Vandersteen 3A Sigs vs Klipsch Forte III

Well
no hater for sure with 3 pair of Vandersteen and a pair of rebuilt and upgraded Cornwall in the garage...( but they at one time occupied space in the “ Vintage” room...
Apples and Octopus... not oranges....
and yes I had a pair of 3a-sig with Mac power....
i would say Vandersteen faults are subtractive and Klipsch faults are additive with glare, fatigue and lack of image depth critical listening deal killers for me. Wow do they rock tho! I have run them with a MAC 240 and tubes certainly help tame some of the issues.
you have enough amp for the 3a and a nice sized room. They reward meticulous setup and careful placement using the massive sound anchor stands.
the acoustic coupler provides very significant low bass and superb definition with an amp that can control the low end drivers,
have fun in your search, and Apple or ???? It’s all good food

Tomic601, "glare and fatigue", ya, I get it. I guess I want that pair of "do everything well" speakers. I like soft, low level music sometimes and then I get in the mood to really crank it up and feel the music. That's where I thought the Forte III's could handle it all. But glare and fatigue worries me. Can you blast the 3a Sigs and still have good definition?

yes the 3a will rock and do so with a higher duty cycle than ( for example ) a 1ci / Vandersteen sub combination as the very robust midrange takes load off the tweeter.

i have a pair of 1ci that I run with a NAIM Atom (40 wpc) and they are very sweet....

I did run the 3 with a 200 wpc Mac ( MC202) in rooms somewhat smaller than yours ( but close volumetricly close)...Something like Gabriel Plays Live....shaking the tree will move ya...

you could also get a minty new pair of 2ce sig II  which offer a ton of value ) and then add subs later and really have a fantastic setup.

Hey tomic601,
How's the Treo CT set-up doing? Did you add sub(s) to them? Really envy you. I have a daughter in San Diego. Would love to hear your system(s). HInt, hint :-)

The problem with this thread is you’ll get a lot of opinions based on older Fortes. I’m sure few here have heard the IIIs, which have revised drivers and crossovers. I have Heresy IIIs. Many describe the Heresys as "bright," "fatiguing," or "brittle," but I don’t find that to be the case at all with the H-IIIs, and I’m used to the warmth of Spendor classics.

I owned a pair of Vandy 1Cis for about a month and they were the brighter speakers when their treble trim was set to neutral. This was in the same room, with the same gear. The Vandys did have a wider sweet spot and dug deeper, but as with all mid-efficiency speakers, they required some volume before they’d open up. For low volume listening, it’s no contest, the Klipsch speakers will produce greater bass at low levels.