I have had my Vandersteen Model 7s for about two months. The break-in for these speakers is anywhere from 400 to 450 hours. I have reached 450 hours and feel that they are there. However, Richard Vandersteen has said that even he does not know how good they can sound. They just keep getting better as time goes on. My electronics is Aesthetix Io Eclipse phono preamp with volume controls and two power supplies. My amps are Aesthetix Atlas Signature mono-blocks. Wire is Audioquest Sky and Audioquest Everest. front end is VPI TNT 6 with Rim Drive and power controller. The arm is Triplanar 7 with Benz LP cart. The system is balanced. I became an audio fanatic in the 1950s when, as a kid, I heard for the first time the Electrovoice Georgian speaker system with proper electronics etc. for its day. That was it for me. I have had many speakers systems over the years including Avalon, Maggies, and most recently Vandersteen 5As. I listen mostly to classical music ( a collector of records for over 40 years, RCA, Mercury, Decca, E.M.I. etc.)
I had to wait a long time before I could honestly say that my system is very close to what I experience when I listen to the LA Philharmonic at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles. I have Richard Vandersteen to thank for this because of his years of research and development that produced the Vandersteen Model 7. Robert Harley's review in Absolute Sound is right on the money. The same is true for Pete Roth's review for the online Ultra Audio. The Vandersteen Model 7 projects a sense of truth to the source that the vast number of speakers out there do not. For the first time I can listen to the great Mercury recordings without the brightness that I and other collectors have complained about for years. I can finally really appreciate Kenneth Wilkinson's geat Kingsway Hall recordings for Decca and yes, I can hear the subway passing under ground. You will hear the multi-miking of the great RCA records, but you will also hear detail in them that I was not fully aware of through other speakers. The Model 7 is not just a step up from the 5a. It is a giant leap that takes you into the recording environment and lets you hear an amazing close approximation of what was heard at the recording session. Simply will find yourself totally involved in the music. For me image height is perfect, image size is dead on with the overall recording. And dynamics are close enough to the real thing without drawing too much attention to itself and distorting the soundstage. And finally there is the purity of the sound that no other speaker that I have ever heard has. If you think the Model 7 sound great at the dealers, just wait until you hear them in your own listening room. Once voiced below 120 hz and set up according to the manual, by the time you reach 100 hours you will begin to hear the greatness of this speaker. And that is just the beginning.
