Vandersteen - Owners & Discussion Thread

[davewantsmoore]

2 hours ago, Wimbo said:

Once again. The Vandersteens are not the speaker you are looking for. The hint is in the music preferences.

Well engineered speakers play back any/all content with high-performance.

[afa]

I think the woofer in these vandersteens is a vifa P21WO model, which can have surrounds that harden with age (ie. lose plasticisers ) which can/will cause the lack of bass and this hardening could also affect cone edge dampening, thereby changing the woofers top end response.

 

cheers

[davewantsmoore]

14 minutes ago, afa said:

I think the woofer in these vandersteens is a vifa P21WO model, which can have surrounds that harden with age (ie. lose plasticisers ) which can/will cause the lack of bass and this hardening could also affect cone edge dampening, thereby changing the woofers top end response.

Could be on the right track there.... 

 

If the surrounds "harden" and reduce the suspension compliance.... then this would affect the low end even more (reduce it) than the top end.

 

 

[Wimbo]

5 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

Could be on the right track there.... 

 

If the surrounds "harden" and reduce the suspension compliance.... then this would affect the low end even more (reduce it) than the top end.

 

 

Yeah and maybe they are the wrong speakers for his music type.

[afa]

Ive had some vifa P"xx" models where the surrounds have hardened so much that the Fs is 2 to 3 times what its supposed to be...

[hazzac181]

Hi all, 

Took my system into the repair shop today to compare a number of amps with mine, as well to compare my speakers with some Richard Allen bookshelf speakers he had, which also had Vifa 8" drivers with the surrounds replaced. Direct comparison between my speakers and his revealed:

- a small, but none the less existent difference in bass, in favour of the Richard Allen's. Still not satisfactory for my tastes however

- all other amps apart from my Moon (70s pioneer receiver, some luxman unit and the Marantz PM-54) did not have the harsh highs I have been experiencing. The Moon produced the same sound on both sets of speakers

 

It therefore appears that the speakers are simply not to my tastes (as opposed to being faulty) as has been suggested above, and are not a good pairing with the Moon. I'll relist the Vandersteens on the classifieds shortly and chalk this experience up as a learning curve

 

Thanks to all once again 

[tripitaka]

22 minutes ago, hazzac181 said:

Hi all, 

Took my system into the repair shop today to compare a number of amps with mine, as well to compare my speakers with some Richard Allen bookshelf speakers he had, which also had Vifa 8" drivers with the surrounds replaced. Direct comparison between my speakers and his revealed:

- a small, but none the less existent difference in bass, in favour of the Richard Allen's. Still not satisfactory for my tastes however

- all other amps apart from my Moon (70s pioneer receiver, some luxman unit and the Marantz PM-54) did not have the harsh highs I have been experiencing. The Moon produced the same sound on both sets of speakers

 

It therefore appears that the speakers are simply not to my tastes (as opposed to being faulty) as has been suggested above, and are not a good pairing with the Moon. I'll relist the Vandersteens on the classifieds shortly and chalk this experience up as a learning curve

 

Thanks to all once again 

Always good to hear the outcome of these discussions, even if the result wasnt really that satisfactory for you, thanks for updating! 

Good luck with the next round. It'll be worth it in the end and TBH knowing now what u r looking for is 'half the battle won' !!

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by tripitaka

[frednork]

43 minutes ago, hazzac181 said:

It therefore appears that the speakers are simply not to my tastes (as opposed to being faulty) as has been suggested above, and are not a good pairing with the Moon. I'll relist the Vandersteens on the classifieds shortly and chalk this experience up as a learning curve

Wow! fantastic outcome!!

expect you 'll spend a lot more time listening before buying your next set.  Although, on the other hand its low risk buying unheard  if you buy on here, try and move em on if not to your taste. Dont worry if you like speakers that are not considered "accurate" or stereophile class A or whatever. In the end you will have to listen to them and you need to like them. Over time your taste may change or not. Main thing is you like the way they sound now, otherwise you wont enjoy listening to them and no matter how much everyone else thinks your speakers are "good"  they will be  a waste of money cos you dont listen to em.

 

Someone else will love those Vandy's.

[betty boop]

2 hours ago, hazzac181 said:

Took my system into the repair shop today to compare a number of amps with mine, as well to compare my speakers

good on you for doing this... well and truly put this to bed ! 

