I guess I qualify here on A-gon as one of the regular commenters on Vandersteen speakers (look back through my posts over the past 5 years). Based on my own ownership experiences, and a lot of listening to other people's Vandies, let me make a few comments that I hope you will find useful.
1. Although I have owned every model of Vandersteen except the Model 5's, and think highly of them all, I am not a big fan of the 1C. I think there are too many speakers in the 1C's price range that are better (the PSB and Paradigm models come to mind), and if you want to get into TRUE Vandersteen performance, you need to start with the 2Ce (and preferably 2Ce Signatures).
2. I own a Vandersteen VCC-1 Signature center channel speaker, and have been generally pleased with it. I have friends, however, who bought the VCC, did not care for it, and subsequently sold them and got something else. The VCC-1 does provide good, balanced sound, and its coax design yields a true point source from a relatively small enclosure. The MSRP, however, is a bit high for its performance level, so if you plan to get a VCC-1, I strongly recommend you find a used model (typically in the $300 range). I do NOT recommend the Vandy VCC-1 Signature: it simply is not worth its high price tag.
3. If your surround system provides for a phantom center channel output, and your main speakers are not spread too far apart, then you may want to delay the purchase of the center speaker and spend the extra money on a pair of Vandy 2Ce Sig's, particularly given your intent to listen to 50% classical music. The 2Ce's will do a MUCH better job with full-range music than the 1C's, and a good phantom center channel setup can be surprisingly good (based on my own experience with phantom center channel for 2 years). There are some audio critics and reviewers who have even stated that they find a good phantom center channel setup preferable to a mediocre discrete center channel.
1. Although I have owned every model of Vandersteen except the Model 5's, and think highly of them all, I am not a big fan of the 1C. I think there are too many speakers in the 1C's price range that are better (the PSB and Paradigm models come to mind), and if you want to get into TRUE Vandersteen performance, you need to start with the 2Ce (and preferably 2Ce Signatures).
2. I own a Vandersteen VCC-1 Signature center channel speaker, and have been generally pleased with it. I have friends, however, who bought the VCC, did not care for it, and subsequently sold them and got something else. The VCC-1 does provide good, balanced sound, and its coax design yields a true point source from a relatively small enclosure. The MSRP, however, is a bit high for its performance level, so if you plan to get a VCC-1, I strongly recommend you find a used model (typically in the $300 range). I do NOT recommend the Vandy VCC-1 Signature: it simply is not worth its high price tag.
3. If your surround system provides for a phantom center channel output, and your main speakers are not spread too far apart, then you may want to delay the purchase of the center speaker and spend the extra money on a pair of Vandy 2Ce Sig's, particularly given your intent to listen to 50% classical music. The 2Ce's will do a MUCH better job with full-range music than the 1C's, and a good phantom center channel setup can be surprisingly good (based on my own experience with phantom center channel for 2 years). There are some audio critics and reviewers who have even stated that they find a good phantom center channel setup preferable to a mediocre discrete center channel.