Thiels or Von Schweikerts

Mjaudio: That's a great story, glad it had a happy ending. I used to own Klipsch KG4's not too much more expensive than your brother's center (shyeah, I wish they'd sounded like an MCS!), and also auditioned VS VR4's at the time I bought my Thiel 2.2's, which I've owned for 9 sufficiently-contented years now :-)

Both are excellent speakers, but have to agree w/ mjaudio, the Thiels are system sensitive. I'd do a search in members system's to see which amps & cabling synergize w/ the Thiels. I've owned the vr4jr's for over a year and can highly recommend them. Supurb sound and seem to mate very well w/ a variety of amps. Only requirements being 1) that they require a lot of clean power for them to open up to thier full potential 2) load w/ lead shot 3) biwire.

My vote goes to Von Schweikert, too, for many of the reasons noted by Mjaudio. As a bonus, they're way more efficient than Thiels, so you don't have to spend megabucks on an amp capable of driving them.

The designers of these two brand of speakers have rather different perspectives. I'm not at all surprised that you are getting very polarized opinions. At least for me, at these prices, I'd try and find a way to audition them. BTW, I fall into the Thiel camp.

I heard both the Thiel 2.4 and the Von Schweikert VR-4 JR. My vote goes to the VR-4 JR. I was more impressed by the Von Schweikert than the Thiel. Since you mentioned you can't audition them yourself due to your location, try to read the professional and consumer reviews that's out there (www.ecoustics.com) for these two speakers and see which one is more of your flavor/style of listening. They both are different in their own way. But like most have already said, Thiels are notoriously hard to drive in general, so make sure you got a good amp to support it if you go that route.

Good luck !