Hi Bennett; I've owned 2 pairs of Vand. 2ces, and have Vand. 3Asigs now in my main system. The Vandersteens are all excellent. I've driven the 2Ces with everything from inexpensive receivers, good integrateds, and presently with an excellent quality McCormack DNA.5. Well, the 2Ces sounded very good with all of these different systems. As I upgraded electronics, the speakers sounded better too, ie they are sensitive to what is driving them. So if you go with Vandersteens, you can upgrade your electronics as desired and speaker quality will seem to improve too. Vandersteens are quite forgivig in this regard, and very musical. I recommend them highly. I have never heard Thiels, but have read that they are much more demanding of source, and tend to be somewhat analytical.
VANDERSTEENS vs. THIELS
Dear audiophiles, I'm getting ready to buy some new speakers after 25 years of using AR10pi's. I've narrowed my choices to Vandersteen's 2Ce, Thiels 2.3, magneplanar 1.6. Please give me your thoughts on reliability, accuracy, other comments. I will power them with Onkyo m-504 amp (150w/ch) and use rega phono and cartridge,some CD's on a Denon 370. Thanking you in advance hififile, (aka: Bennett).