Vandy or Maggy?

I think you've hit on something that keeps me from buying Maggies as well. While I appreciated all the things the speakers were doing right (I heard 3.6s by the way), the thing that was notably missing for me was something I'd call, for lack of a better term, dynamic thrust or the ability to "feel" as well as hear individual sounds. My guess is that dynamic speakers focus individual sounds more (for better or worse I guess) which may allow more of the sound to propel forward and more letting you feel as well as hear dynamic impact -- individual sounds just have more oomph. Maggies obviously throw bigger and relatively more diffuse images and maybe as a result dont focus energy as much and diminish physical impact. Obviously you can augment bass with subs and that's fine, but I'm talking about even the mids/lower mids -- think baritone sax or perhaps the lower registers of a tenor sax, which seem to lack some dynamic power although they otherwise sound excellent.

Anyway, if that's what you meant your choice of dynamic vs. planar may come down to this critical difference between the technologies. I didn't spend enough time with Maggies to get a sense of their soundstage depth capabilities, but I have with Vandies and I thought they were among the best I've heard in that area. Combining these areas I'd think Vandies would be well worth a look. Hope this helps and best of luck.

Schubert, you will not be happy with Vandersteen. I owned a pair of 2Ce sigs and while they were excellent for jazz and acoustic music I could not bear to listen to classical through them. That 4" midrange driver could not handle massed strings and sounded congested and grainy with symphonic music.

REgarding Vandersteen, they are three way designs versus Maggie 2-way. In general, I am not a fan of most smaller three way speakers for classical music especially.

I am not a Vandy expert, and believe they have a lot of potential set up right, but not sure they would be my first choice for classical music.

Last thing I will say is I replaced older Maggies that i owned for years a few years back with my current setup mainly due to difficulty getting the right setup in my current room and the "feel it" factor that was missing, in that I listen to a lot of music genres, not just classical, but I have have been most satisfied ever since.

I will say that for classical music in particular, a tube or two upstream in the pre-amp and/or source with SS amplification and matching speakers does not hurt in particular for digital sources in particular.

Also I'l say that Maggies sound particularly good with tube amplification for classical based on my auditions. THat's somethign I never tried, but perhaps if I did, the Maggies might still be around.

Hodn, my Preludes reside in my TV system which feeds them with the 40 odd digital music channels available.

Thanks Rotarius, I'll listen for that when I go to the Vandy dealer(also Maggie dealer) in Minneapolis.
Soon as the two feet of snow melts.