Vandersteen

And Theils Jim's anyway are -/$&@! Fine speakers

Johnny R., hate to disappoint you, but I'm not on Tyler's payroll. Again, my only beef with the Vandies (other than price) is that at least in my listening room, you have a very limited "sweet spot," off-axis of which you're missing their true value. Here's what I got for the 100 percent dealer mark-up:
I had to fly the guy over from Seattle to Spokane (at my expense) and back, and spring for lunch plus drive 360 miles of driving from Spokane to where we live and back. He spent about 5 minutes with a $10 Radium Shack dosimeter optimizing the speaks, then the rest of the day trying to push a billion-dollar set of Audioquest speaker cables and interconnects on me. The Vandies benefit immensely from bi-wiring, even at the Blue Jeans Cable level, and placement relative to the back wall and toe-in/toe-out can work wonders. No flies on them, but I would put Tylers' Highlands of Decade D12x's up against the 5AC carbons any old day. Insofar as speakers are probably the most subjective of components in a good sound system, and I sure haven't heard 'em all so I'm no expert. Suffice to say I'm happy with what I've got now and won't be looking for something different anytime soon.

Bewoods, I have had the same opinion of Vandersteen 2ce & 3a sig for years.  I owned a pair of 2ce sigs and the midrange driver just could not handle orchestral works.  Gritty strings, congestion and all that, drove me crazy.  Tried them with top notch amps, Belles, Bryston, Cary, made no difference.  I went to the same dealer to demo the 3A sigs and although they were better, I still was not thrilled with symphonic pieces.  I then got hold of ET Lft8Bs and it was a night and day difference in the upper mids and highs.  However, they had issues with bass so the seach continued.

" Wow!  4As?  Don't often hear about Model 4s.  How long have you had them?"

Well Richard made relatively few of them - I think a couple of hundred pair, made when they were up to date on their 2 deliveries and had the time. His initial thrust was good sound for reasonable prices and I think his approach of putting 'socks' over a framework instead of wasting money on aesthetics with fancy veneers etc. was brilliant.

His speakers have always had pretty good mid range, but were perhaps a tad loose in the bass.  He first addressed this in the 4 and 4A, where he used bass drivers bolted together face to face and separately amplified - I have his stand alone cross over and a pair of mono amps dedicated just to the bass (see them in my old listening room if you are interested - http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac81/wspohn/system3_zpsqdymqrth.jpg  They look like the 2s on steroids.

He continued on from there paying more attention to bass, which resulted in more expensive better sounding (top to bottom) speakers.  He's also gone for improved aesthetics, presumably on the theory that anyone paying the necessary dollars for the bigger speakers will also want them to look better (the 7s look kind of like Wilsons).

PS - to answer the question, I have had the 4As since the 1990s and still like them far too much to sell them, so I run them in a 3rd system in the living room.  Had to replace the surrounds on the bass drivers a couple of years ago, and Richard took me to task once when he thought I'd abused them, when I sent him a mid bass driver that needed a refurbishment - one of my big Classe monos had a conniption and fried it during normal play and had to be sent off for its own rebuild.