Anybody Heard the Vandersteen 5A'S

I do not think you will give up any coherency moving to the Vandersteen's. They are unbelievably coherent.

I have to agree with the above posters. The Vandy's are very coherent. I too own the 3A Signature's with a pair of 2wq's. I didn't think it got much better until I heard the 5A's. A wonderful speaker system that gives up nothing to no other speaker available in my opinion(including electrostatics.)Of course, I have never been an electrostatic fan.
As in Sdcampbell's case, I've got to find a way to come up with $15K!! Maybe the lottery-got to get lucky sometime!

I have owned the 5As for 8 months and can not wait to listen to my system every night. These speakers have incredible bass that is so well integrated with the woofer you can not hear the crossover or transition between the drivers. The base is very natural even at low volumes and you never are aware that you are listening to a sub. The tweeters extend cleanly with no noticable distortion. The mids are warm and extremely well defined and focussed. I simply can not hear either speaker directly on well recorded music. These speakers can create a very wide, high and deep sound stage and sometimes I would swear I am listening to surround. This speaker continues the Vandy natural sound and was designed as the flag ship of the line. It is a must to consider - go do an audition.

I agree that for a multi-driver speaker the Vandersteen's are very coherent, but(and this is a big but) there is no comparison to a single full range panel/driver(or pretty close to full range) when it comes to coherency. That was the point I was making- I notice a lot of vandersteen owner's posting and I am sure pride of ownership will sway there opinion slightly- can't say I blame you guy's they are great speakers. However I don't own either but have listened to both speakers on more then one occassion. If you posted

Quad 988 vs Vandersteen 5a

you may get more diverse input from quad owners as well. I feel they are both great speakers, and you could live happily with either, but neither of them are perfect- no speaker is, there will be trade off's its the nature of this hobby.

I've got 3A Signatures (which replaced 2Ci's), and love them, so I am biased for Vandersteen. I've heard the 5A's at the local dealer and at the HE2003 Show and they do sound very nice. But it's kind of hard to make a comparison since they are not in my room (and I'm not borrowing $15,000 speakers to find out!). One of the nice features of them is the adjustable response of the woofer, you can tailor them to the room. A big plus for room response problems (I really need this!). This same dealer also has Magnepan and Quad. Quite honestly I've always thought the Magnepans sounded more lifelike, but my room was a little too small and too square to get the best from them. I haven't gotten a good listen to the Quads, so I can't comment on them (curiously he has them in the show room but they are almost never hooked up!?). The one nagging thing about the Magnepan's to me is that they always sound more open than box speakers, is this because they do a better job of recreating the space in a recording or are they artificially creating space? I don't know and bet this would create two groups of opinion. We don't need to go there now!