 

2 hours ago, hazzac181 said:

t therefore appears that the speakers are simply not to my tastes (as opposed to being faulty) as has been suggested above, and are not a good pairing with the Moon. I'll relist the Vandersteens on the classifieds shortly and chalk this experience up as a learning curve

 

good to find this out...amp and speaker matching is just so important....somethings seem to work, some dont as combinations. nothing ventured nothing gained...heres to checking out some other stuff to hopefully find something that works best to your taste  

[075Congo]

Whoever buys these Vandersteens will need to examine the condition of the bass drivers. On YouTube is a clip showing how to get the black grille sock on Vandersteens moved so one can examine and possibly replace the faulty driver. Looks easy enough but finding a matching VIFA driver (s?) could be the trick. I have owned Vandersteen 2C, 3A, Quatros and the Treo CT's and never had any complaint re their bass quality or output. Mind you the cost of new drivers versus the resale value of a pair of Vandersteen 1C could be very tricky.

Cheers

[075Congo]

Looking at the Vandersteen website the 1C speaker started production in 1996 and ended in 2010. Sorry for the history lesson but we are dealing with a speaker in 2020 which is somewhere between 10 to 24 years old. What sort of lifespan do bass drivers have?

[afa]

FYI

The replacement surrounds to fix the Vifa drivers which suffer from surrounds that harden up, are available from here

https://www.speakerrepairshop.nl/en/rubber-surrounds/vifa/g-10000054

 

BTW. They also sell surrounds for B&W drivers (which have surrounds that go soft and tear due to the effect of the solvents of the adhesive used on the basket/surround interface)

https://www.speakerrepairshop.nl/en/rubber-surrounds/bowers-wilkins/g-10000098

 

cheers

Edited August 10, 2020 by afa
additional text

[stereo coffee]

1 hour ago, 075Congo said:

Looking at the Vandersteen website the 1C speaker started production in 1996 and ended in 2010. Sorry for the history lesson but we are dealing with a speaker in 2020 which is somewhere between 10 to 24 years old. What sort of lifespan do bass drivers have?

24 years- they have a long way to go yet , my original Acoustic Research 8 inch drivers, with cloth surrounds, are 51 years old, and are like new. 

[hazzac181]

3 hours ago, 075Congo said:

Looking at the Vandersteen website the 1C speaker started production in 1996 and ended in 2010. Sorry for the history lesson but we are dealing with a speaker in 2020 which is somewhere between 10 to 24 years old. What sort of lifespan do bass drivers have?

That's a fair point, and I wouldn't know. This thread will be linked in the for sale post for full transparency when I get around to making it in a week or so

 

All I can conclude is that the level of bass was only marginally worse than the Richard Allen's I listened to, which had the same driver albeit with the surrounds recently replaced. It would be folly to think there have been no changes to the sound of the speakers as they have aged, but after having done a direct comparison between original vs refurbed drivers, I think they're in a more than saleable condition – otherwise they'd be in for repair before they went up for sale. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by hazzac181

[AJL999]

I know I'm a bit late to the party, and did NOT read the 100+ other messages...but a thought that might help you build a better and more flexible system. 

 

Not sure if you are using a front-end source like a streaming service - Spotify or Tidal.   But if you CAN.....then here's a tip.      I recently tried a (free?) subscription to roon.    There are some amazing features inside roon...such as a DSP engine.       Say your roon receiving device is a Yamaha amp.......  you can click on the DSP button on that device and see a flat frequency graph - using you PC laptop of large tablet as the interface.     You can then use you mouse to cut or boost or cut any frequencies you like, and store a nunber different sound profiles for that Yamaha.      So using roon not only gets you all material on Tidal (for an additional monthly cost) BUT it gives you flexibility to tailor the sound profile to what you want using roon's builtin DSP engine.   

 

Say next year you change your speakers....No problem....twiddle with roon's DSP feature and optimize the sound for the new speakers.   

 

I've tried to attach a page shot of the interactive graph in the roon DSP engine.      Cheers

[Wimbo]

21 hours ago, hazzac181 said:

That's a fair point, and I wouldn't know. This thread will be linked in the for sale post for full transparency when I get around to making it in a week or so

 

All I can conclude is that the level of bass was only marginally worse than the Richard Allen's I listened to, which had the same driver albeit with the surrounds recently replaced. It would be folly to think there have been no changes to the sound of the speakers as they have aged, but after having done a direct comparison between original vs refurbed drivers, I think they're in a more than saleable condition – otherwise they'd be in for repair before they went up for sale. 

