Vandersteen fans

[Formerly YB-2]

Have a 40wpc, 60wpc & 80wpc tube amp and a 200wpc solid-state amp and am wondering which would be the best match to the Treo CT? Nearest dealer is so far away I'm guessing I won't have an opportunity to try them at home to see which works the best and I'm not very keen about dragging 150#+ of gear up to the showroom to audition.

When reading about the Quattro CTs they seemed to be considerably larger than they are "in person". I was highly impressed with them, but have several other speakers to audition . At the $12-15K range the competition is tough. At the Quattro price level I am unwilling to purchase without some extensive listening. The nice thing about the Quattro is that it doesn't require a large power amp as one is only driving the top with the built-in woofer amps doing the job on the bottom. Will know more after some additional time listening in early Dec.

[ylee]

My amp is "only" 100 watts per channel, but combined with the built-in sub amps this adds up to 350 watts per channel. It gets loud enough for me. The Quatros are capable of incredible tonality, musicality, accuracy, and 3 dimensionality. With sympathetic components and cabling upstream, these speakers give hours of listening enjoyment without fatigue. I've listened to speakers costing twice as much and came away thinking they were no better than the Quatros. My wife has to call me to remind me I have other responsibilities to tend to everytime I'm in the basement in my stereo room

[Formerly YB-2]

As much as I will lust after the Quatro, am sure reality (size & cost) will overcome me and I'll most likely be serious about the Treo. Hope to find a dealer who carries McIntosh so can listen to with a McIntosh "house sound" amp driving them.

[Sancho22]

One of my buddies is running the Treo's with Rogue and it osunds really wonderful (plus two Vandy subs). I heard them with Quicksilver mono blocks - they sounded awesome.

[Formerly YB-2]

Listened to the Treo CT's with the same Ref75 amp, but with the LP27 pre in place of the Ref6 that was in there with the Quatro CT's. Don't think they were set up well. Must have been at least 12' apart and the couch I listened from was 3' from the back wall and I was about 8' from each speaker. With the speakers aimed straight forward, the sweet spot was only about 6" wide. Amazingly narrow. If I moved left 6" most of the sound seemed to come from the left speaker. Same if I moved to the right a similar amount. Everything overloaded to the right. Very odd.
After the Treo CT I did wonder into the next room and listened to a set of Aerial 7T's being pushed by the Levinson 585 integrated and it was better. What I would call a 'normal' soundstage, which was much more believable. More listening in my future.

[JMD]

Glenn

Just a couple of observations as a former Treo owner. Twelve feet is way to far apart and some toe-in may have need if the seating was only 8' though Richard does recommend straight ahead as the starting point. In all but a smaller room I never found that low of wattage to be enough for much more than background levels. Contrary to the published specs, JA tested them at only a bit over 83 db and I in fact found them to be much less efficient than the 2CE Sigs and 3A Sigs I owned before them. Lastly Vandersteens are far from set it and forget it speakers. They take extreme care in getting the distance from the boundaries correct and just as important the rake angle. When set up properly the sweet spot should have been several feet wide but not much more than that. The Treo's probably would have been much better of with better set up and the Levinson. Don't know which dealer you visited, but since my friend from college and long time Vandersteen dealer closed his store due to health I have at his recommendation dealt with Johnny at Audio Connection and Alan at Hi-Fi Buys (formerly Audio Alternative). I don't know how far Verona and Audio Connection is from you but if close enough you might try them if you haven't. Otherwise in the sound veing Aerial and Nola are good alternatives.

[Formerly YB-2]

Will try the Treo CT again at another dealer to see if a better set-up makes a difference. I wonder if the dealer, who had the Quatro CT in the room and I listened to first (they were truly nice) was trying to get me to "move up" to them by doing a poor placement with the Treo CT? Surely no salesperson would do something like this, would they?

[JMD]

If he had both speakers in the same room it would be kind of hard to get both just right. As the Treo CT is pretty much the same speaker as the Quatro CT minus the powered sub they should sound pretty much the same from the mid-bass up. I ran mine with a pair of 2WQ subs which would be very close to the Quatro CT.

[Formerly YB-2]

No. As mentioned, Richard won't let dealers demo his better speakers with other speakers in the same room (at least they are not supposed to do so). The Quatro CTs were about 8' apart, 2' from the front wall and the listening couch was against the back wall. The CTs were about 12' apart, 2' from the front wall and the couch was about 4' in from the front wall. Was an odd looking set-up compared to the Quatro CTs.

[JMD]

That's about half again what I found to work best with my three different pair. Usually somewhere between 8-9' worked best and farther from the wall behind them especially in a larger room. The Quatro's with the built in subs might work closer than the other non-powered models. I usually had the subs on the outside rear edge of the speakers with them at least 6" off of the wall that put the front baffles of the speakers around 3' from the wall then I worked from there half inch at a time. I found the Treo's harder to placed "just right" than the other two models. They may not have taken as much time to tweak that room. If you've got access to another dealer before you move south give them a try. The one and only Florida dealer dropped them so Alan in Atlanta is the closest dealer.