Vandersteen 5a vs. B&W 802D vs. Maggie 3.6 vs.?

Tim, the best I can do is give you my personnal opinion of the three speakers you are interested in, but remember that so much of anyone's prespective is a personnal taste along with system synergy and the size/type of acoustic space the system is located in.

I have listened to the three above mentioned speakers and my personnal favorite among them is the Maggie 3.6's. I have a dear friend who about six month ago went from his 3.6's to B&W 802's, and still wishes he had his Maggies back. If you love the sound of music and are not looking for a "hifi" perspective, the di-polar panels and ribbon tweaters of the 3.6's offer magic, if you have enough power and space behind and on the sides of the speakers. I have always found all the Vandy's I have listened to, to be very good, but not as realistic in their ability to "float" a large and naturally layered soundstage as the big Maggies. Well, that's my opinion, but remember I'm quite enamored of planer speakers and have had my MG-20's for over 14 years as my reference speakers, even though virtually all the upstream gear has changed I have no desire to replace the 20's.

Don't buy the Maggies. I've owned 3.6's and I loved them, but they were unable to play rock convincingly, they had a small sweet spot, and the treble was on the bright side.

I auditioned a lot of speakers and I ended up with Aerial 9's. I really like them a lot.

If I could have two full blown systems, I would own the Maggies again in a hearbeat. They do things well that most other speakers can't do at all, and I'm talking about comparisons with Wilson Watt/Puppy, Aerial 20 and some really expensive Dynaudio gear. But they have shortcomings that made them impossible to stay with (for me).

The 802D and the 5A are hard to beat, but I think the Aerial 9 and the Sonus Faber Cremona are equally good. If you have a local B&W dealer, I would go with the 802.

Nice problem you have!

Rich

Hi,
I own a pair of 3.6R's with two 2Wq Vandy subs. It's a great match. But if my tastes were mostly rock, I'd probably go with the 5A's. I like my Maggies more for Jazz, Blues and Vocals. Not fantastic with rock, probably because so many of the recordings suck.

I have owned the 802D's with the McIntosh MC402 and C46, I still have the Mac gear. I have been told by others that the 802D's sound great with the MC501's and that may be, but they didn't do it for me with the 402, or the numerous other amps I used.

From my experience, I'd look elsewhere. Following suit with others offering other suggestions, I suggest the Wilson Sophia II's, I have heard these side-by-side with the 802D's, it was an easy choice; also, the Usher CP-8571's are well thought of.

Brian