Good to see we came to the same conclusion

[roh008]

This thread was a great read - what a journey of realisation/testing! You probably condensed most peoples' audio journey in to a week! 

[hazzac181]

20 hours ago, AJL999 said:

I know I'm a bit late to the party, and did NOT read the 100+ other messages...but a thought that might help you build a better and more flexible system. 

 

Not sure if you are using a front-end source like a streaming service - Spotify or Tidal.   But if you CAN.....then here's a tip.      I recently tried a (free?) subscription to roon.    There are some amazing features inside roon...such as a DSP engine.       Say your roon receiving device is a Yamaha amp.......  you can click on the DSP button on that device and see a flat frequency graph - using you PC laptop of large tablet as the interface.     You can then use you mouse to cut or boost or cut any frequencies you like, and store a nunber different sound profiles for that Yamaha.      So using roon not only gets you all material on Tidal (for an additional monthly cost) BUT it gives you flexibility to tailor the sound profile to what you want using roon's builtin DSP engine.   

 

Say next year you change your speakers....No problem....twiddle with roon's DSP feature and optimize the sound for the new speakers.   

 

I've tried to attach a page shot of the interactive graph in the roon DSP engine.      Cheers

While I can't see myself paying for a service such as Roon (I'm already trialling tidal currently), I will admit that this is a damn cool feature. I could probably use the trial for testing in the future... Thanks!

[hazzac181]

21 minutes ago, roh008 said:

This thread was a great read - what a journey of realisation/testing! You probably condensed most peoples' audio journey in to a week! 

Hopefully my experience is of benefit to someone else on the forums! It has certainly been a little tumultuous, but ultimately well worth it I think

[blybo]

9 minutes ago, hazzac181 said:

Hopefully my experience is of benefit to someone else on the forums! It has certainly been a little tumultuous, but ultimately well worth it I think

1 point I don't believe has been mentioned yet is that when you get a speaker that has great bass control it can sound lean initially. I've read on these forums of several people changing their system and feel let down by bass initially until realisation that this is how bass should actually sound! I also remember several people talking about the lack of bass on Kii 3 speakers at the last HiFi show. The bass was there in spades, but it was tight and fast and not overblown as many systems do, like the Osborns at the same show.

 

As they say, season to your taste. I like big overblown bass for HT use, but never use that same system for stereo playback.

[audiofeline]

On 06/08/2020 at 5:47 PM, hazzac181 said:

.... All interconnects were made by Bill's Affordable Cables, who I believe is a member on this forum. ....

This is an old post, but feel it's important to say that I would recommend that you replace any of "Bill's" speaker/interconnect/power cables you have.  Many who have bought these have found that in many cases the internal wire used was cheap'n'nasty (not the higher-end audio or exotic cable that was advertised), and one member had safety issues with the power cable. 

 

My 2ci's were improved on the softwood floor by putting them on pavers and spikes.  Imaging, clarity and response improved with each tweak. 

 

 

 

[hazzac181]

4 hours ago, audiofeline said:

This is an old post, but feel it's important to say that I would recommend that you replace any of "Bill's" speaker/interconnect/power cables you have.  Many who have bought these have found that in many cases the internal wire used was cheap'n'nasty (not the higher-end audio or exotic cable that was advertised), and one member had safety issues with the power cable. 

 

My 2ci's were improved on the softwood floor by putting them on pavers and spikes.  Imaging, clarity and response improved with each tweak. 

 

 

 

Good to know. Any of the "Bill's" interconnects I did use have long been replaced. 

 

Just as an update to this thread. I moved house, and with a smaller room, the correct stands and spikes, some quality speaker wire and some source changes (schiit DAC into a Rega Maia amp) and I the 1Cs really sing. Still wasn't happy with the sheer presence of the bass (i.e., lack thereof), and have supplemented this with a cheap used Velodyne sub. It is turned all the way down as to just provide a bit more "meat" without becoming boomy and overbearing. Overall, happy now. 

 

I also own a pair of 2cs downstairs. They are really what I should have bought from the start! Once positioned, they are fantastic with all the qualities I was looking for—no sub required. Boy do they need some power though. I'm looking for a set of stands for them if anyone happens to have some lying about...