Just got ruined by a pair of Treo CTs

I was also at the THE Show in Irvine this past weekend and I have to agree with MikeTuason about the Treo CT.  We came back to that room twice.  I have heard Vandys at shows before, but these were far better than my audio memory served up.  They were driven by simple PrimaLuna amps and preamps with a Meridian 218 streaming source.  The coherency was perfect.  They sounded like music and could play a wide variety of music with authority.  I felt that they and the Magico A3 that we heard were the two best setups of the show.  Most of the expensive, larger speakers overpowered the rooms or suffered from hi-fi sound.  My friend who has Harbeth 30.2 on order is now considering the Treo CT.

I recently heard the Quatros at a friend's and they sounded quite sterile and glaring.

@rwwear  Did your friend have a system up to the quality of the Quatro's?  Were his speakers set up well?

If they sounded sterile and glaring, I can almost promise something was wrong in the room or set up.  Often times it's the room for any speaker to sound totally different than most people hear them.  

I had the Treo non CT and LOVED them. Coherent, musical, engaging and warm when the recording was warm is one way to describe them. When I moved to teh Quatro CT, it was another ball game. The CT version makes a huge difference of course, but freeing up the amp from reproducing 100hz down makes a huge difference on dynamics and other things.  

Richard does make some wonderful speakers for many of us.  I like the bigger Harbeth's, but there is no detail. Syrupy and sweet.  Everything sounds good on them, which is fine if you want that sound.  I would personally rather have a true audiophile speaker that still gives a warm presentation without glare or harshness in a coherent package.  That's just me though.

I love all the Vandersteen speakers and have had my 5a’s since 2004. From what I’ve seen lately here on Audiogon, used audiophile equipment has never been more affordable. Would you buy new Treo CT’s at $8400, new Quatro CT’s at $14,600, or used 5a’s for $9000ish?