Vandersteen help needed

@rotarius I have not tried bringing the speakers in that close. The stereo imaging is amazing where they're placed now. I can try that though.

@cedargrover thanks for the suggestion. I was convinced to purchase this equipment based on my demos at Johnny's store. His system sounds great!!! Him and I just go off the phone. We're trying to setup an in-house troubleshooting session with potentially using some high pass filters.

@cedargrover Someone was there when I was picking up my stuff. Must've been you!

John Rutan was kind enough to pay me a visit in my home yesterday. I think we had a very productive and fun troubleshooting session that yielded some very noticeable and dramatic positive results. We tried several different things. Each had its own incremental positive benefit that contributed to the overall net result.

 

Here is a brief rundown of things we tried and liked:

 

• A few days ago, as someone suggested, I moved the speakers a little closer together and toed them in slightly more. This helped the midrange present much better. We tried a few other room positions yesterday, but ultimately John and I agreed they sounded best where I originally had them.

• John worked his magic with a level laser and accurately adjusted the Vandys for correct level, toe, and tilt-back.

• The couch that was snugged up against the back wall was moved 11” out. This helped clean up the low end issues a ton.

• We tried a few different power options. Right now the amp is plugged directly into the bottom wall outlet and the DAC and CD player into the unfiltered jacks of a Furman strip. I really didn’t notice much if any difference with different power configurations but perhaps my ears are not finely tuned in enough yet.

• One of the more dramatic improvements came from upgrading the speaker cables and interconnects. I had the Audioquest Rocket 33s and another Audioquest product for the interconnects. I’m not sure what the new ones are. Perhaps John could chime in on that but the difference was huge. I couldn’t believe what a difference the right cables make.

 

Ultimately, I think we got things pretty darn close to the way John’s 1ci speakers sound at his store. It was tremendously helpful to have a second pair of ears confirming the issues I was experiencing. Having someone with John’s skill level and experience with setting these speakers up was an invaluable asset.  I am very pleased with how my system sounds right now. Although, truth be told, now that most of the original issues have been addressed, I’m kind of hankering to hear how a 2wq sub would sound!

 

Thanks to all that contributed to this thread. I enjoyed reading each of your responses and varying opinions. Special thanks to John for spending his Sunday afternoon with me. I can hear the vocals again and my snare is cracking!!!!

@bondmanp What speakers did you end up with after you sold your 1c's?

@ctsooner Thanks CT! Great post.