Vandersteen 2C vs. Klipsch Cornwall

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.

Descriptions like 'open and airy' will be gone from your vocabulary. The band will be in your living room..'Room tunes?. We don't need no stinking room tunes'. The cool factor is an 11 out of 10.

I've heard both speakers a grand total of once each. Walked away from the Vandies saying I could live with these and walked away from the Cornwalls saying yuck, no way. For what its worth.

"- so color means boxy, as opposed to open and airy?"

Correct.

"- why is this, what causes it?"

I am not a designer, perhaps others will weigh in. It may be due to the larger baffle and the reflections within the horn throat though.

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

Yes, I do, but I will not go into that. One of the best things about high eff speakers is that they free you to try any of these types of amps and still get good SPLs in a real world room. Paul Klipsch always said what the world needed was a good two watt amp. He liked the Brook push-pull 2A3 amps. I have heard them and they sounded just great, but they are beyond my financial resources. Way beyond. One nice thing is that, if you like the sound, you won't really need a very expensive amp. Even a Dyna 70 will get you there.

"What would you guess would be the real world hearable differences between the two on the low end?"

Room interaction is so unpredictable that I could not begin to guess.

Brownsfan and the other posters bring up a good point, you need to listen to these speakers, as they are certainly not for everyone. Do use a tube amp though. My experience has been that they don't sound very good with SS. Though I have not tried every type of SS amp with them.