Set-Up Advice for Vandersteen 1Cs


I'm beginning to piece together a system and having previously owned a pair of Vendersteen 1Bs back in the late 90's before I sold all my equipment I purchased a pair used 1Cs for $299 and $80 shipping... hopefully this was a good price.

I have a small apartment and these will be in the living room with the TV and I would like the sound from my TV, Cable, Apple TV or Roku 3, Blu-Ray, a DAC connected to my ipad/iphone/macbook pro, and eventually a turntable to be able to play through this system. I plan I have zero interest in a surround sound system, so multichannel is not a concern.

My understanding is that I should probably get an HDMI switch with audio out since things like the Apple TV and Roku 3 don't have audio out and I'll want the audio from those to play through the system. This area is new to me so any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

To complicate things I would LIKE to have a tube amp if possible. I am willing to go solid state, but I would much much prefer tube.

My budget is somewhere in the $500-$750 range. I am planning on buying used equipment to get the most bang for my buck. Something with a phono input would be best, but obviously I can't have everything.

I've been completely out of the loop and this was totally a spur of the moment purchase for me but I don't have a tremendous amount of time or disposable income so I'm looking to greater minds than my own for assistance.
greatwhitebat
I have a great sounding NAD 326BEE that I"m willing to part with since I got my Ayre integrated. I used it with my Proac Super Towers for a year and it sounded pretty good. not in the same class as Ayre, but for what it cost it was great. Let me know if you have interest. Rogue is something to look at as it mates really well with Vandy's too.
Well... at the moment I'm not so sure I'll be getting the Vandersteens at all. The seller still hasn't shipped a week later and has been rather flippant and not terribly responsive. That isn't instilling me with a lot of confidence as to the condition or quality of the speakers even if they do arrive.
If you are still in the market, I have 2 pairs of Proacs that are for sale, lol. The monitors are currently at Audio Connection where they'll ship out off and you can do a cc if you want. Just let me know. Both sets are in teak.
Finally the Vandersteen 1Cs have arrived... without the floor stands. I'm now attempting to get the seller to ship me the floor stands. It amazes me how incompetent this seller has been with this transaction overall. On the other hand, they sound great and are working well so far.

I have purchased a NAD 3140 as a temporary integrated amp and it is happily driving the speakers along at 40wpc without any issues at all.

Now I'm just working on figuring out placement.
I fear that I might have to get rid of my TV bench/stand in this process and mount the TV on the wall for me to be able to place them close enough together.

They are set on the long wall in a room that has dimensions of 173x141. One side is partially open into a kitchen and dining area.

The couch is faced opposite to them with my listening position about 14-20 inches off of the back wall depending on how I'm sitting.

The TV bench is 71 inches wide with a 50" TV set on it in the centre. The bench itself is 18.5 inches high.
If I place the speakers on either side of the bench with their faces poking out about 4 inches in front, toed in slightly, and about 2 inches off to the side of the bench that puts them about 73 inches apart (from edge to edge). They are currently 15 inches off of the wall behind them and 39.5 and 36 inches off of the side walls. My listening position is about 96 inches back from there.

I feel like I need to bring them closer together, probably around 55-60 inches apart because the soundstage sounds very thin in the middle and pulled out toward the edges.

Perhaps I should wait for the floor stands before I get too deep into this?
Find sweet spot without stands. It's much easier to move them around and you don't have to poke holes on your floor with those stands.
Although they can be driven with low-powered amp, They'd benefit much larger from 100wpc or larger. If you plan to add 2wq sub or pair later you'll get sound superior to 3a performance.
So your future options are: more power and/or sub and/or 2xsub and you'll be in nirvana.