Vandersteen 2C vs. Klipsch Cornwall

Another perspective. I have owned both 2Cs and KG4s and currently own Klipsch Fortes.

First, to correct a misconception, the Cornwalls are called Cornwalls because they work both in the corner of the room or at the junction of floor and wall, ie against the back wall.

At a measured 83db sensitivity, the Vandy is just teriffically inefficient. Granted, the impedance is relatively invariant and the phase angle is not as bad as many modern speakers, which makes it easy to drive. But the speaker represents the modern belief among designers that "watts is cheap". Which they are if you don't mind cuddling up with a nice high power solid-state amp or if you don't want to play your music loud, or if you limit your cravings to madrigals and Diana Krall.

But I always liked the small EL-34 tube amps, and could never get enough heft and weight out of them with modern speakers. It just was not a good match. When I switched to high sensitivity speakers, I was not only surprised that the 12-50 watt tube amps had the drive and heft that I wanted in my music, but also that the much lower harmonic and IM distortion products in horn speakers, as compared to direct radiators, which I always had believed were below the threshold of audiblility, turned out to be quite audible and just my cup of tea. Horns and tubes sound very relaxed and free of strain. On the other hand, they will never image like the Vandys. And though I only go to a couple of concerts a month, I never really hear this type of imaging in the concert hall, though that is for another discussion.

I will say, if you prefer pinpoint imaging, lack of box colorations and great clarity, you will enjoy the Vandys. If dynamic sweep, weight and lack of strain is your cuppa jo, you may just prefer the Klipsh's. The good news is that both hold their value quite well and if you make the wrong choice it should be easy to get out of.

Viridian, that was very helpful - thanks. A few questions, please/thanks:
1. When you mentioned pinpoint imaging, do you mean the Klipsch's have no pinpont imaging or that they have almost no imaging at all other than "stereo"?
2. Please say more about what box coloration means and how much of it exists with the Klipsch's vs. the Vandys and how that impacts the musical enjoyement or lack thereof.
3. Are you saying the Klipsch's have as much weight or more weight or a lot more weight vs. the Vandys? Is that a reference mostly to the low end, or something else?
4. What does dynamic sweep mean?

I do like "pinpoint imaging" but I'm not getting that in my room from the Vandys; I did get it from the Soundlabs in the same room - although that could be the difference between not only the speakers but also the ARC solid state amp used with the Vandys and the ARC tube amps used with the SLs.

And to your point, I would definitely like to get past my Diana Krall and half a dozen other AB recordings. Your description of the Kipsch/tube amp experience seems pretty encouraging.

- one last question; can you typically put the Cornwalls right up against the back wall without getting bloat or do they need to be out some distance?

Thanks - and if any other posters want to chime in, all comments are highly welcome!

First, I would like to respectfully disagree with Krisjan's statement that, "The Vandy will be better (i.e. more natural sounding) in every sense except senitivity - the Klipsch is VERY sensitive (102 dB/watt) and can use flea-powered amps." I take issue with this both technically, and in practice, as horn loaded drivers have inherently lower harmonic and IM distortion than direct radiators, because the diaphragms move less for a given loudness. Rise time is faster and the coil remains in the sweet spot of the magnetic gap. Look at any independent tests of horn loaded drivers, Stereophile is a good source, and you will see lower distortion. Is this swamped by secondary reflections off of the horns themselves, the front baffles, etc.? That is for the listener to decide. I have made up my mind.

The Cornwalls should ONLY be used at the junction of the floor and wall, or in the corner, which is the way that they were designed. They should not be moved into the room. There are other speakers in the Heritage range that can be used out into the room, Quartet, Forte, Forte 2, Chorus 2, etc. These all have sensitivities around 95-98db as opposed to around 102db for the Cornwalls, so if your desire is to go single ended the Cornwalls may be the better choice, but if you want a bit better imaging and want greater freedom in positioning the other models may make more sense.

And while there are those that dismiss high sensitivity as an unimportant quality in speakers lest I remind them that, if a speaker is 10db less sensitive, one would have to have a 350 watt amp to achieve the same loudness level as a 35 watt amp would give. But absolute loudness is not an issue for most of us. How you get from soft to loud is, and horns are very, very fast and have very fine gradations in their dynamics. Just as they may give up detail to direct radiators, some will find that the natural dynamics are a worthwhile compromise.

