Vandersteen 2Ce Signature II

I finally got my Jan 07 Stereophile yesterday. Art Dudley's review was very positive. More and more I'm thinking these could be my next speakers. The only thing that gives me pause is the frequency response measurements. John Atkinson found he could geta smooth upper midrange/treble repsonse by measuring on the mid-range driver axis, but that also resulted in a lower midrange suckout. He suggested a higher listening axis would fill-in the lower midrange trough, but in turn causing the treble suckout. Weird. After Richard Vandersteen's rebuttal to the measurements from the 2000 review, I'm surprised that Vandersteen did not specify the microphone height (nor did JA ask, apparently).
I wouldn't really care about this (especially because JA measures at 50" and Vandersteen recommends to listen at >8'), but JA also did an in-room 1/6 octave response: the midrange and bass didn't measure very well. I'm not sure what to make of this other than I need to listen for myself.

Rufipennis-

You do need to listen for yourself. Over the years I've owned a lot of different speakers, Martin-Logan, a couple different Magnepans, NHT, Epos, but once I heard Vandersteens that was it. I've owned the 1 series, the 2 series & now a pair of 3A's, they are great speakers. I can listen to them all day, they're VERY non-fatiguing, yet nice detail.

Thanks, Ecruz. I agree. I've listened a bit to the 3A Sig and I would rank it among the best I've heard (a list that includes the Avalon Eclipse, Thiel 2.4, Revel Studio, and Wilson W/P 7). At that price, the 3A is quite a value. I would have figured out how to pay for a pair by now if I had a dedicated listening room (those large boxes would dominate my living room - my wife already thinks I'm crazy). Again, near 3A sig performance in a smaller package is very appealing . . . One other thought on JA's measurements: I was amazed at the low freq extension, albeit at relatively low levels.

I don't know why the low freq extension numbers. Both the 2Ce & 3A go much lower in my room than the specs state. I think the 3A is suppose to go to 26hz. I'm getting output down to 20hz and only a few db's off of flat. That's according to the readings I'm getting from my Behringer DEQ, in room analyser mode.

Oh yeah, I forgot the Klipsch, KEF & Linn's. There are probably more, but you get the idea.