New speakers for my system

@areed622

Couple yrs ago I’ve briefly heard a pair of higher end model Vandersteen speakers (couldn’t remember which model), the ones that cost around $30k/pair, paired with all Audio Research gears and they sounded fabulous together. Very smooth very musical with very good stereo imaging. Not sure how the Vandersteen that you’re interested in will sound and perform driven by your Classe amps in bi-amp configuration. Btw, which Classe stereo amps do you have? And what are the rest of your setup gears?

What’s your budget for the speakers? Are you willing to look for a used pair?
If you have newer Classe amps such as the Classe Delta CA-2300 stereo amp or even the Classe Sigma Amp2 amp, you should consider the newer B&W 800 series D3 speakers eg the 803 D3 or the 802 D3 or even the 804 D3 speakers. These newer B&W 800 series D3 speakers will sound really good driven by the latest generation of Classe Delta series amps such as the CA-2300, CAM-300, CAM-600 amps. The newer B&W 800 series D3 speakers voiced and tuned using these Classe amps. They were designed around these Classe amplifications and are meant to be paired together. They have great sonic synergy together.
But I don’t know which Classe stereo amps you have.

However, Vandersteen makes excellent sounding speakers when paired with the right amplifications and electronics.
Again, it depends on personal tastes and musical tastes when it comes to speaker choices. I also believe in system synergy as a whole.

Focal, Harbeth, Spendor, Sonus Faber, Magico, Wilson Audio Vienna Acoustics, Devore Fidelity, etc make awesome speakers.

In regards to the Maggies, they are difficult to drive and are power hungry and require large spacious room to sound their best. But I would think the big Classe amps such as the CA-2300 stereo amp, the CAM-300 monoblocks, the CAM-600 monoblocks will have no problem driving the big Maggies at all. They will drive them with ease. But again I don’t know which Classe amps you have and plus your room size and shape makes it impossible for the big Maggies.

IMO the Vandersteen 3a is very great speaker with a self-effacing personality that makes it easy to live with.

Vandersteen's dedicated subs use a 1st order crossover, which you can simulate digitally if that's what works the best in your setup.  Sounds like your TLs dig deeper than theirs do.

"I haven’t heard Vandersteen speakers, so I couldn’t comment on their sound. Though the consensus is they are good value speakers at their price point."

If you want Vandersteens just toss towels over decent speakers. Vandersteens are for folks who want to mellow out everything so it sounds smooth, often they confuse detail with brightness.

That’s the problem with speakers though, everyone has different goals and taste. I LOVE detail, BUT that always has my system on the razor’s edge, if a recording was recorded brightly, your ears will be bleeding on my stereo, on Vandersteens you may finally hear a little detail. I once bypassed THREE capacitors IN SERIES on a pair of Vandersteens with V-Caps, the tweeter was unlistenable. They used 3 capacitors in series to dumb down the signal. If the driver sounds like crap out of the box, why would anyone use it? Ask Vandersteen, I sure don’t get it!


I have gone full range. Ditch the crossovers and then the B.S. about "XYZ was in the room" becomes true with the right electronics. Call Don Sachs, he’ll set you strait, but he has a long lead time for building amps and preamps, but they are worth the wait. He uses Roy Mottram designed electronics. Roy sells the same gear, but Don limits out Roy’s designs. If 90% will suffice, you can save time and money buying from Roy. If you want to tweak, go with Roy, either way you’ll have amazing gear for reasonable prices, but Don will be able talk speakers with you. He’ll refer you to David, and you’ll swear that David is full of it, but he has a 30 day return policy, so if he is, take advantage of it.


I have had, and tweaked a lot of speakers many would consider to be great, but they never came close to Quad 57’s in realism, my full range drivers smoke Quads. NOTHING else that I have ever heard made me think that Quads were not the best mids I have heard! You can get into some inexpensively with Mark Audio Alpair 10.3’s. Madisound has them on sale for $88 a driver, all you need to do is find a cabinet maker. I’d go MFD, if you don’t like them you not out much, if you love them, they can veneer them in about any flavor of wood you prefer. Don would recommend Audio Nirvana Classic 15 ALNICOs ($1199/pr). That’s what I went with. Don does live music all the time and has a great ear.


Don’t forget, that advice is worth every penny you paid for it!

I’ve been real busy with work so this is the first time I’ve had to catch up on this thread. Thank you all for your suggestions. Update:
Just repositioned my mid-highs to more closely align with both the vertical and time axis of the TLs. WAY BIG improvement very largely affected my raising the altitude of the HF drivers so they’re slightly above ear level.
I need to remeasure the system. This time instead of relying on FFT and impulse exclusively I will look at both pulse and triangle waveforms as well which should help reveal transient response issues when differentially viewed on a scope.
Re-examining the current filtration reveals a suspicious boost applied around the digital x-over point, most likely a phase issue since Fourier addition should require a cut there and not a boost.
Next I plan to re-EQ the system so all filtration happens below 400Hz and there is no time delay applied. If that further improves things I’ll design a 2 or 3 way that will be time aligned with the TLs and will work from 150 or 200 Hz on up.
Currently looking at SEAS MCA15RCY (to be rolled off below 150 or 200Hz and up to 2k or so) to couple with Dynaudio D28 up to 4.5k then use either my 3/4 Ti or Vifa tweeters on up. The Markaudios would likely get smoked pretty quickly due to low power handling (30w) coupled with fairly low efficiency (~88dB spl @ 1w.)
I plan to try to keep the passive filtration to 1st order BW and non-inductive resistors as needed to eliminate x-over induced phase error.
All digital filtration will be on the low-end exclusively so as to completely eliminate any digital delay blurring of the image.
Another more expensive option would be use the TLs from 25 to 200 Hz, the SEAS from 200 to 4k (angled at 20°,) and Eton 26HD3s on up.

If you like the D’Appolito type of speaker, check out  Usher speakers. IMO they blow away the 20.7’s or even the 30.7’s that I just heard. Check out the x-towers, BE-10, or BE-20’s. If you have a medium size room, look at the Mini Dancer II’s. I use the latest Classe monoblock amps with the Usher Mini Dancer II’s and with the newer Usher x-towers, fantastic sq