I heard the Vandersteen Quatro Wood CT and was very impressed. They are on my next upgrade list. My understanding is that the Blade and Blade 2 need a lot of space on the side and rear to sound their best, neither will my listening room allow. Plus they are obviously much more expensive.
But, one thing I think is missing from these comments (unless I missed it) is how important the room is to judging any speaker. Unfortunately living in Westchester, N.Y., there are no dealers that will allow home audition (Listening Room used to but they are long gone). When I listened to the Vandersteen speakers at Audio Connection I also listened to the Proac 48r. Both are similarly priced. I owned Response 2.5s for many years and loved the Proac midrange. I was extremely disappointed when I heard the 48r and felt the Vandersteen speakers were much better. But they were in different rooms. Might I felt the opposite if the rooms were different? No way to know. But my point is that listening at a dealer is not without its caveats. Reviews and recommendations have to be part of the decision-making process and we as audiophiles cannot assume an in-store audition of competing products will in and of itself tell us which speaker we will like better.
