Vandersteen 5


Hi over the weekend I purchased a set up Vandertseen 5's and a McCormack DNA 225. I have a few questions about the 5's and was hoping someone here could help me. I can't seem to get the bass on either speaker on the 5's to work. The mids and the high's sound great.

1.) I've connected the M5-HP high pass filters between my preamp (a rotel RSX-1550) using RCA to XLR cable (the high-pass is XLR) and XLR to the McCormack amp (which was upgraded to platinum and has both XLR and RCA inputs). Is the lack of bass because I'm using a cable to convert RCA to XLR to connect to the M5-HP high pass filters ? I've looked on the vandersteen site and saw opposing answers from Richard. If not that what else could be wrong with the subs? 

2.) would anyone here want to trade a my XLR M5-HP high pass filters for an RCA one? I'm in the bay area

3.) The speakers were missing the spikes. Does anyone the size. I'd like to order a generic set as vandersteen wants 22 per spike. 

4.) Anything else I should know? My prior speskers were 2CE sigs so I jumped when I saw the 5's for sale. 
128x128mzwerner
@gdnrbob - beleive it or not mine actually go down to 10K (I just looked at a picture of my high pass filter and 10k is the lowest setting). Hopefully that will do the trick. I'm going to try changing it to that setting when I get home tonight. 
super good decisions Vandersteen is  hyper frugal Dutch engineer the things he sells reflect good value IMO
Randy is in SantaMonica and sells a lot of balanced gear, my 5a came from him
give a call he usually has several sets of used filters as customers move from se to balanced, etc...
you got fantastic setup advice
I suggest buying a $50 Leica Disto for precision measurement , make your life easy.
have fun !!!!! you will be shocked how really good they are!!!!!
enjoy the music
jim
Last night I set the High-pass filter to 10k (per McCormack) and well WOW...The Vandersteen's just came to life. The Subs are now firing and I swear the high's and the mid's sound better. While I loved how by 2CE sig's sound the 5's sound much better. 

1.) Now for another question: Do I still need my subs to play LFE signals when I watch movies or will my current setup route the LFE signals to the subs built into the 5's?

My current setup is as follows: 
I've got a Rotel RSX 1550 A/V (yes I'm going to upgrade once budget allows), where I have my surrounds (for now 2Ce's as rears) and center (VCC-1) connected. For the 5's, as the fronts, the Rotel acts as the preamp, sending the front signal to the 5's. I have the 5's set as large and everything else set as small and subs as none. Is this correct and will the LFE be routed to the 5's? the Vandersteen manual says I don't need any other subs. Just wondering if I'll get full effects for movies this way? 

@tomic601 Thank's I'll give Randy a call today and see if he's be willing to swap/sell the filters. I'll also check out the Leica disto. My next project will be getting everything dialed in a positioned correctly, as I'm sure everything is a mess now. 

As for power cables the guy who sold the the 5's and the amp also gave me two anticable power cables, as well as a  VHA Flavor 2. How do I tell which version of the antipower cable I have and is this good enough for the amp? Should I sell the others? The VHA seems to be for preamps, but doesn't fit my rotel. 

Last thing. The guys at SMC audio have been amazing. They've been super help and spent a ton of time with me I'm super appreciative. I also plan on asking them to upgrade my amp once I get everything else dialed in.  


The guy who sold you the equipment gave you some nice stuff.
I say try both cables and see which one you like. And, give things time to settle in before making upgrades.-You won't be able to tell what makes a difference until you know what your system sounds like.
Re: the Rotel,
I have no idea what a home theater amp does or doesn't do, as I am a 2 channel guy. I can only say give it a try and see what you think.
B
@mzwerner - I have some Vandy(2C), Rotel(1055), Multi-Channel experience.

Your 5's will give you all the low-frequency (sub) response needed (Subs as none is correct) Just set them (as you have them) as "large". The "large" setting sends all frequency to the speaker(s), "small" trims off lower frequencies with a cross-over (if I remember correctly, 100K and below). As for your 2ce's set as "small", that is a matter of choice on whether you want full/low-frequency signal sent to those speakers, they obviously would handle them fine, they are full-range speakers, it's more of a matter of if you as the listener want the bass coming from the surrounds or not.

And if I recall the LFE setting, that is a (Rotel) setting to either filter out those super low frequencies that can drive same building neighbor crazy.

My Rotel expired and I replaced it with a Marantz 7702MKII (multi-channel Pre-Amp only. I have an old Adcom 535-2 (2 535's in one box) driving Vandy 1B Surrounds, and I can't remember the not great brand of high rear surrounds I have.