Vandersteen 2C vs. Klipsch Cornwall

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.

"Descriptions like 'open and airy' will be gone from your vocabulary. The band will be in your living room."

- Jaybo, that's pretty interesting; this whole thing almost seems not just counter-intuitive, but counter to everything I've trained myself to believe about hifi; kind of like switching from being a democrat to a republican or vice versa :)

In hifi, with electrostats the open and airy sound (a long with great 3D imaging and lots of definition and detail) has been one of the sounds I've enjoyed the most. Having said that, when I go to hear live music I never hear open and airy. In fact, expecially with rock n roll, when I go to hear live music I look around at the amps and speakers and neither the gear or the sound seems much like my system or any good hifi system I've heard. So, your comment that the band will be your room might just be a good realization.