VANDERSTEENS vs. THIELS

Vandy and Thiel are severely different. Thiels are extremely linear and accurate and require lots of very clean power and a very clean source to sound good, or even listenable. Given your current electronics, I would not commit to Thiels without first hearing the combination. There is a substantial possibility that you won't like the combination. Vandersteens are much more forgiving and naturally forgiving, at the expense of being less optimal with the best gear and source material. If you have to buy without trying it out on your home gear, AND if you have no near term plans to upgrade gear, I'd go with the Vandersteens. Maggies have a great reputation and I used to own SMGa's and have a fondness for them but have not heard recent models. They are planars which means that room positioning is critical, and they will tend to beam the high end more than dynamic speakers. I would again hesistate to commit to owning these without trying them out at home. Great potential and very worthwhile testing. Final thought: there is a trap that all of us fall into when testing gear - we evaluate and compare gear very analytically (which has better imaging, etc) but really the pleasure of music is less tangible. Sometimes a piece of gear just moves you emotionally even though objectively it might not be the best. When you test, listen for what you enjoy. Listen with your heart and not your head, as one rare female audiophile once told me. Art

Thank you for your very wise advice and guidance. Unfortunately, I live in a remote area that precludes me from in home demos and trials. I've been shopping some stores in my travels, and relying on catalogs, spec sheets and word-of-mouth recommendations. I'm leaning heavily towards Vandersteen..Please stay in touch - Bennett

Bennett, it is a tuff question to answer when asked to compare one speaker w/ another. that's like me trying to guess what kind of shoe you would like best. I have been thru alot of speakers,Thiel CS7 to the Eggleston Andra and now back to a pr. of the Thiel CS6's and 3 Thiel MCs 1's. Some speakers have specific strong points, but I find that Thiel has no weakness in all the area's. They are either doing it all wrong or they are doing it all right. Vandy's are nice but to me you can not beat a Thiel speaker. The other gentleman was right though,you MUST have good equipment w/ Thiels or you will know it,but why throw good money after bad? Why have on a Tux and put on dirty shoes? My feelings? Buy Thiel and if you have to upgrade then go for it as you can afford to,in the long run you will be happy you did. Good Luck!

I owned a pair of Thiel CS.5 for a while and also heard the 2.3's (they were not quite broken in yet). I have not heard Vandersteen. I will say that the theil was a nice speaker for the year and a half I had them and hated to see them go because they are a status speaker of sorts. If the Vandy's are where your heart is heading go with'em, If you've owned one pair of speakers for 25 years you don't seem to picky like alot of us. In complete opinion free from the speakers you listed above I think the Biro L/1's by avahifi.com would provide more musical sound and you would save money and space. And with the money you save you might even want to upgrade something else. The L/1 is a very special speaker.

Hi Bennett; I've owned 2 pairs of Vand. 2ces, and have Vand. 3Asigs now in my main system. The Vandersteens are all excellent. I've driven the 2Ces with everything from inexpensive receivers, good integrateds, and presently with an excellent quality McCormack DNA.5. Well, the 2Ces sounded very good with all of these different systems. As I upgraded electronics, the speakers sounded better too, ie they are sensitive to what is driving them. So if you go with Vandersteens, you can upgrade your electronics as desired and speaker quality will seem to improve too. Vandersteens are quite forgivig in this regard, and very musical. I recommend them highly. I have never heard Thiels, but have read that they are much more demanding of source, and tend to be somewhat analytical.