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Vandersteen 5A

I moved my 5A's here to Arizona from New Jersey about 6 months ago. I got my soundroom furnished with drapes, plants, etc, and had my local Vandy dealer come over to voice the speakers to my room. For those of you who don't know, these speakers have their own amp in each speaker that exclusively drives the woofer, ... the speaker is adjustable throughout the bass range with a number of pots on this 400 watt mono amp...the rest of the speaker is driven by my own (Ayre) amp. Anyway, after setting the left speaker to +/- 3 db in the room, he started voicing the right speaker only to discover that the amp was not working. In less than a minute, the amp was out of the speaker, and is now on its way to Vandersteen for a look-see. I was amazed that the amp wasn't working, since the sound is so good..depth, air, power, delicacy...singer suspended in space between the speakers in 3 dimensions...great. Now that I know the woofer is gone, I can hear that the very low information is not there on the right side...but no one suspects that there is a problem by listening. I'll post the results when the amp comes back.
stringreen
tdaudio
201 posts
 
Easy to miss one subwoffer out.

I came back from vacation once and powered up all my stuff, let it warm up a while only to realize into my 3rd LP that the low bass was missing. I had forgot to plug in the subs on the 5As! I unplug them if gone for any time.

But that is why the 5A system works so well. Its a nearly full range speaker with a sub.

The mid bass woffer on the 5A is used as "the" woffer on many other speakers.

TD
stringreen's avatar
stringreen OP
6,531 posts
 
Yes...there are lots of lows coming forth. Accoutical bass even sounds "right" Now that I know the sub is missing, I can hear the powerful subsonic whack of a Telarc bass drum is anemic on that side
djohnson54
396 posts
 
That's Richard's philosophy. His belief is that, for proper sub integration, you need to overlap by at least an octave and this is especially true with the first-order crossovers that he uses. So essentially you have a nearly full range speaker supplemented by the subs. Adding the subs takes some of the load off of the rest of the drivers allowing them to be more resolving in the midrange.
usblues
1,217 posts
 
Got to be the best move a man can make,Jersey to the desert.I'll bet you dont care if that woofer stays gone till 09.Jerome,Sabino Canyon,Mt Lemon,the Gem Show in Tucson will be coming soon.Enjoy,Bob
pryso
1,986 posts
 
I'm turned off by most every system I've heard that includes a subwoofer(s) -- I've got that extra bass and by God I'm going to use it! And this includes manufacturers and dealers at audio shows.

Some time ago I read advice suggesting with the proper subwoofer systems, you might not even realize they were in the system until they were turned off. So Stringreen, it appears your set up could not have been too far off. And that is a credit to Vandersteen's design as well.

Hope you get quick turnaround on the repair so you won't need to live with the (relatively) anemic bass too long. 8^)
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