Vandersteen 3A Sig vs. Von Schweikert VR4 Jr.

"I stand by my recommendation that the VMPS soundly thrash Vandersteen's especially for what this person is wanting. It's no contest"

Well then I must be an idiot then cause what I hear and FEEL from the 3A Sigs, especially listening to jazz and acoustic music (a very large portion of my listening time)is nothing short of amazing! I'm not alone in this regard though, as many of my friends and even my wife are drawn in by the Vandersteen's.

"That said the Vandersteens can do well on some music at low levels but omit so much of the music as to be useful only for quartets and background music imo"

What a load of horse pucky! Omit what, they don't omit anything. Look at the graphs, listen to them. What possibly are they omitting. I must simply be an idiot and not know what I'm supposed to hear then. What confuses me though are the "chills" I get when say Eva Cassidy is singing Autumn Leaves off Songbird, or Ray Brown's Solar Energy has me glued to my chair for over an hour, or Amiee Mann's Lost in Space, or Jerry Garcia/David Grisman' Shady Road, or any jazz record from the Three Blind Mice label.........

Vandersteen's are alot like Volkswagon's (I drive two of them), the Oakland Raiders (my passion since age 7), the Grateful Dead (been a "Head" since age 15 - and the live Dead music through the Vandersteen's is great, great, stuff), and my new Apple Ibook - you either love them or hate them. With all of the above, there is a very passionate group who love them, and an equally passionate group who hate em!

I vote 3A.

Buy VMPS if you want to install a new woofer, new tweeters, new caps, change the crossover, delete a toggle switch, add lambs wool, brace the cabinets, etc., and do whatever else is added on a weekly basis to "improve" the sound. It's like the Michael Jackson of speakers it's under the knife so much. Oh- but this is what makes the speaker so special- I forgot! Have your soldering iron handy. Buy Vandersteen if you want to sit back and listen to music!

Buy Vandersteen if you want to sit back and listen to music

So true!

Just be sure you guys never have a shootout between the VMPS's and the Vandersteen's as it's no contest any way you want to listen to it. I like the Vandersteen's, don't get me wrong, but they have met their match by no small margin by a number of other companies speakers in their price range. Remember too that Richard Vandersteen's advertising budget per month is what some companies gross sales are too. Who's paying for that?