Need advice/opinion in choosing Vandy 2ci or Thiel 1.5

Thanks for all the great advices and all seems to steer me to the Vandys' direction which I don't think we can go wrong.

You are sort of getting a confirmation bias group… where all the Vandy owners say that the Vandys are great…  one should be mindful that the group has a high degree of bias, irregardless of the fact that they are probably right.

Maybe but I sold my Vandys and replaced them with Thiels at twice the price. I liked the Vandys better. Considering Thiels mate well with a narrower range of electronics and they're out-of-business, I couldn't recommend Thiels in 2021 to any but the most committed of audiophools, even though they sound great in a right rig. Cheers,
Spencer

to the point made by @holmz

i have personally had thiel 1.5s and 2.2s in the past, (in addition to hearing a very close friend’s system with 3.6’s many many times with different amps) and i currently have vandy 3a sigs (among other speakers)

so while i may fit into the theory of confirmation bias in favor of vandy’s, i would say that my preference for vandy’s and the sound they present is not developed without ample experience to thiels as an alternative

both are well respected brands with illustrious histories but the longstanding vandy sound is more natural and musical to me, less overtly detailed, lean and ’hifi’ sounding - obviously the choice of ancillaries matter in using either brand

@jjss49 My 2C have not been overly sensitive to amplifiers. They sound, and have sounded, good with most amplifiers that drove them (PSE, VTL, NAD, PrimaLuna). I only wish that some of that amps lasted longer.

I’m sure that the newer Vandys are better.

so while i may fit into the theory of confirmation bias in favor of vandy’s, i would say that my preference for vandy’s and the sound they present is not developed without ample experience to thiels as an alternative

The Thiels were also speakers that were time and phase correct. So one is comparing speakers that are more technically closer to each other than two wildly different different speakers. Hence tjhe comment:

“One cannot go too wrong with either”

My confirmation bias point was that people that like Vandys are also people that may not like Klipsch or other bright and hard to listen to speakers. If the OP had suggested Klipsch, then the comments would be filled with Klipsch fanbois (or fans of some other speaker brand),


As I mentioned at the end:

… one should be mindful that the group has a high degree of bias, irregardless of the fact that they are probably right.

@holmz, I don’t swap gear in and out all that often, especially speakers. I’ve kept speakers for decades. What usually causes such changes; is a change in rooms. The room / speaker relationship can not be under emphasized. And this is Audiogon, changes are not that difficult.
@audiomax, For what little it’s worth; I didn’t much care for Thiel’s earlier 1 series, but the 1.5’s and later 1.6’s are to my ears much better, and favorites of mine for small rooms. I should point out that both the Thiel’s even more so for the Vandy’s, need proper room setup more so than some others to perform their best. Small rooms often offer less flexibility in this regard. Both brands offer co-axial designs that are much more forgiving of compromised room set up. Again for what little it’s worth; as much as I think the Vandy 2’s just might be the best overall value in the history of audio, I’ve never much cared for Vandersteen’s 1 series. I firmly believe that one should buy amps for speakers, not speakers for amps. With that said, your current proposed amp will probably work somewhat better with the Vandy 1’s than the Thiel CS 1.5’s.