New Vandersteen oil cooled hybrid amplifiers

"A speaker manufacturer who starts making amplifiers tends to damage relations with amplifier manufacturers with whom they have worked in the past, hurting themselves. "

How do you know that Richard was working WITH the amplifier manufacturers on the design?

eventually i will demo them at home vs. Twenty series Ayre..i hear from people i trust that they both sound great.
what I do know is Richard collaborates with a pretty tight circle of like minded and innovative people in the industry. He shares a patent w Bill at AQ, etc..no mystery that many a Steen dealer carry ARC, AYRE, Aesthetix, etc.
The guy from PSE directly helped with the amp.
will it have limited appeal? Sure.

I just saw this old thread and laughed.  I just got done hearing the production amps with mk2 7's a couple of weekends ago at Audio Connection. Doug Gordon from ARC, Garth Powell and Steve from AQ were also in attendance.  WE all had a great time and there sure didn't seem to be problems between ARC and Richard over amps, lol.  Richard uses technology from the new AQ Niagara power filtering and you can tell.  These amps are just rocks and typical over engineering like most amps costing this much.  It makes the 7's a powered speaker.  What most folks who don't fully understand is that the reason you rarely if ever see used Vandersteen 7's or even 5CT's on the used market is because folks keep them. They upgrade them when Richard has upgrades for them.  If someone is going to get rid of this amp, they are probably selling the speakers with them and then it's a powered mega speaker that will most probably keep their value in the same way all his other products do.  Richard has made some business mistakes in the past like everyone, but he gave us and continues to give us great value at all price ranges.  I have yet to hear anyone say anything bad about this amp who have spent time with it.  Richard love the SET sound in the mid bass up and with powering the 100k down with SS amps it gives you the best of both worlds.  Some may still prefer the Ayre MXR/20's or the ARC Ref 150's or the Aesthetix Atlas Eclipse Mono's, but they have choices and that's a good thing for all audiophiles in the end isn't it?  Interesting to read a two year old thread and see how the amp has progressed and how the production model sounds.  

I have so far heard the Vandersteen 7's with and without the amps at a total of 5 audio shows, and once at a dealer and in all cases, I came away completely unimpressed...the sound was just flat out uninvolving especially in relation to cost.........and I am someone who has owned Vandersteen 2s in three iterations since the late 80s.......I now have Magnepans......

The whole notion of an amplifier that puts 600w into 4 ohms and needs to be liquid cooled seems absolutely bizarre to me.    My Bryston 28BSST2's put 2 kilowatts into 4 ohms with my Magnepans and need no liquid or air cooling of any kind and are never more than warm to the touch......they also cost 1/3rd of the Vandersteen amps......

I'm keeping what I have.......

Stewart, I assume that you heard them with only a couple of folks in the room while sitting in the middle seat at the shows as well as at the dealer?  Sorry, but it's bizarre to me that folks can make any decisions on how components sound from listening at a show or even at a dealer is there are a lot of folks in the room.  Most dealers and manufacturers also hate folks making their decisions based on shows.  You may get an idea how something could sound, but we all talk about the room being so important iRT sound, but regardless of what you do with a room at a show, you can't get the room to sound like it will at home in a well set up space.  JMHO but I'm sure others find that popping into a room at a show or sitting with a group of other listeners is a good way to see what is good or bad.  I may even be in the minority, but whatever

As far as design, I'm sure that if these manufacture's listened to folks call their ground breaking strategies bizarre, then we'd never have coated tweeters or carbon fiber cones that are stiff enough to give true pistonic movement which is what is needed to properly deliver non distorted sound.  Folks have been working on that end since the beginning of speaker making.  I wonder if folks would have mounted transistors in sold blocks of copper?  I wonder how many folks would have bothered to mill solid blocks of aluminum to make better sounding cases for components?  If the cooling system is silent and does a better job keeping the components working much easier, doesn't that lengthen their lives let along probably sound better?  Not saying you have to say you like his products anymore.  We all hear differently and if you fail to 'get' his amps after hearing them properly, then that's cool.  Lot's of folks will never get them, but so far I've heard over 25 who have heard them properly (not at shows or during shop visits where there are too many in the room) and loved them even if they'll never be in their price range.  

I'm just glad there are some great products we all get to chose from that push the bounds of engineering.  Pretty awesome in my humble opinion.