"Vandersteen Treo's - Liked them very much. They were obviously far better set up, in their own room, with about $15K+ of Ayre electronics behind them. Staging was wonderful, involving, very impressed, but tempered by the disparity of set up and associated equipment."
I have a lot of experiance with Vandersteen. You can get incredibly good sound out of a pair of 2's or 3's. Don't rule them out just because their not expensive. They also give you a lot of options with it comes to placement. Using the back tilt and the gain controls on the crossover, you should be able to get them to sound good in just about any reasonable location.
Just to give an example, I'll use my main system. I have the 2's and the 3's. Currently, I'm using the 2's because they work a little better in my room. Also, I have 2 Vandersteen subs that help out a lot. For amps, I have 2 Ayre V-5's. My digital source is a Wadia 861SE that sometimes goes directly to the amps, and at other times, goes through an Aesthetix Calypso. Even though all of those components are much more expensive than the speakers, the Model 2's have no problem keeping up. They're not a weak link in the system.
"Should I choose the speakers I like best regardless of store setup/placement, and then treat my room once I have the speakers, or consider the room heavily in my auditioning before I buy (would that Be tweeter on Focal become to strident in a more live room? Avoid metal dome tweeters? etc)."
Yes. Pick the speakers you like best unless you have a very difficult room. I find that in the upper frequencies, problems are delt with using proper equipment selection. As the frequencies get lower, room treatment becomes more of a factor. You'll find, though, that there can be exceptions that require that you do things differently, depending on the situation.
I have a lot of experiance with Vandersteen. You can get incredibly good sound out of a pair of 2's or 3's. Don't rule them out just because their not expensive. They also give you a lot of options with it comes to placement. Using the back tilt and the gain controls on the crossover, you should be able to get them to sound good in just about any reasonable location.
Just to give an example, I'll use my main system. I have the 2's and the 3's. Currently, I'm using the 2's because they work a little better in my room. Also, I have 2 Vandersteen subs that help out a lot. For amps, I have 2 Ayre V-5's. My digital source is a Wadia 861SE that sometimes goes directly to the amps, and at other times, goes through an Aesthetix Calypso. Even though all of those components are much more expensive than the speakers, the Model 2's have no problem keeping up. They're not a weak link in the system.
"Should I choose the speakers I like best regardless of store setup/placement, and then treat my room once I have the speakers, or consider the room heavily in my auditioning before I buy (would that Be tweeter on Focal become to strident in a more live room? Avoid metal dome tweeters? etc)."
Yes. Pick the speakers you like best unless you have a very difficult room. I find that in the upper frequencies, problems are delt with using proper equipment selection. As the frequencies get lower, room treatment becomes more of a factor. You'll find, though, that there can be exceptions that require that you do things differently, depending on the situation.