Very well put Chargers....As I've posted, Bruce is a great dealer and I used him when I lived in SD in the early/mid 80's. Just a great guy who gets it. I never met Randy, but have heard great things about his ability to set up a system. All of Richard's dealers are masters of set up. Every dealer of his I've been to, many, are set up artists.
Love your system. I"ve heard it many times in other stores or homes and I'm jealous, lol.
I just ordered my Quatro's in Audi Havana Black. I will wait as long as it takes as they will take my system to the next level. Have to send my Ayre AX5/20 back to Ayre to have the crossover hard wired into the amp. It will sound much better this way, rather than go with the external crossover as I have no way to properly install it. It's a cheap and easy install and can be reversed if I ever want to sell the amp. I'd be able to have Ayre go over the amp too, if and when I sell it.
The best I've ever heard the 7 mk2's is with Richards own amp. I like Aesthetix better than AR amps/pre's. I have a newly reconditioned and upgrade Rhea that they guys there did for me. I will be putting it on the market soon as I never use phono anymore (I have MS and it's a bear to get up and change albums sides every 20minutes or so). I feel badly as it's such a great phono stage.
I think the reason the Ayre (and other reference gear) sounds so great with with the Vandersteen Quatro on up is because it's freed up having to power 100hz down. Folks don't realize what a major difference this is. You are not just getting possibly the best drivers on the market, you are getting an active speaker that is optimize in the bass. Bass is the most expensive and difficult part to reproduce for any product. Richard takes that guess work out and still allows us to go with the amps of our choice. I do wish he's just offered a fully active system with a great preamp. That would be a perfect world for me, lol.