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 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.
(((I wonder if these speakers would sound good with solid state electronics.))
We broke the Vandersteeen 7s in with a 1200 dollar NAD Solid state power amp sounding superb.
The first couple nights i was there till 2 am running through music totally engaged..

Best Johnnyr