Best Way to Set up Vandersteens

Hi Issabre; I have Vand. 3Asigs., and also 2Ces. As you probably know Vandersteen has excellent recommendations for set up in their owners manual. I followed it very closely with excellent results. It sounds to me that you may have them to near the wall (my 3As are 48" to edge from rear wall and I used the 1/5 position into room re: Vand. manual. Once you've got a basic set up, then work on fine tuning. Good Luck. Craig.

.....if you don't have the Vand. manual, I'd strongly recommend getting one-- lots of good set up info. in there. A couple of years ago,when I got a new listening room, I spent 61 days and many late night speaker moving sessions to find the "ultimate" position. I don't mean to be discouraging though-- give the manual some consideration, and they're not that hard to position. Look for a good strong stereo image. Vand. recommends pointing them straight ahead, and that's what I keep going back to, as toed in I find that they get too bright or aggressive very easily. Yes, working around furniture and WAF can present problems. Craig

I agree with Garfish on the set up. Vandersteen gives excellent step by step directions in their manual. The most critical is the tilt, since the vertical window is very narrow. Also Vandersteens like to be relatively far from the back wall. They should face the front or be toed in only slightly to give the right soundstaging. I have mine at the 1/5 mark (four feet from the rear wall), about 9 ft apart, and a similar distance from the side walls (I have a large living room). My couches are set up about halfway across the room, about 12 feet from the speakers. Also bi-amping is very very good. I used XLR "Y" cables to Mark Levinson 331s, and two pair of Yamamura M6000 speaker cables.

I am sorry, I forgot to mention that I have Vandersteen 3A Signatures.

I have to agree with the above posts. You really need to move the speakers away from the rear wall to open up the soundstage (and control the bass). The manual is critical I follow the steps for dividing the room for width and length, then try the points where the lines cross, experiment with the one that sounds best. Do not forget how you listening location will impact the sound. Tilt back is easy to set once you find the best speaker location. I use 3A sig.

Good information, thanks guys. I do not have a manual, as I purchased these second hand. But I will get one now that I know how critical set is.

If you don't have the manuel supplied by Vandersteen, just call Vandersteen company and either Richard or his wife will answer the phone (really) and set you straight.