And what do I mean by "scale", "weight" and "dynamic sweep"? Scale is simply the size of the image. Weight is the way the waveform launches when the speaker goes from quiet to loud. In many speakers, the frequency response subtly changes as they get quickly louder and the bass becomes deemphasized. Lags behind or down in level. A speaker with weight will hit you with the full impact of the bass as well as midrange and treble as it gets louder. The leading wave front is subjectively complete with everything arriving at once. You hear it in the concert hall and take it for granted. You make excuses for it not being there with many modern speakers. And sweep is more subjective but it is simply an emotional connection with the majesty of the sound.

Horns do not image precisely as a fine direct radiator like the Vandys do. They are less descriminating about those things going on at the edges and rear of stage. The center image is usually quite good, having tremendous body and substance, as if the body is full. But the edge definition is softer at the edges of the image without the sharp image outlines that the best speakers present. And detail is clearer on most direct radiators. I am in my local audio club and when I listen to my friends great systems - much greater than mine - I, and they, listen to the bass, the treble, the image, whatever. Horns put the presentation together in a way that mitigates that type of analysis.

But there is a price to pay. Put your hands around your mouth and talk. What you hear is a coloration. A horn coloration. A little boxy, and a little nasal. My sensory gating tends to not even notice it in my horns, but it is there, all of the time. Every minute. And high sensitivity speakers require big boxes, which are less dead and resonate more than small, well braced boxes. Rap a wood table, what you hear is box coloration.

There is one final point that I want to make, and that is that it is my belief that modern speaker design has been primarily been driven by domestic aestetics (the dreaded WAF) as well as by the audio press. The same audio press that embraced the earliest transistor gear. The same audio press that embraced the compact disc at its release, when it was not an acceptable medium for the storage of music. And the same audio press that must sell publications with the new and the newer. The flashy, the elegant. I believe that in the quest for the flavor of the month, physics and engineering have been given a back seat. The big man almost always beats the small man. There are many more Goliaths than Davids. Happy listening.

Viridian, another very cool post - Thanks!

"But there is a price to pay. Put your hands around your mouth and talk. What you hear is a coloration. A horn coloration. A little boxy, and a little nasal. My sensory gating tends to not even notice it in my horns, but it is there, all of the time. Every minute. And high sensitivity speakers require big boxes, which are less dead and resonate more than small, well braced boxes. Rap a wood table, what you hear is box coloration."
- so color means boxy, as opposed to open and airy?

"But the edge definition is softer at the edges of the image without the sharp image outlines that the best speakers present. And detail is clearer on most direct radiators."
- why is this, what causes it? (lack of cut down baffles like on Vandys and DQ-10s? maybe the big conventional driver doing too much of the mid frequencies? or something else?)

"I am in my local audio club and when I listen to my friends great systems - much greater than mine - I, and they, listen to the bass, the treble, the image, whatever. Horns put the presentation together in a way that mitigates that type of analysis."
- I would be happy to get off the analysis program

The Vandy 2C supposedly goes down to about 32Hz +/-1.5dB (but in my room they don't seem to get there); the Cornwall to 38Hz +/-3dB. What would you guess would be the real world hearable differences between the two on the low end?

- on a different note, do you have any preference between a 300B, 2A3, 45, or EL34, or other amp design with Klipsch's?

I recently had an enlightening experience with vintage horn loaded speakers in a second hand store. We connected the speakers to a Bogen integrated amp of the same vintage. The speaker wire was 24 gauge connected directly to the crossover. I put on a Sonny Rollins CD and my jaw hit the floor. I thought I was listening to a pair of Quads.
I concluded this terrific sound was partly due to the small speaker wire and the high efficiency speakers.

Vandersteen 2Cs will only play so loud. It doesn't seem to matter how much power you have the speaaker hits a brick wall. Besides, if you push the Vandersteens for long periods you ruin them. The crossover heats up and the result is damaged crossover parts. This is an ongoing problem with Vandersteen speakers.