Vandersteen 5a's - an upgrade from Vienna mahlers?

The very first words of my first post read "IN MY PERSONAL OPINION, a properly set up pair of Vandy 5's would be a major leap forward". I shared my opinion and then expounded on it when asked to do so. Others with different opinions and / or preferences are obviously welcome to contribute to the thread. I don't know all there is to know about any given subject and to be quite frank, i know very little about any given subject. Having said that, what i do know and what i have experienced, i am more than willing to share. At the same time, what i do know came from others that were willing to share, so i encourage open conversations.

I would only add that studying loudspeaker design would be helpful PRIOR to investing the kind of money that we are talking about on either of these models. If one does that, they will learn that driver placement, cabinet alignment, Q, room loading characteristics, etc... are all very important factors that contribute to what we hear. Once one knows the science behind how & why things work the way that they do, they'll know what to expect out of a given design, sometimes even before they hear it. As was the case with both of these designs, they lived up to their design heritage. That is, as far as i'm concerned.

I don't own either speaker and hope that those that do own one or the other are happy with their purchases. I was simply sharing some observations that i've made about them after studying both design approaches and then listening to them in different listening areas. Sean
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PS... There is a difference between "slam" and "high output". "Slam" requires both "high output" and tremendous transient response capabilities. That tremendous transient response is what is also required for definition and articulation. In my opinion, the Vandy's are capable of all three aspects of bass reproduction i.e. high output, transient response and articulation whereas the Mahler's are only capable of the "high output" aspect of the equation. That's because using a port instantly introduces poorer transient response into the equation. This is due to a lack of internal damping and the uncontrolled oscillation with out of band leakage that the port ( Helmholtz resonator ) itself introduces into what we hear. Ports are used strictly to boost the quantity of output, but this is done at the expense of quality. The only way to increase the quantity of output without sacrificing damping / transient response ( quality ) is to use more active drivers. Anything else is strictly an engineering / design trade-off. As i've always said, one should buy & use what they like, regardless of what others think.

thanks guys, good debate going on here.

What is the difference functionally between the sweet spot produced by Vandersteens with that produced by non time aligned speakers.
I know with my Mahlers, that there is ideed a sweet spot and it is quite small, however standing up, or moving sideways does not alter the musical delivery as such, but it no longer provides that sweet spot.
After you have dialed in the right height for the Vandersteens, is the distance from the speakers flexible?.

I am looking at the vandersteens due to the fact they are flexible to adjust the bass and have a good reputation for musical sound and I would like to use a tube amp.

ps, I have a feeling that the vandersteens are better value as much of the 10 k list price for the mahlers is taken up by distributor and dealer markup. You can always buy a 5 and upgrade to the 5a later.

I'll keave sonics aside for the moment and look at practical & operational issues.
First point: Raquel notes above that the V's cost +50%. Major consideration.
Second: the Mahler are a VERY diffult load, hardly the ideal for a tube amp (mentioned in the original question). A brute SS with a ridiculously hi amp PS is more the ticket.
3rd: the V's are biamped, a very useful feature, are an easier load and may be driven by a tube amp (i.e. the main spkr).
4th: the V's engineering looks far superior to the Mahler.
5th: again, the Vs are twice the price of the Mahler...
Cheers

Downunder mentions that the Mahler's list at $10K where he is located ( Australia i would assume ). While i don't know how much Vandy 5's run "down under", there might not be as much of a price difference as was initially mentioned. I guess it would be a good idea to mention where one is posting from as this might offer further insight / additional info to take into consideration when responding. Sean
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I respectfully disagree that people who purchase ported speakers have not done their homework regarding speaker design, or, that there is consensus among respected speaker designers that acoustic-suspension / sealed-box designs are superior.

I lived with a classic acoustic-suspension design, Advents, for nearly seventeen years. I then owned a more serious application of this design principle, six-ft. tall Dunlavys, for six more years (and spent a lot of time listening to my friend's Dunlavy V's, which are one of the most serious attempts at the sealed-box design principle). In between, I owned ported KEF's and now own ported Mahlers and ported Salons. Both sealed-box and ported designs have their advantages and disadvantages, as does electrostatic technology, planar ribbons, transmission-line loading, single-driver, etc. ad nauseum. I dislike sealed-box designs because even giant sealed-box speakers are prone to compression on fortissimos, something that is unacceptable to me given that I listen to a lot of orchestral music. On the other hand, I recognize that the use of ports introduces resonances into the sound, the exact opposite of what a speaker designer should be attempting to do. The following article is helpful to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of ported v. sealed-box woofer loading:

http://diyaudiocorner.tripod.com/dilemma.htm

My experience is that quality of sound in speakers is not so much determined by choice of design principle, but rather, how well a given design is implemented. Returning to the Mahler, they are designed for truly large rooms and can sound bloated and loose if used in small venues (Sumiko, the Vienna Acoustics and Sonus Faber distributor in the U.S., used to recommend Mahlers over the Amati Homage in large rooms). As for the quality of the drivers used in the Mahler, it uses the Scan-Speak carbon-fiber midwoofer that is used in the WattPuppy 7, Maxx II and Alexandria (it is also used in the Blue Heron II, and used to be used by Verity), and uses an expensive Scan-Speak tweeter that is floated in silicone gel to isolate it from cabinet resonances. The upper midwoofer is run from 70 Hz. to 4 kHz, spanning six octaves and giving the speaker a coherence that I find very appealing. The side-mounting of the woofers is a perfectly legitimate design choice that is currently also used by Audio Physic, Genesis, and Mission to name just a few, the benefits of which are described succinctly by Israel Blume of Coincident:

http://www.coincidentspeaker.com/whatsnew.html#Anchor--The-39790

The Vandy's powered woofer is nice for the reasons described above, but I would not own a powered speaker because it is just one more thing to break on an item that weighs a couple hundred pounds boxed and will be a real pain to return to the manufacturer (or God forbid, a powered speaker breaks and the manufacturer has gone belly up, which is real possibility -- speaker manufacturers seem bested only by restaurants when it comes to business failure rates).

So is the Vandy an engineering tour-de-force and the Mahler just a pretty face? I don't think so. I respect Richard Vandersteen, but I lived with time-aligned speakers for six years and do not care for their tiny sweet spot. The Vandys' use of both first-order crossovers and a sealed-box design limit dynamics and that is unacceptable to me, given the type of music I listen to. Powered woofers are a potential maintenance problem. Vandys to me are ridiculous looking, while the Mahlers look like furniture. When the homework is done, and be it for technical or aesthetic reasons, the Mahlers can be a very deliberate and very defensible choice.