Best electronics for Vandersteen 5/5A

Hi Gharrington; I've owned the standard Vand. 5s for over a year now and love them. It took 2 1/2-3 months for them to fully break-in. I've not heard the 5As as they're scarce yet. Also, isn't list price of the 5A about $14.5K?, ie quite a bit more than the std. model 5. I know it would cost $4500. to up-grade my 5s, so the 5As must be quite a bit more refined?

My system is now complete and sounds excellent. I use Levinson 37 transport and 360S DAC and consider it a near state of art front end for digital. Pre-amp is a Sonic Frontiers Line 2SE w/NOS tubes, Hal-O dampers and it sits on a Seismic Sink.

For an amp, I started with a big 300 wpc McCormack DNA-2 Rev A by Steve McCormack at SMc Audio, but as you know the 5s have built in 400 wpc amps for the built-in sub-woofers (below 125 HZ). The upper drivers of the 5s are an easy load to drive 8 Ohm load, so I've recently gone to a McCormack DNA-0.5 "Gold" Rev., and this is a wonderful sounding amp for the 5s. I gained some valuable floor space by doing this. I use mid-priced Active Shielded Syn Res ICs and speaker cables as well as SR Master couplers all plugged into dedicated Hubbell outlets.

Anyone that can afford the 5As though probably wants to spend more money for a more "prestigous" amp, but to tell the truth, I consider the 100 wpc .5 Gold a "prestige" sounding amp and it drives the 5s beautifully. I've heard that R. Vandersteen uses tubed gear with the 5/5As though-- some say ARC, but I haven't talked to him about it. Personally, I prefer a nice sweet, liquid SS amp for it's speed, PR&T, and bass control, and the .5 Gold does this.

I suspect you'll love the 5As. Good Luck with them and please report back after you've used them awhile. Cheers. Craig

Try the Quick Silver tube amps for the hi frequencies. Very magicial on the 5s

I agree with Garfish. (I bought his 300wpc McCormack DNA-2 REV A amp.)

This is my second McCormack amp and although I've never listened to the DNA 0.5 or DNA 0.5 REV A or REV A Gold revisions, I know the standard 0.5 has been around for quite some time and is legendary in it's reputation.

The DNA 0.5 standard was deemed a very comptetitive 2nd a few years ago to the Krell $30,000 Standard amp by many reviewers. Yet the DNA 0.5 standard only costs about $2k or so.

Based on my experience with two DNA amps (one revised, one not), I would have little doubt a DNA 0.5 Revision A or Revison A gold amp rebuilt by Steve McCormack at SMCaudio.com could be as close to a perfect match as one could find for the Vm5's or 5a's.

I also happen to think it's a beautiful looking amp as well.

If you go this route, I would also highly recommend demo'ing a pair of Audience Au24 speaker cables shortly thereafter. That combo could cause you to lose lots of sleep as well.

-IMO

Richard Vandersteen is a very approachable guy. Talk to him with your question and concerns. He would be happy to tell what he has used.

What does your dealer tells you? Take it with a grain of salt since retailing sometimes makes for strange bedfellows.

Please allow proper break-ing.
Good luck

I have used both tube and solid state preamps and amps with my Model Fives and ended up with a Conrad Johnson 16LS Series 11 preamp and a Jeff Rowland Model 10 amplifier. I look forward to hearing the 5A, my dealer has one coming in about 2 weeks.