Vandersteen 7 Flagship at CES

They were sublime. But as stated, they had all state of the art equipment around them, and Vandersteen had the only room that actually had acoustic treatment, and carefully done at that. Still, the 7's were world class, as good as anything that I have ever heard.

The only thing in the same league as far as striking, was the Magnepan demo of thier small speakers system. That was pretty amazing too, and they didn't have a stated $300k system around it. It was all Bryston gear, including discs instead of vinyl. Pretty impressive.

There was no side by side obviously, and the 7's did sound fantastic, but... In my memory the best sound I have ever heard from a system included the 5a's at the local Vandy dealer, and they didn't have anywhere near the upstream gear that Vandersteen did at CES. That was the best I have ever heard a system, and it was with the 5a's. Great speakers.