Rockport Avior or Magico S5

Ah so Phil you are the Cygnus owner... Hahaha!!

Congrats man!

Yeah, Ctsooner, I was surprised at the bass with the 7's at RMAF. I used a Dead Can Dance track I am very familiar with to assess bass and I played it in that room. The bass was very extended, just not tight and focused in the lower midbass making things feel 'thick' and 'bloated'. The set up was vinyl, and they had a Brinkman table and Lyra Atlas cart. ARC preamps and the Vandersteen custom amps that mate with the 7's. Can't remember the cables. Maybe they didn't have the Atlas dialed in to the proper SRA and VTF?

As far as soundstage height, I don't have to do anything special with my loudspeakers or have noticed the 'lowering of the soundstage' with the exception of the 7's. It was weird - the depth and width of the soundstage was world class, and images were as solid as they get. But the center image was only around 2-3 feet off the ground and the height barely made it a few inches above the speaker cabinets. The room and ceiling were quite large so I'm not sure what was going on there.

I really liked everything about the 7's except for the above. They were on my short list for a new loudspeaker. After hearing everything at RMAF and auditioning several, my top three were the Rockport Avior, Vandersteen 7's and Lansche 5.1's.

The poster was asking opinions about the Rockport Avior vs. the Magico S5. Somehow this thread got diverted to discussions on the merits of various Vandersteen models.

Phil, what state do you live in? I can promise you that the 7's bass is about as good as it gets when it's cooking. The one thing that impressed me about the upper end Vandys when I started to give them a shot a couple of years ago was their FAST, detailed, tight, but mainly natural sounding mid bass. We all know that it's the mid bass that is so critical to get proper sound from any speaker. That's why if a smaller speaker can nail that part of the spectrum, then you can listen to them for a long time and enjoy the music.
Personally I just don't ever make a true judgement of any component at a show. Too many variables, but if I hear something special I certainly put it on my must audition list, that's for sure. We probably should have started an original thread, however folks got their thoughts out on the original and started to add a few other options in that range. Doesn't that happen all the time?

Vandersteen start you own thread.