Replacement for Vandersteen 2ce

No toe-in, no rack between the speakers, proper tilt-back per RV, listening seat at least 9'  from plane of speakers, acoustic treatment, acoustic treatment, acoustic treatment. Also try getting speakers closer to front wall, the rear-facing acoustic coupler works wonders that way. Bi-wire almost mandatory. They sound significantly better from mids up with bi-wire setup.

I own a pair of Vandersteen 5As and I had some issues with them.  I use a 100wpc stereo amp as I felt that I only technically needed to power the top half of the speaker since they already have powered sub-woofers in each speaker.  I was playing around this weekend and I hooked up a more powerful amp at 220wpc both of which I made so the only difference was the power technically.  As good as the smaller amp was, and it is outstanding, the larger amp was even better especially in more openness and easy of the music flow.  So before you make the change, speak with JohnnyR and see if yo can try another amp on them.

@bigkidz Since I started driving them with the Krell 200 watts per channel they sound much better. Yes I will speak to JohnnyR and see what he thinks. Maybe some new shorter cables will help. My old 15ft TaraLabs RSC Primes are probably hindering. I only need 6-8ft now.

I’ve had 2ce’s for many years.
What I have found is they are extremely capable when driven with the right equipment.

Run a good tube preamp - VTL 5.5
Run a good amp - a bit of power - Aragon 4004 mk2
Use reference quality speaker cables & Interconnects - Cardas NR biwire speaker & GP interconnects

Use a good source - VPI / Soundsmith Zephyr cart or CAL Alpha tube DAC

Use some good tubes in your preamp & DAC.

Use a good recording

I had older non reference level cables for a long while, but when changing to reference level cables, the speakers open up.

They are time & phase coherent.

I’ve had Magneplaners prior.

I’ve seen reviews that say essentially these do nothing great but everything right.

When you use the right equipment, I believe they do everything great. They do for me.

Feed them right & I know you will be quite shocked at exactly how amazing these 2ce’s can sound

I like the suggestion of Vandersteen 3 or 3A or 3A Signatures, depending on what you can find. You should get similar but better sound from them.

(I own and use a pair of Vandersteen 4A in  one of my systems)