For Vandersteen owners & lovers: Which other brands do you like?

I haven’t owned Vandersteens to-date but at this point am planning to get either Quatros or Kentos into my primary system, hopefully in the not-distant future.

My primary system has had Vivid B1s for a few years now, and they’re friggin’ amazing IMO. I’m only (likely) switching to the Vandersteens for their powered, contourable subwoofers that are essentially full-range (my Vivids don’t go down quite as far and don’t have the bass equalization factor), plus my liking for the Vandersteens’ time/phase coherence (am especially excited to get them for my classical music listening, which is about 40% of my total, predominantly orchestral works).

Both lines of speakers (at least the better Vandersteens) use pistonic drivers and offer what I regard as exceptionally balanced and spacious sound with great timbral accuracy. The Vivids are exceptionally dynamic, the comparable Vandersteens a bit less so.

Some years back, Peter Roth at Soundstage Ultra did a wonderful comparison of the house sounds of the two speaker lines.

Tradeoffs!

@aubullience ,

I hope you get the Vandy's. I doubt you'll be disappointed.-Though I have no experience with Vivid speakers, but if you have listened to Vandy's and liked them, then I am sure it will be an upgrade.

Yes, the equalized bass is pretty sweet. I own the Treo's with Sub 3's and couldn't be happier.

I was going to start a new thread on the Vandy VLR's, but saw your post first and wanted to comment.

Bob

Both lines of speakers (at least the better Vandersteens) use pistonic drivers and offer what I regard as exceptionally balanced and spacious sound with great timbral accuracy. The Vivids are exceptionally dynamic, the comparable Vandersteens a bit less so.

@aubullience there are a few pistonic cones. And Purifi has a slick surround which does not change effective area as the cone moves in and out… as well as a more linear motor
ideally we would get a blending of the tech… as all are attempts at a lower distortion driver, from the cone, surround, and motor aspects. Some of the Purifi based speakers were pretty darn nice too. I’d just like to see a Purifi with a sandwich vandy cone on it.

I have not seen distortion measurements that I recall for Vivids nor any recent Vandys, but a high distortion could possibly come across as dynamic… I’m Not sure…

I am also unsure what exactly what makes timbral accuracy. The Vandy time domain accuracy is stunning, but the FR on the older speakers was not ruler smooth. One cannot clean up time domain easily with a DSP… but FR is pretty easy. I suspect that the time domain is more important for my ears…?

I am also looking at the Quatros and Kentos… but the old 2C are still pretty nice.

kind of first world problems to have.

Since the thread is about what other speakers… I am not sure how many are using the Purifi motors, and most that are seem to be on LR2 or LR4 crossovers (XO).

i have been thinking about a DEQX active XO, as they are coming out soon. I am not sure there is a lot better on that front.

but as they say, there are a hundred ways to skin a cat.

as the advocate of devil… one could maybe add the Vandy sub to the Vivids if their XO alignment was amenable to it? Are they 1st order XOs?

101 cats now… or was that Dalmatians?