From Vandersteen 2CE to Devore Gibbons 8 or Focal

Hi, I just would like to add that I have a pair of the Super 8's and they provide much better bass then the 8's. In
fact I have heard them in a fairly large room with Naim
gear and they had a tremendous amount of musical weight with
out ever sounding bloated.

I had heard that the Super 8s had better bottom end and were a little more efficient as well. I still feel they are more the Jazz lover and Chamber Music lover type of speaker. Perhaps it was because the Vandersteens being a much larger sized speaker conveyed that largeness that I also missed with the DeVore. Not sure, my room could have sonething to do with it too.

The Kismet References are Killer in my room and I am extremely happy. My being happy with the system doesn't happen too often either :)

Bob

Heard both almost side by side at a dealer. They had the 2CE anniversary and devore super 8. Liked the over all presentation of the devore and the scale / low end of the Vandersteen. Devore Nines---Best of both worlds.

I may have missed it but have you adjusted the tweeter and midrange levels on the vandy's.

I'm the proud owner of a pair of Focal 836v speakers and have been very happy with their bass response. Just recently I hooked up my Martin Logan Dynamo 700 10 inch subwoofer to the main channel pre-outs on my receiver to allow me to "fill in the bass" in direct mode for organ and other music that has low bass. I have it crossed over very low and the volume is almost at zero and it really makes the organ sound realistic, but I'm finding that I'm less satisfied with the majority of my music with the addition of the subwoofer. I can't figure anything out specifically, but something just doesn't seem quite right. I need to do a little A/B comparisions with the subwoofer on and off to see if it's having a subtle negative effect on the music that it really isn't necessary for. I hope you have the success that you're looking for. My sub was purchased for home theater and I think I'll be hooking it up to the .1 again soon and just not using it for critical 2 channel listening in direct mode.

I'm sure your new speakers are great, but I was pulling (after the fact as I read through this thread) for the Focals.