Vandersteen 2CE Signature Speakers

I listened to them at the seller's home with his Manley Neo Classic 250 amp and Sonic Frontier 3 preamp.  And I listened to both LP's from Mobile Fidelity and Telarc; and CD's from DG and Phillips (all high sonic quality recordings which normally sound great on my home system (Yamaha DAP A1 integrated amp and Wharfedale Rubiance RB 27 speakers).

I do realize that they will sound different in my listening room.  But I don't think I can take them home then return them if not happy. 

Pass on them. They are just not your cup of tea!

I should add that I'm quite pleased with my current setup. But we all have that nagging feeling of what better components can do. Vandersteen's are definitely a better speaker than Wharfedale's. But I can think of better things to spend $1000 on (including more records). And I don't think my 12 x 15 foot room (listening widthwise), is best for the Vandersteens. Additionally I'll probably want to upgrade my electronics to make them sing.

I had Vandersteen 2ci for 22 years and also a pair of 2ce for 3 years until I put them in storage.  The 2ce had a tipped up treble compared to the 2ci.. I am not sure how different the signatureII sound but On my 2ci speakers Classical was excellent.  Very full sounding with just the right amount of treble.  The triangles and wire brushes sounded so real and life like.  Jazz was excellent as well as Rock.  I drove mine with a 175wpc Classe amp and a tube preamp.  I wish I still had that system. 

The idea that a speaker plays jazz and rock well, but not classical is crazy.  The requirements for a loudspeaker for all music is the same: "play it as accurately as possible with as little damage as possible for the money".  

You may be expecting the classical to sound good, but the dynamic range requires both of the following.

1) Very low noise floor in the room because the quiet parts will be masked and boring.
2)  Enough power to play the classical loud enough to lift all of the music out of the noise floor.

This is not as much of a  problem with jazz or rock, because the music tends to be played a higher levels without the very quiet passages that are so important with classical.  An accurate transducer is required in both cases and will play all types of music equally, IF they have the headroom.

What possible difference would any designer make to a speaker for one music or the other sound 'better or worse' mystifies me to this date, but some folks seem to take this myth for granted and lose out on some great audio because of it. 

I have spoken to many top speaker designers about this as it's been perpetuated since the beginning of audio as we know it.