What do you think of Vandersteen 5a's?

Mike, there is a dealer in Salt Lake city named Aris audio ask for scott. I think he has a website as well. Tell him you heard from charles in audiogon from draper utah. If you can get there which isnt too far from denver, you can somtimes find flights under 75.00 round trip. Travel zoo always have specials going on between the two cities. Just a thought that might help.

I have to agree generally with Bofh, but with a slight twist. The Quatro's and the 5A's are the only Vandy speaker that can be taken seriously. Below the Quatro's it all goes bloat, overripe, limited dynamics and very unrealistic. The Quatro is a very good speaker. The 5A is one of the best out there regardless of price. I know there are a lot of Vandy fans out there but if I couldn't afford either of the top models I'd be looking somewhere else.

Aris Audio in Salt Lake City has Vandersteen 5A's in place for you to addition. The set up is actually real as Aris Audio occupies a portion of Scott's home. Scott (the owner) is a great guy and I am sure you will find him more than helpful.

Maybe make a trip out of it drive through the Vail Valley, stop for some skiing, head over to Park City Mountain Resort in Park City Ut. for some more skiing, then on to Salt Lake for a speaker audition.

Aris Audio = http://www.arisaudio.com/

I just wanted to compliment mlsstl's response above as maybe the most insightful remarks ever written about speaker quality I've ever read. (They are really words to live by, so take every review with a grain of salt.)
To go even further, as I gained more listening experience, my own likes and dislikes have evolved, so what I liked 10 years ago may be painful now.

I'm an American currently assigned to the US Embassy in Australia. I ordered the 5A's from The US and as such, had no dealer support here. So I hired an audio engineer who owns his own recording studio. He brought another audio engineer friend and a calibrated mike with real time analyzer to properly adjust my 5A's to my room. The fee was to be $66 per hour. We spent about 2-3 hours dialing in the speakers, then broke out the CD's and Belgian beer for some serious listening. They stayed for 3 more hours, then refused payment because they had never heard such a good system and had such a good time listening! That's how good these speakers sound. If you want to spend less, the model 3A Signatures with 2WQ subs are also outstanding. I was quite happy with them until the terrible and wonderful day I made the mistake of hearing the 5A's.