Vandersteen Model 7 in large room with power music


I will be listening to the Model 7s tomorrow at Audio Connections in NJ. My room is 32 x 18x 10 and I listen to a lot of power type classical music. These speakers have been criticized by TAS (Harley) for not being good at loud levels in large rooms. Anyone have any experience with this speaker in that situation? I now use RS1Bs which are very dynamic and are great in a large room but have no where near the transparency of even the Model 5As. Still I do not want not can I afford to spend big bucks on the large Nolas which I heard at Lyric and really liked although $45,000 would still be a large financial stretch for me. Comments. I would be using VTL 300s with the speaker and a Spectral 20 preamp.
ruxtonvet
I heard the 7's at RMAF in a rather large room and they sounded awesome. Powered by ARC Ref210 amps they filled a suite with no problem.
I also think they sounded great at RMAF 2010, but they also showed a problem that Robert Harley (I think) reported in his review. They don't reproduce soundstage height. This problem I have also found with Vandersteen 5s and 5As. Robert Harley said it was probably due to their small size. This is baloney. The original EgglestonWorks Andras were even shorter and threw a huge soundstage up to the ceiling. At RMAF 2010, I listened to Esoteric MG20s, a short speaker, and they had no problem floating a soundstage well above their tops.
One speaker that you should probably consider for classical music is the Nola Metro. I heard this at RMAF and was blown away with how well it did on classical music, but you need a large room for it in my opinion. It is also cheaper than the Vandy 7s.
I am sure a demo will tell you most of what you wonder, John will give you all the time you need with them. When I heard the 5A at Audio Connection it played pretty damn loud to me, They should be able to capture dynamic Classical at louder levels, if you were to say you wanted to play power metal at concert levels that may be a completely different story but for Classical my gut tells me you will be very happy.
I run 5As in a 17x27x10 foot room with some absorption room treatment. Amps are ARC Ref110 and Ref 210 monos. The Ref 110 is enough as were Pass Aleph 2 monos (100W class A) but the extra head room of the Ref 210s is nice to have.

I remember reading that the 7s work fine with a 100 watt amp. But the reported sensitivity number of the 7 is lower than the 5A and the impedence is also a tad lower. I would want more than 100 watts for the 7s in a large room.

Maybe I have gotten use to the 5As, but I don't find the image height significantly lacking with analog playback. In fact, if the image seems kinda "short" I find it to be evidence that I need to tweek the VTF and or VTA on my arm.
But no doubt there are other speaker designs that make a taller sound stage.
Terry