient as they are...are very musical....check out Jafant’s fantastic Thiel thread right here, something like 5k posts, not a lot of selling going on...I see music and Thiel lovers....ah, so good....
reread, the white paper the LS 50 is just a slightly different flavor than the esteemed 101 aka LS3/5a...oh with worse bass....
the Quad ESL63...... a 2 way with delay lines to emulate a point source......Peter Walker a real genius, not prone to buying off the shelf AMT drivers and outsourcing to China....RIP good man...
you might do well to study the 63...... I am rebuilding my pair so I have witheld judgements...but I sold a bunch of them in the 80’s....the concentric delay lines do not fix the edge clamming, dustcover and other issues..
I actually dont believe a Vandersteen is perfect either, you flubbed the shot at the 1c
that has been replaced by the changed and improved 1ci...
since 1977 learning and improving...
and finally, the TREO tweeter is carbon fiber the midrange is trilaminate carbon fiber..woven ....coherence is not derived from the exact same material because the frequency and breakup modes changes, again.....perhaps reading and study will help you...unless you get hip with the science and the listening, you are just a baskin robbins flavor pusher....
the reality is you have a Vandydealer a few miles away and the heat of competition clouds your thinking....
my last exchange with you.....
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well we certainly both worked for a living...I was no 13 year old child prodigy....I still have the MC240 and MX110 Z that showed up at our house in 1965....
we sold Wilson...and Quad, and Acoustat, and Kef, and Infinity, and Beveridge, and Vandersteen, and ADs, Gale, KEF, a line of kits w custome filters, etc....we made do with a 8 showroom Brownstone, 3 stories...for a time Pasquale Grado lived upstairs, until we converted his flat into another soundroom...
but, I went on to do other things....like run perhaps the largest advanced technology composite shops and development labs on the planet..think B2, F-22, 787...... easy stuff..
which is why I know that Kevlar is just one kind of carbon fiber....
my AMT comment was plainly aimed at Quad, not Legacy...a brand I think is quite fine. Quad , like the new Thiel has strayed far from the garden...so to speak...I use the ESl-63 and will use them for a midrange reference, one of many...yes we worship in many tents..
now, I think I understand you associate phase with time and phase correct. The out of phase behavior we are talking about w pistonic drivers is due to breakup modes in the driver, which is different than a filter which w steep slopes shifts phase.
So cone breakup in or near the passband is 100% trash and distortion...which is why the German company developed the laser scanner - not to help Just vandersteen but to help anyone seeking the truth about just what the cone is doing....
well, I am off to pattern a Turkey shotgun....no kevlar in the stock....
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