Vandersteen's are among my favourite speakers, but I don't think they would be described as detailed - which I don't think too much of is such a great thing anyway - they are certainly full range, especially the Quattro. I'm not sure Cardas cabling would be best though - they don't need the relative filtering that "bright" speakers would need. As much as I loved my Vandersteens, the Merlins in my view are significantly more resolved, coherent, detailed, musical, and dynamic. The only area where they may fall short, is in ultimate deep bass slam (32Hz-22Khz +/- 2db) - never a problem for me however in my 12x19 room listening to acoustic music. Oh, and they are practically designed for and with Cardas cabling. While Merlins are typically a tube amp speaker, they are known to work well with Mac, especially with the units with autoformers or whatever ever that MAC transformer is called.