Sophia 2 vs. Vandersteen Quatro

My dad and I listened to the Wilson and the Vandersteen at seperate dealers and have the same issue you have..both are really nice and great sounding. I think we both prefered the Vandy as it was a bit less detailed (again it is hard to say with seperate rooms, equipment and so on) the Wilson sure wins in looks! Not to say detail is a bad thing but the Vandy had a more polite musical flow and we both really like the bass loading adjustments the Vandy has. Again the Wilson was a blast to listen to but the Vandy was what we enjoyed a bit more.

How will you live with yourself if you pass up the name dropping snob appeal of the Wilson and settle for the pedestrian Vandy? I can hear them now; "I don't know about Wilson, but my ex college boyfriend had some Vandies".

I am familiar with both speakers.
I own the Sophias(1's), and have auditioned the
Quatros on a number of occasions at a dealer's show room
that I've been to many times. There is no "Better" speaker in this comparison. They are both capable of marvelous performance and are really terriffic products. As I see it, the differences boil down to the rooms they are placed in and the ancillary equipment. The Quatros LOVE tubes. The mid-tweeter units are easy to drive and excel when driven by moderately powered tube amps. The woofers are self powered and the output can be tailored to difficult rooms with uneven bass response. I think the Quatros are probably easier to get to their best in a variety of rooms and systems.
The Sophias are true thoroughbreds. They are capable of extrordinary performance. They require precise placement
good speaker wire, top flight amplification and a reasonably good sounding room. They also love tubes, BUT to really sound their best, they need at least 100 or more Tube Watts. That can be expensive. It's easier to make a good sounding medium powered tube amp than one with higher power....and that translates to $$$. I think the Sophias are capable of higher level performance, but it's a much bigger challenge to get there. So I think the choice requires an honest look at your room, your ancillary equipment and your willingness to design, arrange and decorate your room around the speakers.
The Sophias are gorgeous. The finish is magnificent........is this inportant? Only you can judge.
Hopefully this helps.

Vandersteens are time and phase correct and Wilson are not. Do you care to hear harmonic content that captures timbre accurately that is essential to the enjoyment of music? Also, Wilson uses a midrange driver that makes no sense to me; 7 inch?

No contest. Vandersteen.

From John Atkinson:

"In the time domain, the Sophia's step response (fig.7) reveals that its tweeter and woofer are connected in positive acoustic polarity, the midrange in inverted polarity—which is what is needed, in conjunction with the phase shift provided by the crossover, to ensure that the outputs of the drive-units add to give a flat response in the farfield in the crossover regions."

So my question is, if you have to invert the polarity of the midrange driver to balance against the steep crossover, what impact has that done to the complex harmonic content that provides timbre accuracy? A flat frequency response won't help if this fundamental aspect of speaker design isn't intact.