New speakers for my system


I am currently running a bi-amped system comprised of a pair of 360° dispersion transmission lines that are tuned to 17Hz and a pair of 2 ways using Scanspeak Ti HF and 6" full range drivers. The 2 ways are crossed over at 4k with 2nd order Butterworths.
I am driving them all with a pair of Classé strereo amps. The crossovers to each amp are via a DSP.
The plan is to eliminate the 2 ways and replace them with a better imaging pair of something that will not require digital filtration but will only see the digital crossover. The crossover can be at a low enough frequency, perhaps 100Hz, so there will be no significant time alignment issues caused by the digital circuitry.

Another option would be to bi-amp a single pair and replace both speaker pairs. This is hard to justify since the T-Ls are pretty effective. In fact I’ve needed to roll them off at 25Hz. They use a pair of the old Focal kevlar cone drivers (8".)
Maybe some time-aligned D’Appolito configuration?
areed622
with all due respect Infinity did enough to screw up that legacy.....the V are a reference speker, certainly there are others....but I get his daily email, and I await the fruits of all the work.....and talk....

OP I owned a set of Vandersteen 3a signatures for a few years....midrange from the 5,ditto on the tweeter, time and phase correct. Do reward detailed setup
not sure how they would integrate w your digital filter and subs...they play pretty low by themselves....see the acoustic coupler..

@tomic601 Infinity Systems certainly changed direction in terms of their speaker designs following Arnie Nudell’s departure in 1989, no longer producing boxless dipole speakers. The rights to the EMI drivers were also split between Harmon and Arnie, with Arnie keeping the Emit-R tweeter which formed the basis of Genesis Advanced Technologies’ tweeter. From there, Harmon tightened the screws leading to the departure of Company President Cary Christie in 1995, who continued on only as a consulting designer for another 3 years. A factory fire then destroyed much of the tooling for the remaining EMI drivers, hastening the end of the era of classic Infiniity speakers. Harmon were only really interested in milking Infinity to develop it’s own line of speakers. There used to be a photo on the internet of Harmon/Revel voicing a pair of Revel Ultima Gem’s with Infinity IRS-Omega speakers, but that photo mysteriously disappeared after I mentioned it in an Infinity thread a few years ago. So it was really Harmon who screwed up Arnie’s legacy, hastened by bad luck.
@melbguyone so true, your facts ring very true but I was deeply involved working at dealer which carried most everything but IRS from 1980 -1986, poly Cell was junk...my point is the high end stuff could provide a reference but had many issues... getting cohesive sound out of four big towers always a challenge, chasing your tail with micro movements only to hear something entirely new but now missing something else...
i do have a ton of respect for Arnie
hopefully his great legacy will live and indeed flourish 
@areed622

Couple yrs ago I’ve briefly heard a pair of higher end model Vandersteen speakers (couldn’t remember which model), the ones that cost around $30k/pair, paired with all Audio Research gears and they sounded fabulous together. Very smooth very musical with very good stereo imaging. Not sure how the Vandersteen that you’re interested in will sound and perform driven by your Classe amps in bi-amp configuration. Btw, which Classe stereo amps do you have? And what are the rest of your setup gears?

What’s your budget for the speakers? Are you willing to look for a used pair?
If you have newer Classe amps such as the Classe Delta CA-2300 stereo amp or even the Classe Sigma Amp2 amp, you should consider the newer B&W 800 series D3 speakers eg the 803 D3 or the 802 D3 or even the 804 D3 speakers. These newer B&W 800 series D3 speakers will sound really good driven by the latest generation of Classe Delta series amps such as the CA-2300, CAM-300, CAM-600 amps. The newer B&W 800 series D3 speakers voiced and tuned using these Classe amps. They were designed around these Classe amplifications and are meant to be paired together. They have great sonic synergy together.
But I don’t know which Classe stereo amps you have.

However, Vandersteen makes excellent sounding speakers when paired with the right amplifications and electronics.
Again, it depends on personal tastes and musical tastes when it comes to speaker choices. I also believe in system synergy as a whole.

Focal, Harbeth, Spendor, Sonus Faber, Magico, Wilson Audio Vienna Acoustics, Devore Fidelity, etc make awesome speakers.

In regards to the Maggies, they are difficult to drive and are power hungry and require large spacious room to sound their best. But I would think the big Classe amps such as the CA-2300 stereo amp, the CAM-300 monoblocks, the CAM-600 monoblocks will have no problem driving the big Maggies at all. They will drive them with ease. But again I don’t know which Classe amps you have and plus your room size and shape makes it impossible for the big Maggies.
IMO the Vandersteen 3a is very great speaker with a self-effacing personality that makes it easy to live with.

Vandersteen's dedicated subs use a 1st order crossover, which you can simulate digitally if that's what works the best in your setup.  Sounds like your TLs dig deeper than theirs do.