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

Please refer my "system" to see my current set-up. Everything sounds wonderful together.....extremely musical, great soundstage depth and width, beautiful rendition of timbre and tone, natural presentation of voices and acoustics. BUT....I have the speaker "upgrade itch," wanting fuller, richer, deeper sound, and I need advice from my friends at Audiogon.

I spend around three hours a night of "serious listening," about 2/3 digital and 1/3 vinyl. Roughly 70% of my enjoyment is 1950's - 1960's jazz (Miles, Coltrane, Basie, Rollins, Brubeck, Ella, Mobley, Morgan, etc., etc.), 25% "classic rock" that I grew up with (Allman Brothers, Dead, Dylan, CSNY, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Led Zep, Yes, Hot Tuna, etc.), and the other 5% "newer jazz audiophile stuff" (Patricia Barber, Rebecca Pigeon, etc.)

Keeping the rest of my system the same (except for bi-wire speaker cables if needed), what do you guys recommend for new speakers ? Vandersteen 2CE Sig. II's seem a natural option, but what else should I consider ? I'm open to all kinds of suggestions. Thanks a lot, and Happy Listening !
adam18
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
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.
adam18 OP
670 posts
 
Wow, Mrtennis............Very insightful philosophical thoughts. These ideas can be extended to quite a few realms far beyond audio decisions. Well said, sir !
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,389 posts
 
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.
adam18 OP
670 posts
 
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.
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
Thanks for the update. Good to hear you're system is singing.
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