I have Vandersteen 5A's....not acquainted with the Genesis....however, if you have a question re: 5A's I can answer it. Richard Vandersteen is very willing to support his products... Happy with the speakers.
+1 stringreen. I, too, own Vandersteen. (Just a pair of Treo's), and I swear by the Vandersteen sound. I heard them in the late 70's and remembered them when I finally had some money to get back in the game a few years ago. They haven't disappointed me, and I can say the newer models (Treo and up are very good-especially price-wise. I have no experience with Genesis, but I wanted to add my 2 cents FWIW. B
i have heard a medium size current production monitor at Gig Harbor Audio but not the 5.3 i owned 5a for many years in a variety of acoustic spaces and with some work ( following tge hyper detailed setup instructions ) they always provided stunning sound. I upgraded to 7 mk 2 and the family sound - musical cohesiveness very deep soundstage - no fatigue that the 5a has in spades is there with lower distortion/ color i believe the 5a represent fantastic value for the money.....and also if taken care of in an attractive veneer hold value incredibly well. I traded mine some 5 years later for just about what i paid...I bought them used ask away !!!!!!!!!!
I owned the similar Genesis Vs a couple decades ago. As a dipole they will stage differently than the Vandys. They were very spacious and layered but lacked pinpoint imaging. I loved the dipole bass--deep and powerful. Really liked them with classical music but as my tastes moved more toward small group jazz I wanted a speaker with better instrument focus. Try to listen to a dipole and see if it's your cup of tea...
I have a pair of Genesis 500's and Vandersteen Quatros. Both are very good at exploiting their design philosophies. The Genesis are only a hand full of speakers that their character does not change with vertical listening height plus the servo woofers are hard to beat. With the Vandersteens the time coherence is phenomenal but the adjustable head modules on the Genesis can come close with very careful alignment. Believe it or not, the bass on the Genesis reveals that there are some colorations in the Vandersteen bass but it is musical so it is mostly benign but it is there.
Both speakers are very musical with different attributes with the Genesis winning out by a margin with their dipole arrangement, ribbon tweeters and sheer impact but the Vandersteens still throw a very detailed 3D soundstage that is addictive and the bass equalization along with adjustable damping is hard to beat when tuning the speaker to the room.
@nmmusicman Just curious...do you find the equalized bass from the Quatros "warmer" than that coming from the Genesis? To put it another way, is the Genesis bass subjectively "faster" than that from the Vandys?
hifiman5 - In a word, no. I used the Genesis as a reference for tuning the bass on the Vandersteens so in essence they are the same or as close as can be obtained. That is where the damping controls on the Vandersteens are invaluable.
Had a guy who spent many dollars w his sound room acoustics we played vandertones and with the Genesis speaker his room was still up 12 dB at 55 hz when playing Vivaldi Fabio Biondi he said his speakers w same Electronics couldn’t do it the way the tunable vandies did took them in trade and he was satisfied
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