Vandersteen 2Ce with Jolida 302B?

Hi Stevecham
I was fortunate to pick up a pair of Revel Performa F 30's local. ( Had to drive 70 miles ) The pair were actually a review pair from an online audio magazine that had been sitting in his home collecting dust for awhile. He had replaced them with Revel Salons.
Had my heart set on some Vandersteen 3A sigs untill these came up.
I haven't kept up with Vandersteens for awhile and thought I had heard somewhere that Vandersteen had improved on the 2ce sigs...is that true?
What I want to know and I bet you too..are the 3A sigs much better that the 2ce sigs? Almost the same driver complement and same build only a different tweeter and the size of the bass cabinet is larger. Had a chance to listen to the 3A sigs but not for a long extended time.
By the way a good piano recording sounds extraordinary on a set of Vandersteens!

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the posts. Just what I was looking for! I have a pair of the 2Ce sigs on the way and have been wondering how they would perform with the tube integrated. Mines a Ming Da KT88 design @50wpc. You make me feel better :)
BTW, I haven't heard anything about upgrades for the sigs and I've been doing a lot of research lately.
Thanks again for the nice writeup ;)

Shoe: Eugene is a wonderful city and for me it is a return. I did my posdoc here at U of O back in the early 90s. I left in 97, went to Montreal for a couple of years and then to the Bay Area only to return with an excellent job offer here. Yeah the rain and fog this time of year, but I grew up in Boston so I actually like the coudy days when I get to justify being indoors and listen to music.

Piano sounds like "buttah" on the Vandys, a great thing!

Dragon: You will have no problem with the 50W KT88 amp you have. You are in for a real treat. PLease write to this thread and tell us your experience once you get set up and running. The 2Ce Sig has to one of the very best speaker values in audio.

I also know gthat while the driver complement is the same between the 2Ce Sig and the 3a Sig, the crossover is improved in the 3, with advertised improvement in the mids, and the tweeter is the same one as used in the 5a.

At some point I just may sell my CS6 Thiels and go with 3a Sigs or the new model Richard has released recently. I really dig these Vandys.

Hi everyone, here are some answers to your questions:
* 2Ce Signatures base price is on the web site as noted above. Add for the stands and any optional wood finish to get to the dealers price.
* The 3A Signatures sound more extended at the frequency extremes and more polished/refined than the 2s. The mid and tweeter are the same as the Model 5...not the 5A.
* 3As may be a good option for you if you have a mid to large room and 100W/P/C of power.

Sorry to hear about your home demo experiences in SF. To be honest, I've found it rare for dealers to allow home auditions of speakers. Equipment, yes...speakers not as often.

Regarding your experiences with Meadowlark and Thiel that was very interesting reading. I haven't made as recent a comparison as you. However, I had the same conclusions. The Thiels, etc. are good speakers, but the current Vandersteens are simply sublime. Which reminds me. Richard doesn't mention running changes that may occur in "normal" production. So while the 2Ce Signatures have been out for some time they do sound better the newer they are. This is true for all his speakers. I've had first hand experience with this and it's continually amazing to hear improvements made over the course of only a few months. ;-)

Happy Holidays!
Michael

The great thing about the 2CE's is that they scale very well with whatever equipment you pair them with. I've heard them powered by everything from NAD integrateds to ARC's Reference line, and they do not disappoint in either setting. Truly one of the few affordable speakers that you can live with forever.