amp for vandersteens

My local dealer is big into Vandersteens, has been the 20 years I’ve known him. I’m shopping for a preamp, and just heard his Quattros with a Parasound power amp and Prima Luna tube preamp. Very impressive! Stage was well delineated, instruments stayed put and were individual in space, but the group stayed coherent. Rhythm was wonderful. Lots of detail in recordings I was familiar with, and heard some new stuff, but not overly analytical. Could have stayed for hours listening! Not sure if that helps, but it sounded like a good match. He carries other electronics too, and I’ve heard the quattros on other systems, but this demo really impressed.

I had an Cambridge 840A years ago on my Vandys and it worked very well; heck before that I had an old B&O receiver and even it sounded really nice. Can’t imagine anything not sounding good on Vandersteens. Tried an older Marantz Reference integrated and felt it was too laid back and went with the Cambridge. Would suggest not to go with something too laid back or soft.

All the choices would suggest that Vandy speakers are compatible with many different amps.

Yes, they are very accommodating of a large selection of amps.
I’ve long held that on absolute terms the PSE and McCormack amps were especially good matches for them. That they were also an outstanding value combination was secondary. Regretfully these amps are getting old and will probably need servicing. I suspect that even with costly upkeep they will continue to be a good value combination.

I run a set of 2CE non-sigs with 2 vintage Mitsubishi DA15 amps each running a single speaker with a splitter allowing for each high and low to be driven by one of the four channels. I think it is called vertical bi-amping. These can be picked up for less than $450 each on the used market.  I have replaced all the caps with higher end audio caps and the sound is incredible. I am certain newer amps are great as well, but hard to beat sub $1,000 and 150 WPC of really warm musical sound. A Bryston 8b also does a great job. I run them from a DAC with volume control and mostly CD- EAD T-1000.  IMHO, Vandersteen’s are very musical and sound great with lots of amps but prefer adequate power and bi-amping. I have used them with multiple amps over the years- including a Vincent SV500 Hybrid. At low volumes- really low- the Vincent sounded fine but never could open the up. So a good question to consider is how loud do you listen normally ?