Old thread, but they keep showing up when I make other posts, lol.
First off I do have Treo's. I think I still have decent hearing, lol. I auditioned the 3's vs the Treo's. It wasn't close for me. The three's go deeper, but not with the quality of bass that the Treo's give you. The bass is plenty for rock as long as you have the source to send it to the amps that can handle it. It all depends on what's upstream.
The fact that the Treo has a gorgeous box within a box instead of a sock doesn't mean it doesn't sound better. I have the original Treo's which is the one the OP was asking about. I'm currently selling my Treo's to get the Quatro's. I need the tunable bass in my room, hence the upgrade. The Quatro CT vs the Treo CT is about scale. By freeing up your amps from having to worry about anything from 100k down, the sound will be better. You can push the Quatro much more than a Treo, however if you have a pair of Vandy subs for the Treo's, then you can get 95% of the way there to a Quatro. The Quatro is the best value in his product range I think. For 14k you get a true full range powered speaker that personally competes or beats nearly anything I've heard from 30k down. I've heard a ton of speakers and Vandy's aren't the only one's that make great speakers, but the value is there in spades I feel.
Z, refinement is the true difference between the 2 or 3's and the Treo's. I've run all of them with an Ayre AX-5/Twenty, Empirical Audio OSDE/SE fully upgraded, Steve Nugent rebuilt Mac Mini server with Paul Hynes linear power supply and SSD with all high rez music recorded for shows and even better a Basis TT with Basis arm and Benz low output Glider cart run through a Rhea phono. Everything is balanced with good AQ cables and 8' AQ Castlerock speaker cables. My system is pretty darn good and show's off the Treo's very very well. The 3's aren't even close in refinement, but are still a great sounding and fun speaker. I get plenty of bass for all types of music. JMHO
