Rockport Avior or Magico S5

From my experience listening to Vandersteen 5A's and 7's, I think there are truths to what everyone is saying here.

I will use the Vandersteen 7's for an example. I heard them extensively with an empty room early in the morning the last day of the show. Richard was there as well as Dave Gordon from ARC.

First, the solidity of images and the liquid mids and highs the 7's portrayed was exemplary. Some of the best I have ever heard. Images were so solid that you could almost reach out and touch the performers. Realism was great.

If I had two complaints about the 7's set up in a large room at RMAF, it would be the following:

1. Bass - the bass had a huge overhang. Bloated even. I was really surprised that by the last day of the show this wasn't addressed better. Later from talking to others in the industry that don't have a 'dog in the fight', I was told that the 5's and 7's are particularly hard to set up and they think only a handful of dealers can do it properly. One would think with the active bass module in the 7's you could 'dial' perfect bass for any room or placement. I'm sure you can, but it will take a lot of time and expertise to do it.

2. Soundstage image height - caveat here - I'm 6'4". But I was constantly slumping in my chair to get in the middle of the soundstage. In my opinion they throw and deep and incredibly wide soundstage, but the soundstage height was not much higher than the top of the speaker cabinet. It was unrealistically low in my opinion.

All that being said, the 7's are a GREAT loudspeaker and does a ton of things incredibly well. I can certainly see how some would pick this loudspeaker as a destination/end of the road one. And no loudspeaker is perfect!

Shake obviously has it out for Vandy's since he's trying to add things to what I post that aren't there. I never said a dealer didn't set them up right. Just said that you can't pop into a room at a show and say you've heard anything properly. I've been to many Vandy dealers over the country and all have set them up correctly and the end results were astonishing.

Phil, at your height to you have to set up most speakers a bit differently ? Just curious as I"m only 5 11 and never have a problem with tweeter hight. Since they are time and phase correct, you do have a window to hear them at their best, however they do still sound darn good even off axis a bit if you are just listening for fun. At least they do in my room. I've never heard bloated bass from the Treo up. I haven't found them to be as difficult to set up as others claim. Any speaker must be set up properly to sound it's best and you have to dial things in constantly until you get it right. I personally love adjustable bass as you can dial it in. That's why I"m going up to the Quator's as soon as I can afford them. Audio Connection (Johnny who posts here) will walk anyone through set up if they need it. it's actually easier than many other speakers I"ve had in my house, or at least that's how I feel. If you have someone to help you, a tape measure (or long piece of string so you can set the tweeters the same distance from your ears when you are seated where you want to be and a laser to focus the red dots on the far wall then you can easily set the toe in as well as the tilt back so that anyone of any height can hear them properly). Johnny came into my house and set up the Treo's in only an hour or so and I haven't had to move them at all.
I am friends with the local Wilson dealer and they are great guys. Done plenty of business with them too over the years and when the owner left the room, the sales guy opened up and complained about how difficult the Wilsons were to set up to get the most out of them. Same with a Legacy dealer I know and honestly, I've heard the same thing for many dealers over the years about nearly any speaker. To get the most out of them it's not always easy and quick but it's well worth it. Just part of the fun of being an audiohile. To me it's easier than tube rolling and much less expensive but that's just me, lol.

Ah so Phil you are the Cygnus owner... Hahaha!!

Congrats man!

Yeah, Ctsooner, I was surprised at the bass with the 7's at RMAF. I used a Dead Can Dance track I am very familiar with to assess bass and I played it in that room. The bass was very extended, just not tight and focused in the lower midbass making things feel 'thick' and 'bloated'. The set up was vinyl, and they had a Brinkman table and Lyra Atlas cart. ARC preamps and the Vandersteen custom amps that mate with the 7's. Can't remember the cables. Maybe they didn't have the Atlas dialed in to the proper SRA and VTF?

As far as soundstage height, I don't have to do anything special with my loudspeakers or have noticed the 'lowering of the soundstage' with the exception of the 7's. It was weird - the depth and width of the soundstage was world class, and images were as solid as they get. But the center image was only around 2-3 feet off the ground and the height barely made it a few inches above the speaker cabinets. The room and ceiling were quite large so I'm not sure what was going on there.

I really liked everything about the 7's except for the above. They were on my short list for a new loudspeaker. After hearing everything at RMAF and auditioning several, my top three were the Rockport Avior, Vandersteen 7's and Lansche 5.1's.

The poster was asking opinions about the Rockport Avior vs. the Magico S5. Somehow this thread got diverted to discussions on the merits of various Vandersteen models.