Not Thrilled with Vandersteen 2CE Sigs - where is the first place to work on?

Although probably not the main culprit, the Dragonfly Red is a singularly uninspiring DAC.  It's missing low and high frequency extension as well as dynamics and punch.  I replaced it with a very old PeachTree DAC-IT (the original version) and heard an immediate improvement. 

Had a pair of 2CEs that worked well in a medium-sized room but not so good in a small room. As others have said, they need room to breathe. The listening position also needs to be 9-10 feet away (min.) for a proper blend of the drivers.

I had 2ce with McCormack 0.5 amp and tube preamp. Did the setup according to the Vandersteen manual and talked with John Rutan (thanks John!). Ultimately, to me they were more veiled on the top end than I cared for. Sold them extremely cheaply to help out a young audiophile friend just out of college and he loves them to this day.

I would recommend you take tomic601 up on his offer and pm him. He seems very knowledgeable and a great guy also. 

 I think we could be dealing with two different potential situations here 1) It is not possible to have significant problems in a system and have some recordings sound great especially when they are known great recordings. You could change some of the components in the system and improve the sound but the fact that some great recordings sound great is meaningful. 2) you could be chasing recording quality and the only way to deal with that is to use tone controls on the recordings that need them or dumb the whole system down to the point that everything sound OK by trying a speaker with many drivers that smear themselves, a dip in the mid range, plenty tweeter(s) and up in the bass that play loud as for some audio enthusiasts enough volume cures all. I would sort this out before spending any more money because even though several hundred thousand of these speakers have been sold they are not for everybody. If you decide to keep the 2Ce Sig’s I can help you get the most out of them cost effectively.

 Best, JohnnyR

I had 2CI’s for over 20 years and loved them. A friend sold me his 2CE’s Signature for an extremely cheap price. Replaced the 2CI with the 2CE in the exact same spots, sounded like s**t. Figured it couldn’t be the speakers so replaced all system components right down to all the cables, plus experimented with different positioning. They still sounded like s**t. Stopped listening to system for 6 months. After 6 months, tried it again and still hated them. Stupidly, I gave away the 2CI to a fellow Audiogoner for free and ended up selling the 2CE. For whatever reason, they did not sound good in my system.

I was using a 175wpc Classe’ amp and an AI Modulus 3A pre, VPI HW19mk II turntable, Pioneer PD65 CD Player, AudioQuest cables and speaker wire.  I bought Von Schweikert VR33 speakers which were an even bigger disaster.