Vandersteen 2CE Signature III — video review on YouTube by Steve Guttenberg (1/15/2023)

It would be pretty nice to see some frequency response graphs.
The only ones I know of are few from Stereophile many years back, and “Erin’s Audio Corner” measured an older 2C ~ a year ago.

As for other speakers; not seeing the step function response, or a step function response which is at odds with how the sound pressure hit the microphone… just bugs me. And therefore it excludes most speakers I look at, or consider looking at.
(I kinda like them to be technically correct as an opening bid.)
^That^ excludes a lot of (on the surface) seemingly nice sounding speakers pretty quickly.

Steve gives them an excellent rating

I’d expect nothing less.
But since he rarely gives a negative review, it is a low bar for entry, and doesn’t tell us much. If he said something negative it would make people sit up like the dead in a horror film.

Whether or not you think Vandersteen models are getting brighter will depend on how far you go back with the company. I bought my first pair in 1996 and my last pair in 2014, my 4th, and they were voiced differently to my ears. I always suspected it was finally a reaction to the reviews.

I got mine a dozen year earlier… so I go back further.

I would expect that they would gradually get more neutral over time from available XO parts, an upgraded XO design, and likely drivers that have less ringing and resonances.
And it is possible that the early days they could have been a bit “toned down” for SS equipment that was overly bright. (Dunno, but it could be possible??)

So being as they were on the warm side earlier (40+ years ago), then anything more towards neutral would be viewed as brighter in comparison today. And maybe less so over a 25 year span.

"If he said something negative it would make people sit up like the dead in a horror film."

LOL!

I remember that some criticized Vandersteen speakers for being "rolled off" in the highs.  To me, I owned three pair of the 2s over the years, they were natural sounding.

But about that time in the '70s there was increased demand for MC cartridges, many of which had a rising high end in their response.  So I suspect that increased, sometimes false, sense of detail from a brighter high end became a popular norm.  Then any speaker which did not match that characteristic was criticized by many folks.

I currently have the Vandersteen 2ci and do agree with everyone here that they have a rolloff top end. I also read that the tend to be on the warm side but i dont know if that is true. I personally think that the older are voiced to be a balance speaker.  When I did a room response, I hve notice that it starts to roll of gradually maybe 6db/oct at about 8k. 

Voicing the speakers was done right with the older Vandersteen as well as having time aligned. 

I think that some older speakers weren’t capable of true high end extension, which allowed the rising high end of many mc cartridges to gain in popularity. Later with more capable tweeters and the entrance of CD’s this was altered.