re: Vandersteen's being hard to drive.
I had 2Cs and then 2Cis and 2Ces. They were the easiest, least fussy speakers to drive i ever owned. Drive them with a 20 W NAD 3020 that could NOT drive Spica TC or SC-50s. Drove them with a pair of tiny Lux tube amps. They are very resistive, basically 8 ohms, and modest sensitivity (87 dB???).
Look at the impedance curves for heaven's sake. Do they like good amps? Sure. Do they like highly capable, high current amps? Sure, i guess. Do they need them to make music? Nope.
I had 2Cs and then 2Cis and 2Ces. They were the easiest, least fussy speakers to drive i ever owned. Drive them with a 20 W NAD 3020 that could NOT drive Spica TC or SC-50s. Drove them with a pair of tiny Lux tube amps. They are very resistive, basically 8 ohms, and modest sensitivity (87 dB???).
Look at the impedance curves for heaven's sake. Do they like good amps? Sure. Do they like highly capable, high current amps? Sure, i guess. Do they need them to make music? Nope.