This post hijacks the thread quite a bit, and its long, so apologies in advance to everyone and Xenathon in particular. Agaffer and Ozzy62 bring up a subject that's interesting to me in light of my brush with audiophilia so far.
I have been hoping to get a high end system going for a while now, and last year spent a lot of time auditioning many speakers in the Los Angeles area, (although I couldn't find dealers to demo many of the speakers I wanted to hear; in fact I think one dealer tried to convince me to buy one of his TVs instead... "Didn't you hear that two channel's dead?"). Unfortunately, I have had to postpone my entry into the audiophile world, but I still constantly prowl websites like this one to learn what I can in the mean time.
The Vandersteen 2a sigs, and the 3a sigs were among the speakers I auditioned last year. I auditioned them both with and without a pair of the Vandersteen subs.
I was, and remain, a newbie to the hobby, but I have pretty definite musical tastes that have a heavy bias toward big classical- both modern stuff and old chestunuts. In fact, while overall I listen to the usual eclectic range of music, its my desire to hear my classical cd's in particular, presented as well as I can afford to hear them, that got me thinking about buying some audiophile equipment in the first place.
Well, I plagued a very helpful, knowlegdeable and accomadating Vandersteen dealer for a couple of months, auditioning and re-auditioning his equipment with a big bag of my cd's. Very much to his credit, and unlike one or two other audio dealers I briefly ran into, he never made me feel unwelcome, never talked down to me, or ever attempted to pressure me into making a decision. The man just had a genuine love for his music and his product, and a genuine respect for his customers. And for my part, I really wanted to buy a pair of Vandersteens.
I admit that I found their appearance just shy of awful, but the dealer's service, the manufacturer's design philosphy with regards to time alignment, minimal baffle, non-fatigueing sound, etc., were the things that mattered to me. And the prices were reasonable compared to some speakers I was auditioning at the time. Add to this the reputation and re-saleability that Vandersteen speakers enjoy among many audiophiles, and I was all set to write a check. No brainer, right?
But...
Try as I might, I just could never hear the same Vandersteens that everyone else was hearing. Indeed, not only did the Vandies sound unremarkable to me, they actully sounded below par compared to a number other speakers I auditioned! To my ears, they were indeed non-fatigueing, but at the cost of detail and most importantly, at the cost of the life of the music- And though I am a newbie, I am not talking here about missing the fake cheesewhiz sizzle of lo-fi, or the odd hyper-etching of some hi-fi.
However, that wasn't the worst of it. Even with the subs releaving the mains of some of the work, for me, both models could never quite sort out the really crazy passages of high octane orchestral works. My worst case scenario acid test was a few recordings of the last movement of The Symphonie Fantastique. To me, the Vandies always made a muddle of it, with the emphasis on the 'mud'. And finally, the bass, which by all accounts is a Vandersteen strong point, and which supposedly makes the line a good match for orchestral works, seemed again, completely unremarkable.
I in no way mean to disrespect the opinions of the many experienced audiophiles that enjoy Vandersteen for classical. And for that matter, I really appreciate the dealer who spent so much time auditioning them for me and explaining the ideas that have gone into their design. I am really grateful both to the dealer, and to the many people who have written about their own experiences with these speakers on various websites.
But, in the end, I have to say I just don't get it. To my surprise, I was never able to hear the things that many people say are characteristic of these speakers. Apart from the oft remarked on "warmness" or "rolled offness", they could have as well have been from a different manufacturer, or a different planet.
To this day I can't account for the fact that my gut impressions are so diametrically at odds with so many people with so many years of listening experience. In a way, I'm not writing here about liking or disliking Vandersteens- I'm writing about matching up what's in print to what I hear when they're plugged in. While I heard other speakers that I liked or didn't like, the disconnect between a given speaker's reputation- its characteristic sound, its strengths and weaknesses, and my own actuall listening experience, never came close to the yawning chasm of a gulf that I experienced in that regard with the Vandersteens. That's part of why I kept going back to listen- I just couldn't wrap my head around it and figured I must have listened to them on days with heavy sunspot activty.
I have yet to hear the Vr4jr's, but I was able to audition a pair of Vr2's. I will probably not be purchasing these either, but I like them, especially for the money, and they made it to my short list. But more to the point of my post here, what I heard in my audition with the VR2's wasn't too far off from anything I'd read about them or heard described before or since. And that's pretty much the case with all the speakers I've auditioned with the single exception of the Vandersteens.
Anyway, I did finally find a speaker I think may fit the bill for me, and although it's plenty warm sounding and rolled off rather than flat accurate, I feel that there's enough detail and dynamic controll there for me to follow all the little threads in a complex passage, but not to the point that I can't also just enjoy, and have the whole thing blissfully wash over me if I choose not to mentally disect the music. In a word, I would describe their sound as lush. They seem to get little notice in the magazines and on the web sites, but what I have been able to find is in line with what I heard. Often what I read about them is critical or negative. But as with the Vr2's, I can at least feel confident that I'm listening to the same speaker, whether or not I share a particular writer's final judgement. The difference at that point is merely a matter of personal preference and taste. And who knows, in a few months when I audition them agan, I may like them less, or like them more (of course, since last year I've read about a few more speakers I'd like to hear before making my final decision- I guess this hobbey really is a disease).
Anyway, Agaffer's and Ozzy62's posts reminded me of all this. I don't know what the answer to the Vandersteen mystery is in my own case, but damn if it aint mysterious.
The best I can come up with, and something that I must assume to be an unspoken taboo subject lurking among audiophiles, is this: Quite apart from any issues of personal taste, musical asthetic, or psychoneural predisposition, each of us ultimately listens to music through a pair of unique ears, made of flesh, blood, and bone, and that are subject to all the wear and tear and changes that flesh, blood, and bone are heirs to...
That's my story and I'm sticking to it- apologies again for the long hijack.
