Vandersteen 5 sound with solid state amp

I own and have heard the Vandersteen 5s with the AYRE V-1 and the BEL 1001 MkV monoblocs. With the V-1 they sounded really good: musical and vigorous but lacking a little depth (and that was through an ARC Ref-2). With the BELs they were relaxed and had good depth but were too reticent overall for my tastes (and I own the BELs too). I was surprised at how much better the already incredible bass of the 5s was improved by solid state amplification since Vandersteen filters the low bass going to the amps then compensates via the built-in sub. Nevertheless tubes are absolutely the way to go with the 5s. With tubes for the mids and highs and SS room equalized subs for the bass you really do get the best of both.

ONLY SOUND GOOD WITH TUBES BECOUSE THE SPEAKERS NEED SOME REFINING.

I guess I'd ask Nedlabs: need refining, compared to what? The Nearfield Pipelines, or the Utopia Grande's? I suppose everyone's ears differ, but the last quality I would attribute to the Vandy 5's is lack of refinement. But with regard to your question: there are a a number of solid state amps that will work very nicely with the Vandy 5's: The Ayre V-1; most of the Krells and Mark Levinson's; Jeff Rowland Design makes some good S-S amps. On the lower end, you should definitely think about the Bryston 7B-ST's and the 4B-ST's and Aragon 8008BB. The New Marsh A400 just got an outstanding review in the recent issue of TAS (review by Tony Cordesman), who said this amp sounds as good as some of the $20,000 amps he has reviewed. (Richard Marsh is the electrical design engineer who developed Monster Cable's new line of power conditioners, as well as a number of other products). So, you've got a fair number of choices. Your listening room acoustics may turn out to a more critical factor than the choice of amp in this quality range.

Another voice from the audio wilderness: I run my Vandersteen 5s with a pair of 10 year old Rowland Model 7s (300 W./channel) and they sound great. However, I still think some good tubes would be interesting... Robert

I heard the Vandersteen 5's with Ayre K1, Ayre V1 and Wadia 860. Found the bass to be a little reticent and the dynamics of the system to not be A-1, BUT STILL I would say that is the best overall sound I have heard from a system. The cables were Nordost SPM, which I hadn't heard before, but my experience with Nordost cables leads me to believe that they were the cause of the problem with the bass. I haven't heard speakers like the Pipe Dreams or Soundlab Millennium A1, but Vandersteen 5 is the best I have heard so far.