Vandersteen 5a. How refined a product are they

FWIW, I agree completely with Bigtee's comments. The first post in this thread regarding Vandersteen is inaccurate and misleading, and is apparently written by someone who has not listened extensively to the Vandy 5A. The 5A is one of the most refined, full-range speakers on the market, and there are only a couple of speakers that compete with it in the $15k price range. Richard Vandersteen has some of the best ears in the high-end speaker industry, and he holds patents on several of the driver designs that he uses.

The lack of "magic" that you note may be due to several factors:
1. less than optimal setup by the dealer (the 5A's are quite sensitive to room placement, and the subwoofer must be tuned to the listening room);
2. less than ideal front-end electronics (the 5A's are very revealing of upstream components and recordings);
3. the 5A's (and the 3A Signatures as well) do not tend to "grab you by the throat" the way some speaker designs do, but virtue of being very balanced and musical. Some high-end speaker designs have added treble or upper mid-range emphasis, which may be initially appealing but is not satisfying in the long run.

While I'd agree that PSB and B&W also make fine speakers, PSB does not make a single model that can compete with the 5A's, and the only B&W model that will challenge the 5A's is the "801" (which is more expensive than the 5A).

All of this, of course, matters not a damn unless the 5A's sound good to YOUR ears. I'd suggest, however, that before you make a decision to reject the 5A's, you should audition them at another dealership, and take your own music selections with you. The 5A is truly a world-class speaker that competes very well in the $15k - $25k range, when driven by high quality tube or solid state electronics.

"the 5A's (and the 3A Signatures as well) do not tend to "grab you by the throat" the way some speaker designs do"

Which is part of the reason they are such great speakers. Overly bright speakers grab you at the store but, fail to satisfy after you get them home and try to listen for hours. With the 5As hours of musical enjoyment pass and you still want more. They do require more setup expertise then most other speakers, however. Not because they are finicky but, you will find that wherever you set the controls at first they will require a second setup after about 200 hours and possibly a third adjustment at about 300 hours. A good Vandersteen dealer knows this and should offer to come to your house and set them up for you and let you know that he will be back to fine tune them after they are broken in. There is a possibility that your dealer's speakers weren't yet broken in. Also, it shouldn't be done by ear. He should have proper tools for the setup.

Fjn04,
Can you tell us more about the partnering equipment and setup?

One of the best speakers I ever heard was the 5a set up in LA, One of the worst speakers I ever heard was the 5a set up in Minnesota. Set up and system matching is critical with these and all other speakers for that matter

Heck, I've heard the 5A sound like absolute magic, and then sound like absolute crap in the same room. Same equipment, too. The difference? The dealer had to move them farther back to make room for other equipment. They still sounded pretty good, but they blew my mind in their first position. It was the single most convincing reproduction of music that I had ever heard.