Vandersteen Model 7: has anyone heard?

I spent a long weekend in the room with them at RMAF and was amazed at how well balanced and detailed they were given the room/show conditions. Exceptional coherence are words that first spring to mind as well as tremendous micro dynamics, sound-staging etc. Tracks Richard played off Amused to Death were as real and "in room" as I'd heard them before--even at home.

Definitely a _must hear_ in their price range. They got better every day while the show went on and seemed at their peak Saturday night. Many show-goers agreed who happened through. Richard definitely nailed it with the 7's design.

When John (Rutan) at Audio Connection in Verona, NJ sets up the Vandersteen 7's, he will make them sound fantastic! John is very knowledgeable and have sold Vandersteens for many year. Mr. Vandersteen is there at least once a year to do demos and it's a blast!!!!

Samuel,

Did you like them better than your Maxx 3s?

I too was at Audio Connection for the Vandersteen demo a few weeks back, and they indeed are among the finest speakers I have had the pleasure of hearing. And Richard Vandersteen is an absolute pleasure to speak with as well. If I ever get enough money they would be on my short list. And the great thing about them, like the 5As, is that you can adjust the bass level to tame a lot of the low frequency problems a full-range speaker like this would otherwise have in a listening room.

One other thing I forgot to mention, while they were superbly musical speakers, the Model 7, perhaps more than any speaker system I've heard in a while, really made starkly apparent the difference between a top flight analog source and a merely very good digital source. IMO, of course.