Any Vandersteen 7 Owners in SFO Bay Area ?

I had the 5As which I considered to be a breakthrough speaker especially for the price. Bought those from Bruce at Stereo Unlimited in Sand Diego. Bruce is a super dealer in every way. A few years later along comes the Model 7. Living in the LA area I heard the 7s at Optimal Enchantment where I met Randy Cooley who I discovered knows more about Vandersteen speakers than anyone else out there.
Purchased the 7s and use them with Aesthetix Atlas Signature mono
blocks (that are being upgraded as I write this to Atlas Eclipse) plus the Aesthetix Io Eclipse phono preamp with volume controls. I believe the best amps for the Model 7s are the Vandersteen, Aesthetix, and Ayre
amps. As for the 7s,  is there better speaker out there that will work in an average sized listening room? Not to my knowledge. My tastes are classical and jazz. These speakers will bring the sound of a concert hall
into your living room better than anything I have heard.  I have heard Richard Vandersteen say many times that the difference is in the drivers. His perfect piston drivers are simply the best available today. The rest of the 7s design is state of the art as well, but the drivers really set this speaker apart from the rest.
  

Very well put Chargers....As I've posted, Bruce is a great dealer and I used him when I lived in SD in the early/mid 80's.  Just a great guy who gets it.  I never met Randy, but have heard great things about his ability to set up a system.  All of Richard's dealers are masters of set up.  Every dealer of his I've been to, many, are set up artists.  

Love your system. I"ve heard it many times in other stores or homes and I'm jealous, lol.   

I just ordered my Quatro's in Audi Havana Black.  I will wait as long as it takes as they will take my system to the next level.  Have to send my Ayre AX5/20 back to Ayre to have the crossover hard wired into the amp. It will sound much better this way, rather than go with the external crossover as I have no way to properly install it.  It's a cheap and easy install and can be reversed if I ever want to sell the amp.  I'd be able to have Ayre go over the amp too, if and when I sell it.

The best I've ever heard the 7 mk2's is with Richards own amp.  I like Aesthetix better than AR amps/pre's.  I have a newly reconditioned and upgrade Rhea that they guys there did for me.  I will be putting it on the market soon as I never use phono anymore (I have MS and it's a bear to get up and change albums sides every 20minutes or so).  I feel badly as it's such a great phono stage. 

I think the reason the Ayre (and other reference gear) sounds so great with with the Vandersteen Quatro on up is because it's freed up having to power 100hz down.  Folks don't realize what a major difference this is.  You are not just getting possibly the best drivers on the market, you are getting an active speaker that is optimize in the bass.  Bass is the most expensive and difficult part to reproduce for any product.  Richard takes that guess work out and still allows us to go with the amps of our choice.  I do wish he's just offered a fully active system with a great preamp.  That would be a perfect world for me, lol.

I am going to get my 7s sometime next week and i will post pictures once i get them.  

Just listed my 5A carbons on Audiogon. 

Jetter, I am the guy who bought ctsooner's Treo's, I kind of kick myself for not realizing that the Treo and Quatro share the same footprint. I probably would have gone with the Quatro's and eliminated the 2w subs. Anyhoo, it's done.
Since I visited ctsooner to pick up the Treo's, I think the 5a carbons would be a bit overwhelming for his space, though he might disagree with me.
One of the reasons I sold my 3a sigs was because they were so physically large.- Though I found the sound to be sublime.
Bob