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

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.

Thanks for the update. Good to hear you're system is singing.

Adam18: You probably do not want to hear about this, but I am in the process of upgrading from Vandy 1Cs as well. Since my room does not have the space for the larger-profile 2Ces Sig IIs (an otherwise natural upgrade, considering I have Vandy center and surrounds as well), I am looking elsewhere.

If you go to the last page of this thread:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1223044851

you'll be able to follow my experiences. I know you said you are settled for now, but my rig has too many similarities to yours (see my "system" link) for me not to have mentioned this. Therefore, I think you will find my experience very interesting.

Hi Bondman.....I really enjoyed reading your thread, and your "chronicles" describing your experiences with your new Ohm speakers. I remember when I was a surgery resident back in the early 1980's, my buddy had an Ohm Walsh based system, with a Marantz receiver and a Thorens table. I was enjoying my Yamaha receiver, Mission 717 speakers, and Beogram turntable at that time, and I remember that we both loved spending our listening time in front of both set-ups. His Ohm speakers were definitely very special, and I'm looking forward to reading more about your new speakers as time goes by. Happy Listening !