Vandersteen Model 7: has anyone heard?


I won't have $45K to spend on a loudspeaker in this lifetime or any other I imagine but the little snippet in TAS peaked my curiousity. Has anyone heard this speaker and would be willing to offer their impressions?
russellrcncom
I echo the many comments made by others regarding the 7's. When I visited Audio Connection on Saturday for the Vandersteen event, the electronics were mostly Aesthetix - Rhea, Calypso, Atlas, with Audio Research CD player and I don't know what kind of turntable.
I completely agree with the others who heard the 7s at Audio Connection. The ARC CD Player was the Ref-8; the Turntable was a Basis with a Graham Phantom arm. I think John said that the cart. was a Clearaudio Goldfinger. In his talk, Richard said that they intentionally had chosen electronics that were significantly less expensive than what you'd expect to hear driving speakers of that price. It certainly didn't matter in terms of what we heard.
I haven't heard the 7, but as a former 5a owner, these are the things that I hope the 7 would address:
Narrow sweetspot (particularly in the vertical plane)
Bass anomalies with certain recordings
Lack of midbass energy
Lack of dynamics and slam with some types of music
These are issues I had with my 5a's.
Cartridge was the Clearaudio Concerto, not the Goldfinger which is very expensive. I believe the Concerto is $2400 which is quite reasonable in my book.