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Questions for Vandersteen 5A owners...

I finally got to audition 5A's yesterday. Involved 9 hours of driving, but it was worth it. :-)

I realize no speaker is perfect and it's a matter of tradeoffs. I am attracted to Vandersteen because of a strong reputation and the fact that it includes a powered bass module with 11 bands of EQ per speaker. I have a troublesome room. Currently have Aerial model 9s - a great speaker but not ideal for my room.

Anyway, I wanted to post my impressions and see what owners have to say.

1) Larger than life sound. Holy big imagery. High hats sounded like they were 3 feet in diameter.

2) Wide dispersion of sound (i.e. large sweetspot). Vocals stretched from speaker to speaker. Panning of instruments off center was hard to pinpoint.

3) Bass seemed EQd well (couldn't hear any notes being louder than others) but all in all it wasn't as articulate as I expected. Bass was very fat sounding.

4) Problem at loud volumes? It might have been the 200 watt amp, but when the volume was cranked it was very distorted. I notice that Stereophile recommends the speaker but says "won't play as loud as other speakers". I have never experienced a speaker that had a volume limitation per se, so I'm not sure what to expect - distortion or were they simply meaning it wasn't very sensitive? I don't listen to music at crazy volumes, but these would also be used for home theater - where speakers should be able to handle loud peaks. Have any of you noticed this?

5) A lot brighter than I expected and very revealing. Highs sounded less smooth/laid back than I expected (or was used to for that matter). Almost harsh at times. Could have been the recordings, but I played stuff I was very familiar with so I'm puzzled here.

6) Midrange was very nice.

Anyhow, I'm interested in others' perceptions here as I can't audition these in my own home. I do believe that the dealer could set up the bass well in my room, but am generally worried about some of the points above.

Thanks in advance.
madfloyd
mtdking
157 posts
 
I went and listened to the 5A at my local dealer and I thought they sounded OK nothing special. The room looked fine and saw no reason whey they should have sounded just OK. I since moved on to Wilson Watt Puppy, Aerial 20T and Kharma speakers but never was real happy with any of them. I went back to the dealer again 3 years later and listened to the 5a again. They sounded better buy not great. I bought them anyways because they sounded better then what I had.

The dealer came out and set them up which didn't take too long. Pretty easy and much easier then everybody makes it sound. They sounded the same in the dealers room as they did in my room. I listened to them and let them break in and after about 1 month I decided to take the time and set them up myself. Long story short. The dealer set them up to what he thought sounded good. That is why it sounded the same as his room. He didn't follow Vandersteen instructions 100% so i went back and redid everything. After me taking 4 hours making adjustments WOW. The best speaker I have ever heard. They just gets better with time.

My point is if you buy 5A take the time and read the manual and set them up yourself to your likings. You will be rewarded.

BTW I thought the Watt Puppies were harder to set up.
chadnliz's avatar
chadnliz
3,737 posts
 
Mtd, cool story and I never would have guessed that would happen but it makes sense..........it looks like th OP heard something that just wasnt right.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,530 posts
 
Mtdking et al... I think dealers really TRY to set up speakers and turntables, but they really can't spend the time to do it really right. If you follow Vandersteen's very time consuming, but very accurate setup directions, you'll win. Even more complicated and time consuming is turntable setup. I've spent months with it, and am now on my way to fine tune it even further.
mtdking
157 posts
 
The 5A's really is an amazing speaker because of what it can do from top to bottom. I get flat response all the way to 17 hz. With any other speaker you would have to spend $75,000 to get that. Being that the speakers are in phase that also can be different at first if you never heard a speaker in phase.
I do wish that Richard would not scare everybody in the manual about setting up these speakers without a dealer. He makes it sound like only a dealer can do this. It really is a very easy thing to do plus you will learn about your room and acoustic problems. It's a win win.
I have a friend that has a nice system and I went over to listen one night. The image was off to the left and after about an hour I asked him if he heard the same thing. He said no and I said but it is. Later that year he went to his doctor and during his check up he wanted his hearing checked and he found out that he had some hearing loss in his one ear. How would you like that guy setting up your speakers or me setting up his speakers. See my point....
madfloyd OP
411 posts
 
Thanks for all the responses. Being the perfectionist that I am, I do wonder if I could dial the speakers in better myself, but don't know what kind of measurement tool I would need; good to hear that someone has done it succesfully.

Guidocorona, I heard the 5As using mostly ARC gear (CD player, PH7 phono, REF 3 preamp) and an Aesthetix Atlas amp. I don't know what the cables were. I have the same preamp but use Theta Citadels for amps.

The speakers did sound nice - and perhaps better than anything else that I've auditioned so far. I am leaning towards acquiring them.
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