Not Thrilled with Vandersteen 2CE Sigs - where is the first place to work on?


Trying to build up the system this year, bought some Vandy 2CE Sigs.  Have the anchors, following instructions for placement, built bass traps and a couple of acoustic panels in my medium-sized but odd-shaped basement listening area - still not thrilled.  Using laptop with Tidal and Dragonfly Red - and some stuff sounds GREAT (Steely Dan, SRV, Beck, Dire Straits, Wilco) - but disappointed in a lot of other stuff.  Some objective opinions on where my issues might lie?  Expectations too high? Hearing the truth of production variations?  Running an NAD C272 at 150WPC and an original 1979 APT Holman Pre Amp.  Not MAC, Bryston, etc - but was expecting more.  Thoughts? Rebuild/recap the APT?  Amp upgrade?  Where might the low-hanging fruit be?
gjinwi

Showing 1 response by adg101

Owned a pair of 2CI’s with the Sound Anchor stands years ago and enjoyed them although at the time my system was an old B&K ST 120 amp and a Sonic Frontiers SFL 1 preamp. It was a pleasant sounding rig, but agree they can be on the softer side of neutral. I’m sure the 2CE Sig’s are better but guessing as mentioned earlier they need room to breath almost like Maggie’s... at least the 2CI’s I owned did.

Totally agree using a computer as your source with an AQ Dragonfly Red not helping you much. You mentioned Tidal but is it the standard or HiFi subscription which is the better. If you’re on the Standard subscription you might want to upgrade or just move over to Qobuz which I feel is better, but not really sure the Dragonfly will show the differences. If I had to work with your system I’d probably stick with the Vandy’s and work on the components first, but that’s just my opinion. As mentioned the Bluesound Node 2i would be a piece to read up on and consider.