Vandersteen 1 in the nearfield, for rock music?

Thanks, John - Nope. That #$%^&*! RPTV is on wheels, but there is no place to role it to in my basement. Besides, I do use it (guilty, as charged). The high pass I use are the Vandy in-line filters, which are fixed @80Hz anyway. And, I gotta think that, for a price, there are better speakers out there than the 1Cs, however good at their price point they may be.

Unsound - I can sit as far back as 9 ft., but I have found the soundstage and imaging to be better at 7 feet. In my case, remember, the 1Cs are barely 5 feet apart. Of course, YMMV.

5' isn't much. Your room might be small for the Vandersteens.

Bond,

You mentioned the DCM Timeframe series, are the vandersteens similiar to these speakers? I bought a pair of the Timefrom tf400 from a local swapmeet for 30 bucks and thought they were awesome, especially for rock music.

Please forgive me if I'm jumping ahead of Bond here. The DCM's had similar goals as the Vandersteen's, but Vandersteen comes much closer to hitting the bullseye.

Dave - DCM is not, AFAIK, the same company that made your swapmeet speakers. The current DCM builds more conventional tower speakers. Although they claim that the x-over makes them phase correct, I would not say they immitate Vandersteen's designs. I only mentioned them because of how impressed I was by the DCM TFE200s at the HE2007 show in NYC. They are priced right at the same price as the 1Cs (you NEED the bases for the 1Cs), and to my ears, sounded really smooth. I did not, however, directly compare them to the Vandys. I think I generally prefer larger, soft dome tweeters to metal domes like the ones Vandersteen uses. Personal preference, YMMV.