Vandersteen Treo vs 3A Sig as upgrade

I was doing a search on Treo's as I have finally put them up for sale (now will have the money to get Quatro's).  I reread the whole thread and it is very interesting.

The OP wanted to know what the Treo's sound like.  I've now lived with them for well over a year and I LOVE them.  If they don't sell, I'll be ok with that.  I often have to listen at low levels on Sat and Sun mornings.  I am in shock at how great they sound at any level. Even at the low levels they are dynamic as heck.  They are like listening to a point source driver only at mostly full range.  There was concern over the QUALITY of the bass.  Folks, if you want quality, it's there in spades.  The quantity isn't what the Quatro is, but again, augmenting with the high pass filter and Vandy Q subs you do get that quantity and the quality will tighten up a spec too.  I wouldn't ever use anyone else's sub with it though. That won't work.  I listen to a ton of vinyl still as well as high rez, well recorded digital on a very high end DAC.   No it's not cheap, but this is about how good the Treo's can sound.  The sound was described as a bit behind the speakers.  Yes, if you want something in your face go listen to some others. The new B&W's are speakers that are in your lap. Not my cup of tea, but many love that.  These speakers must be set up really well (thanks Johnny) because they open up even and give me a very large and realistic soundstage.  The stage goes well past the edge of the speakers too.  My room is decent.  It needs a bit of help on first reflection, but I have MS and am unable to put the quilts I purchased up on the wall where they need to be.

These are chameleon's in that they rock, play large scale orchestral, give me the guitar plucks from Joe Bonamassa's fingers and the emotion of his blues, allow me to love Bill Evan's piano on Kind of Blue and even on Cowboy Junkies, the female vocal can be hauntingly good.

They are just clean. No distortion at all on mine.  That allows them to be 'ruthlessly revealing without fatigue' as I posted earlier in this thread.  Not only do I stand by that, they have gotten better.  I don't think I even had them fully broken in when I originally posted. I also have upgrade a few parts of the system.  Not sure if I had the Ayre AX-5 Twenty upgrade at the time.  I assume I was using the Empirical Audio OSDE/SE (with every upgrade Steve offers for it).  

I thought it was cool that the CT version made the front over of The Absolute Sound last month I think it was.  It's a GREAT review and a fun read if you Google it.  

I liked the 3A/Sig much better than the Treo or Quattro.
The caveat is with the 3a it is much easier to set up than the others.
Pretty much plug-and-play.

To my ears the Treos are a step forward in the mids and a step backward in the bass (from the 3A sig). I really wanted to like the Treos but the bass is unacceptable. Since the cure is sub woofers (or Quatros at twice the price) I’ll keep my 3A Sigs. I suspect much of the improvement in the Treo mids is due to the ease of driving the small Treo woofer, unloading the amplifier, or in the case of the Quatro, no woofer to drive at all (self powered). That would explain why Vandersteen has not married the bass drivers and cabinet of the 3A Sig to the tweeter and mid cabinet of the Treo - potentially a real winner without the $7k increase - giving the people what they want instead of a magic show - look at this hand (mids) and ignore what the other hand is doing (bass).

What you are hearing is more bass with lesser quality through the 3's. Those are a great choice in the lower price range however the Treo,s do everything else much better. Just ask Richard and he'll tell you the same thing. The Treo's sound great on material that has true low information. I heard great low information yesterday playing some orchestral tracks in 192. The quality was outstanding. Do I want more?  Yes and that's why I want the Quatro. Bass is the most expensive part of audio. At these price ranges there have to be compromises. I do disagree about set up. The Treo's were really easy to set up. We just put them 8' apart and put them about 4' into the room. Roughly what every speaker in this room has been. Then we uses string and placed it to my ear and made sure my ears were equi distant from each tweeter. Then we put on the spikes and used a lazier pen to align each tweeter on the back wall. After that we took about 15 minutes to set the tilt. That part was easy. Afterwards we rechecked the tweeters on the back wall to makes sure they were properly aligned after tilt. It took two of us about 30 minutes. Maybe I could dial them in better but they wound as good as I've ever heard them in various places. The CT version is better by a fair amount but at a premium. Personally I take quality bass over quantity. These still go down into the low 30's and with the quality They  give you most are highly satisfied. That takes nothing away from the 3's which are also an amazing value. We are talking about two great values. If we were talking about the Quatro vs the 5 we'd have a similar conversation but all have to agree that we love our Vandersteens and feel we have a great speaker value. 

What I am hearing is better quality bass in the 3A Sig for rock music.  What I hear from the Treo is better mids but a small ported driver that fails miserably on rock music.  Not because it lacks low end.  It doesn't.  It thuds quite loudly.  Believe me, if the Treos had better quality bass than the Sig *on rock* I would own them.  They just don't keep the rock beat rollin'.  If the Treo lights your fire on orchestral, by all means enjoy.