Vandersteen 3A sigs amp advice please

go to soundstage.com and read all of doug blackburns stuff. he owns 3a sigs and has heard lots of amps. i know 2 of his favs are the belles and the warner imaging.

I had the 3asigs and thought the mccormack dna1/revaGold was the best for them. I also had a vt100m2 I tried with them. I thought that sounded very musical, great midrange, but did not bring out the speakers awesome bass capability like the dna could. Other tastes will vary!

Used both McCormack DNA 125 and Belles 150a with very good results. But the Rogue 120 mono blocks that I am using now are giving me the best results on the 3a sigs yet. (Detailed, warm and very musical.) Mark Obrien from Rogue audio used the 120's with the vandersteen 3a sigs at the 98 CES with much sucsess I hear. Hope I helped!

...got to agree with John_1. The Vandersteen 3As are great with McCormack amplifiers. I've used the DNA.5, DNA-1DX, and presently the DNA-2DX, and I strongly recommend the the DNA-2DX. BTW, R. Vandersteen and Steve McCormack used to exhibit together and used each others products. DNA-2s can be found used for really reasonable prices, and IMO are definitely Stereophile Class A, but they've never been reviewed-- thus the low used prices. I compared (in home) the DNA-2DX to Levinson 331, and SF Power 2, and it was no contest; I easily preferred the McCormack. Happy Hunting. Craig.

I tend to agree with Fredzip80 based on my experience with Vandersteens as both an owner and having heard various set-up through the years. As John_1 states you may lose a bit in the bass department, read slam, but you gain it in the midrange, read presence. I always felt that of all the ss amps I have heard with the Vandersteen 2 and 3 series including Threshold, Krell, Acurus, Levinson and McCormick the last at an audio show, tubes are better. So things aren't perfect at audio shows but Richard Vandersteen was there and it should have sounded much better than it did. I wasn't alone in what I was hearing. The sound was as ho hum as I've heard these speakers sound. I always felt there was a synergistic match with ARC products in a variety of different set-ups. Heard the Vandy 3a sigs with ARC VT100Mk2 and LS 15 during an extensive audition (2 hours) and there wasn't tooo much missing in the bass. Could feel the air brush across my face on the Shelly Manne "Poinciana" track. But then again I'm biased towards tubes in general and ARC in particular. I keep on hearing about how wonderful these speakers sound with McCormick. My experience with that amp was limited to about 30 minutes so other views may hold greater value. You have some feedback, now you need to listen for yourself Fsabella.