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Vandersteen Seminar at Audio Connection (NJ)

Audio Connection hosted a fantastic seminar this past Saturday with Richard Vandersteen.  Richard spent a few hours answering questions and telling us about what's going on at Vandersteen.  One of the more interesting tidbits (IMHO) was Richard's focus (obsession?) on the non-pistonic behavior of cones, found in even in "hi end" drivers (but not his carbon/balsa ones).  Richard seemed to view non-pistonic behavior as causing significant losses in information, and simultaneously responsible for the heightened sensitivity of a lot of drivers (i.e., that some of those dBs of sensitivity are distortion).  He mentioned that a major objective is to bring pistonic behavior into the lower-cost designs, leading me to hope that upgrade packages might because available for the 3A Sigs.  :)    

After the chat, Johnny R had a demo running of the 7s set up with the new Vandy subs ("System 9" is what he was calling it), Vandy amps, AR Reference preamp, and Aesthetix phono-pre.  (Sorry, I missed the specifics of the pre and the analog rig; I did notice that it was a Benz LP cartridge.)  They were playing the MoFi one-step pressing of Fagen's The Nightly--it was probably the best sound I've ever heard in my 25+ years in this hobby.  The midrange and high frequency clarity was just unreal.  After "New Frontier" played, the whole room had to pick their collective jaw up from the ground.

Kudos to RV, Johnny R and the whole Audio Connection for putting on such a fantastic event, and for setting up the demo system so well.
cedargrover
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 posts
 

I live less than an hour away from Johnny's place but unfortunately we had other commitments that day and could not make it. Pretty pissed about it since I really wanted to meet RV and hear the 7s.

I expected nothing less than excellent sound but keep in mind that system with top line AR preamp and Vandy amps, TT, cables, etc., was probably pushing $200K.

stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,467 posts
 
Richard and John are a couple of my favorites..... so sorry I couldn't attend.   The one thing that was better living in NJ was that John was only 1/2 hour drive away.
beetlemania
834 posts
 
[RV] mentioned that a major objective is to bring pistonic behavior into the lower-cost designs
Please, please, please! I've fantasized about my 2Ce Sig IIs with carbon tweeter and midrange. That might be hard to make coherent with a lesser woofer, but I'm willing to give it a listen!
cedargrover OP
302 posts
 
RV mentioned that the carbon/balsa sandwich cones -- just the cones -- cost him about $1400/each.  I think RV is going to have to arrive at a breakthrough before we see pure-piston cones reach 2s and 3s.  Let's see!


beetlemania
834 posts
 
RV mentioned that the carbon/balsa sandwich cones -- just the cones -- cost him about $1400/each.
OK, maybe the world isn't ready for a $15K model 2!
lol

Some others have also gotten pistonic behavior: Vivid, KEF, TAD, and Avalon come to mind. Avalon Ascent (circa 1990) used a 2" metal dome to handle the mids with a crossover to the woofer set very low. I'm not sure what the spec was but I think the 2" driver handled everything from the upper bass to the tweeter range. The breakup frequency was well out of the crossover range. Vivid uses a similar strategy. KEF and TAD (maybe Thiel) get there with a coincident driver, the mids handled by a 4-5" metal ring around the tweeter. I wish Thiel was still building the Jim Thiel's designs. Most of these are crazy expensive designs. I'm curious to hear the KEF R series with the coincident driver. These models are quite affordable (but also made in China).
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