Verity Parsifal Encore VS. Vandersteen 5a

I am not actually getting rid of the maggies(George , I am as content as an audiophile can be :) I am posting this for a friend who is not good with computers, he has the parsifal encore now and is thinking of a change and doesn't know what to do, and yes he does have Tenors- which I agree are simply amazing amps. I am thinking of keeping my 3.6's and selling a kidney and getting the 300 watt monsters!! what do you think about that Frank?!?!? Will you be in Montreal with the rest of the brotherhood? I will more then likely end up being there Saturday and Sunday- maybe late Friday too.

George- You are right I would be a fool to scratch my hole set up for such a LARGE scale change- I don't think me or my budget could take that right now, I am in a good place i.e. I am happy. I wish I could say as much for my friend :(

Tim, I think you should sell the kidney!! Ya know, for such a young guy, you ain't gonna have anywhere to go but down after that purchase. Then yer gonna hafta be happy with figuring out which organ to sell for the Kharma Grand Exquisites!! Hell, I think you can get $200,000 for a liver don't you? A lot of heavy drinkers will pay good money for your liver. I think you should put it up for auction on E-Bay : "Near Mint Liver, no OBM but will pack well, buyer pays shipping -- Read my organ feedback and buy with confidence!"

I think the 300s would be a dream on the Maggies.

George, I rarely disagree with people on A-Gon because so much is personal preference and opinion, but I respectfully disagree with your comment on the Tenor 75 watters not having the power to drive the Parsifals or Vandy's for big scale stuff, loud volumes or dynamic swings. Let me tell you why I say this. I was the BIGGEST Doubting Thomas on this exact issue and I expressed this doubt by buying the Tenor 300s (choosing to skip past the 75s because I DO listen to a lot of VERY punchy stuff, large scale classical and VERY loudly at times). As you may be aware, the 300s are not due to come out until the end of April. I had the chance to sell my Lamms (so I did) and Tenor graciously offerd to let me have a pair of 75s until the 300s showed up.

Before I installed them into my system I figured, well they'll be beautiful on small scale jazz and classical or acoustic stuff, but they won't rock, play loud or handle the large scale stuff. BOY was I wrong, I HAVE to have a system that will rock, play loud and do the large scale stuff - and these 75s really do. And this is on the Kharmas which are a more difficult load than the Vandy's by a long shot.

If any of you get near the Detroit metro area before May, stop on buy and see that "If I'm lyin, I'm dyin." If I am wrong, I will give you the Tenors and Kharmas. NOT!

The tenor's can EASILY drive the Vandersteen 5a. Why ? Because to an amp, a vandersteen 5 looks like a monitor speaker.

There is a vandersteen high pass filter box that goes between the preamp and amp. This filter removes 6db of the subwoofer's range (100hz on down ?), so the amp is not required to produce bass notes. Later inside the van 5's crossover, the 6db are added back to the low range before being fed to the internal subwoofer amplifier. That's one of the best design characteristics of the van 5.

Fmpnd: I might agree with concerning the Tenors
because of the 6db headroom, which translates
into 300 watts of dynamic power. But what is the sensitivity of your Kharmas, lets say around 88 db;
and that is at 3 feet, say at 8 feet that translates
to around 85 db, so at 105 db continous you are at 100 watts continous, and climaxes at 111db puts
that at 400 watts dynamic. Now at 95 db you would
I guess be ok. But still I like the reserves of
higher output. I do not know how well the Tenors
compare to a output transformer tube amp like my
ARC D115, which gracefully clips driving my Acoustats.
But above 5% distortion it really starts to become noticeable. Transistors amps, obviously clip into
distortion much quicker and much more noticeably.
Maybe that is why I prefer much higher powers for my transistor amps. I can easily clip the Spectral DMA-200
on my Avalons and my Acoustats and it has 3 db headroom.
On the Vandy 5s, Robert Harley, really likes them. He still believes that the VT200 gives it more juice/jump
than the VT100. I once had a D250 Servo on the
Acoustats sometime in the early 90s, I remember how
that raw power really made the sound much richer,
much cleaner, more transparent.

I also heard the 5A's at CES. I've owned Vandies for years and believe they represent the absolute BEST value in their respective price points. The model 5A has everything almost any person could ever want. Honestly, a no brainer. To own Vandersteens is to never live without them again. You will soon realize you are closer to the music than you ever have been before and will see the competition's overpriced underperforming speakers for what they are. Did I mention they can be matched to YOUR room as well and come with in-home dealer set-up? YOU WILL LOVE THEM !!!!!!!!!!!