And speaking of visits. Forum member Robert_Anderson, came by and listened to my system today. Bob and I have some mutual friends that told me some 35 years ago that I needed to meet him but we never got together in person until today.

Bob came by this morning and hung out a few hours, we had great visit and shared some good music. Attached is a couple of pics, Bob and my speakers and his latest vet.

Steve, you are welcome anytime..glad we could do some listening!

I had the opportunity to listen to this system earlier in the year while I was still in Asheville and was pretty impressed with it. This was my first experience with Vandersteens. I made the 4-ish hour drive down to audition the Bartok and the guys at Hi-Fi Buys were very welcoming. I spent a few hours there listening to my headphones through the Bartok, listening to other systems, and chatting with a few of the guys. I'd be interested to hear how that system compares to Buck's so I can see if I need to make a new friend when I move back toward the Asheville area.

Buck’s system is much better. Maybe I should say Buck’s room is much better, to me that room at HiFi Buys was really bright with lots of echo.

Dan - I've always liked the guys at Hifi, first class dealer and they don't treat you like you're intruding. As far as the Vandersteen system....I think it's a wonderful sounding system, very dynamic and lifelike as well. The Vandys are very coherent top to bottom. They have the bass dialed in virutally flat all the way down to 20 Hz and you can tell with absolutely no boominess or annoying bass. The only thing about this system that makes it difficult to compare is that Steve and I were both bothered by a good bit of slap echo coming from the room. They do have room treatments, but I can tell you that the amount of slap echo would be too much for me if it were my room. Steve played several cuts with acoustic guitar and male vocals and you got some of the hand cupped around the mouth effect. He picked up on it right away. My room is treated and you get NO slap echo....it makes comparison difficult since I can tell you with certainty that the Vandersteen 7s do not spit out that kind of echo. Steve was wondering why something like this hasn't been addressed there and the only thing I can speculate is that perhaps they don't realize it being used to it day in and day out. The guys down there know what they're doing but we even clapped our hands a few times and was very obvious. I really do think it would be one of the better rooms/systems I've heard if they could eliminate that.

- Buck