$ 2500 ....Stay with Vandersteens ??...what else ?

Auditions in a dealer's show room are over rated. How can you know what any piece will sound like in your room, with your equipment? Listening to five or fifteen cuts in a showroom can lead to false impressions.
My tried and true method is find a good deal used, evaluate at your leisure and keep or resell depending on results. I have neither the time nor the inclination to spend two or three afternoons with local dealers who may or may not have my interest in mind. Also, they usually bore the hell out of me.

if you learn on your own without any assistance from others, you will make some mistakes and be dissatisfied , at times.

if you follow the advice and opinions of others, you will make mistakes and perhaps be disappointed with your purchases, as well.

there is no evidence that making decisions based upon what others say is any more rewarding than making your own decisions.

in this case, the results of any decision are not predictable, so you might as well buy any speaker, so long as it can be be resold with a minimum loss to you.

Wow, Mrtennis............Very insightful philosophical thoughts. These ideas can be extended to quite a few realms far beyond audio decisions. Well said, sir !

If you're looking for a different sound, listen to anything you get a chance to and if you like what you hear, read up on it further.

If you like what you have, stay put.

I've just finished re-reading all the responses to my original post on this thread from last October, and I still want to let all you guys know how much I truly appreciate all your tremendously helpful feedback and advice.

So...., in order to keep you all updated,......I have been enjoying a wonderful upgrade to the beautiful music created by my Vandersteen 1C's. I greatly improved my analog front end by switching to the Rega P3-24 turntable with the Rega Exact 2 cartridge and Rega TT-PSU power supply. The sublime change in the way the Vandy's now "sing their sweet music" has been incredible, and the speakers now sound better than ever. I also built home-made isolation platforms for both the table and the Rotel CD deck (with Vibrapods and MDF boards,) and this also led to an improvement in how the speakers sound. Finally, with the educated advice of Nick and Mark at Rogue Audio, I swapped out the five stock "small tubes" in my amplifier for some hand-picked NOS tubes, and this too led to a very noticeable improvement in the way I've been enjoying the music throught the 1C's.

So for now, I'm truly loving my system, and I'll hold on the Vandersteen 1C's for a while. I'm just amazed at the way the improvements in the rest of the "audio chain' have enhanced the wonderful musical qualities of the speakers.
I hope that you are all doing well, and are enjoying the music as much as I am.
Happy Listening, my friends.