von Schweikert VR-4 vs Vandersteen 5A

I think the un-named highly placed audiophiles are in error, and should spend more time listening to live music and comparing what they hear to the sound of the 5A's.

I do not mean to denigrate the von Schweikert's in any way -- they are also a fine speaker. But, in my personal experience (about 40 years as a fairly serious audio enthusiast), "excitement" in a speaker usually indicates that some specific portion of the audio range is being over-emphasized -- often the treble. The 5A's are, to my ear, very coherent from top to bottom, wonderfully balanced, with excellent transparency and dynamic. They come about as close to reproducing the true sound of music as any speaker I have ever heard. But that's just my un-highly placed opinion...

Sdcampbell is correct in every way. I just heard the 5As versus Virgo IIIs, JM Labs 936s, 3As, small Quads and Revel F-30s (hey I went thru every speaker the dealer had in the room). I also hear the treble not hitting you at first but I also heard lots of speakers have very poor treble. Music to me is in the mids and piano and vocals sound huge and have the correct weight to the notes. So do horns for that matter. I own Talon Ravens which have real up front slam and dynamics but I know a lot of people who do not like that sound. Top to bottwm the 5s were unbeatable but hey I cannot spend $15K on a speaker, my wife would kill me! Too bad they are not $7500!

The Vons are very nice speakers especially for the price but they are not Vandy 5A beaters. But at $9K less they are great speakers. To me the Vandys were more coherent from top to bottom, and are more natural sounding. They also sounded a little faster when called upon to do so. The open design simply sounds more open and threw a wider sound that the Vons did.

This is just my opinion and the speakers were not in the same set up or room, etc. $9K is a big price difference to spend in the rest of ones system.

Happy Listening.