2chfreak..Haven't heard any of the current Vandersteen models, and it appears he has taken on engineers that has improved his designs in recent years but that was not the case back in the 90's when all his model's were the open frame design with the sock over the frame. His speaker's back then sounded absolutely horrible. Why did he get such high praise back then?
Because of big bucks going to Stereophile. During the late 80's and early 90's Richard Vandersteen had the largest annual advertising contract with Stereophile. For four years + he had a full page ad on the back cover every month. Most of the ads were the 2 CE. In the summer of 1998 I decided to check out the 2 CE's and called my friend Keith from the Washington Audio Society and asked him to go down to Tacoma with me and listen to the CE's at Advanced Audio. We arrived at the store, and the owner, Curtis, took us into the sound room where he set up a system to the 2 CE's. The gear used was an Audible Illusion's Modulus 3A preamp, an Ayre amplifier and a Wadia CD player. I brought some master CD recordings with me and started off with Copelands' Rodeo. The spectacular opening of Rodeo with its powerful timpani's and crashing symbols sounded flat and dull. The bass was loose and flabby with a narrow soundstage with no hall effect and poor imaging. Keith and I looked at each other and were shocked how bad the speaker sounded especially the bottom end that had low SPL capability. For two hours we threw everything at the Vandy's, Brubeck, Zeppelin, Beethoven. It just couldn't deliver the goods. Two days later I called and spoke to Richard Vandersteen and asked him what the maximum SPL/weighted decibel level the speaker could reach before breaking down. His response was.."What do you mean by weighted?" I explained and he went dead quiet, then replied loosing his temper and yelled at me saying, "I don't have time to answer technical question's" and slammed the phone on me. I mentioned my experience with senior member's of the audio society and they burst out laughing and told me that Richard is well known in the industry for his bad temper. If you ever decide to move on from Vandersteen, I will turn you on to a true treasure speaker that I would call the "Belles" of stereo speakers from a small boutique company. Their best floor stander cabinet is made from bamboo. The strongest natural fiber panels available. Bamboo is 500% stronger than MDF which everyone uses to make speakers since MDF is cheap. Bamboo also weighs 50% less. The guy who makes these speakers is just like Dave Belles. Makes speakers for music lovers. His top floor stander only cost two grand and you would be hard pressed to find a better speaker anywhere under $10K that could best it. Its the speaker I have finally decided on that is a match made in heaven with the Virtuoso.
Because of big bucks going to Stereophile. During the late 80's and early 90's Richard Vandersteen had the largest annual advertising contract with Stereophile. For four years + he had a full page ad on the back cover every month. Most of the ads were the 2 CE. In the summer of 1998 I decided to check out the 2 CE's and called my friend Keith from the Washington Audio Society and asked him to go down to Tacoma with me and listen to the CE's at Advanced Audio. We arrived at the store, and the owner, Curtis, took us into the sound room where he set up a system to the 2 CE's. The gear used was an Audible Illusion's Modulus 3A preamp, an Ayre amplifier and a Wadia CD player. I brought some master CD recordings with me and started off with Copelands' Rodeo. The spectacular opening of Rodeo with its powerful timpani's and crashing symbols sounded flat and dull. The bass was loose and flabby with a narrow soundstage with no hall effect and poor imaging. Keith and I looked at each other and were shocked how bad the speaker sounded especially the bottom end that had low SPL capability. For two hours we threw everything at the Vandy's, Brubeck, Zeppelin, Beethoven. It just couldn't deliver the goods. Two days later I called and spoke to Richard Vandersteen and asked him what the maximum SPL/weighted decibel level the speaker could reach before breaking down. His response was.."What do you mean by weighted?" I explained and he went dead quiet, then replied loosing his temper and yelled at me saying, "I don't have time to answer technical question's" and slammed the phone on me. I mentioned my experience with senior member's of the audio society and they burst out laughing and told me that Richard is well known in the industry for his bad temper. If you ever decide to move on from Vandersteen, I will turn you on to a true treasure speaker that I would call the "Belles" of stereo speakers from a small boutique company. Their best floor stander cabinet is made from bamboo. The strongest natural fiber panels available. Bamboo is 500% stronger than MDF which everyone uses to make speakers since MDF is cheap. Bamboo also weighs 50% less. The guy who makes these speakers is just like Dave Belles. Makes speakers for music lovers. His top floor stander only cost two grand and you would be hard pressed to find a better speaker anywhere under $10K that could best it. Its the speaker I have finally decided on that is a match made in heaven with the Virtuoso.