Vandersteen 5a's - an upgrade from Vienna mahlers?

I know of NO manufacture that will not say his design is the best compromise. However, as Sean says, some basic research is required into such design when you are going to spend this kind of money.
I can only say from my research that [I] will stick with sealed designs. I have spent considerable time with the 5a. It does not have a small sweet spot(of course, personally, I haven't found any Vandersteen to have that small of sweet spot if set up correctly.) It is dynamic, transparent and has some of the best bass I have ever heard from a speaker system. It also reproduces voices as good as I have ever heard with the proper height and width and a amazing holographic soundstage. It will play considerably louder than other Vandersteen's(if you are in to that.)
By the way, I have a set of Advent "The New Advent" (circa 70's) and let us hope we have come a little ways since then. They were excellent in their time but not up to todays standard. But even back then, a ported speaker couldn't deliver the bass it would.

Dunlavy's have some inherit design flaws that can only be ameliorated by designing the height of the room around them. This has to do with room nodes and room reinforcement. The same goes for any speaker that uses a woofer that is measurably above ground level.

Side mounted woofers were first utilized by AR ( as far as i know ), but they did their homework in terms of the how's and why's of why this can work and be beneficial. One of the requirements that one must deal with in such a situation though is a very low and sharp crossover frequency. Designs that don't take advantage of such an approach are bound to have both room placement problems in terms of low frequencies and the potential for cancellation due to lobing. Having said that, there is something to be said for the sound of a direct radiator that indirect radiation can't match, even at low frequencies.

Other than that, we could continue this thread on forever. The fact that you are comparing your multi-thousand dollar modern speakers to 30+ year old 10 inch two ways ( Advent's ) really has me scratching my head. As to the Dunlavy's, unless you had about 1000 wpc feeding them, you've never really heard what the speakers were capable of. The compression that you were hearing was the amplifier giving out, not the speaker.

As to the design compromises involved with various approaches, ports can not match the linearity of a sealed design, even if the ported design is fully optimized. All a port does is to destabilize the air spring within the box, introduce uncontrolled leakage, produce an uncontrolled resonance and increase the potential for woofer damage if fed a signal below the resonant frequency of the vent. The end result of such an approach is that bass is extended and "may" play louder, but the quality of bass suffers in most every aspect. The drawback to sealed designs is that they are inefficient and require greater amounts of power to obtain the same amount of amplitude output. Pay your money and make your decisions. Sean
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We used the 5As at CES 2004. You can see photos in the current Audiogon CES coverage, room 1756 and read impressions of the speakers/room from the pros in TAS, Positive Feedback, Bound For Sound, Sound StageAV and other coverages of the event. I’m sure the Mahlers are terrific speakers. With a bit of TLC the 5As will give you the ability to tune your room out of the equation. Room 1756 is located on the 2nd floor of the Alexis Park and the old wooden floor bounces like a trampoline. It sets up a resonating field that distorts the signal on its way to your ears from the speakers. It's discouraging when you're trying to accomplish excellence.

Richard Vandersteen, who is a peach of a guy, set the speakers up using a simple radio shack sound level meter and dialed the floor out of the equation. By the end of the event, we were tuning the speakers to our taste by ear. This is one case, but it elucidates the flexibility of the speakers and inherent added value.

And, as you said, the inboard sub-amp gives you a wider range of choices for tube gear. The 220 watt Joule-Electra Rites of Passage were more than the speakers needed. We could have used the 160 watt Grand Marquis easily; maybe the 100 watt Marquis (not sure).

We all have different listening environments and there are many terrific speakers to choose from. I hope passing along our experience with the Vandersteens and the man himself, help you make a more informed buying decision.

Thanks

Critical Mass Systems

Sorry for any confusion, I should have written, CES 2005.

Critical Mass Systems

Vandy's, Vandy's, Vandy's. One of the best speakers I have ever heard. I put them up with the Quad 989's, Magnepan 20.1's, SoundLab Ultimates, and Wilson's (just about all). There is so much good stuff out there now, isn't there?