I suspect that the Vandersteen, being hard to drive, have low impedance dips that your amp may not like. Also a moderate priced DAC and streamer would help. For budget purposes, you could spend about $1000 on a streamer and DAC. And find a Class AB amp that is big enough to run these speakers. A brand new 2-3K amp with about 200 watts should do this. Make sure the power goes up as impedance goes down. Benchmark, Parasound come to mind. This is probably a cheaper route than replacing the speakers. I would give the Vandersteens a chance. I don't think they have sold so many of them because they sound bad.
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?