Fellow Vandersteen Owners

I suggest you actually phone Vandersteen Audio and ask Rick. I have called them 3 times in the last few years and always got to talk to Rick (or his son, I think). Just ask for technical support. Anyhow, when the model 3 was first introduced, Rick was showing it at a high-end shop in Palo Alto and I remember him telling a story about how the prototype did not have the frame and fabric, just the functional units and [really!] he said his wife complained about how ugly that was, so he designed the "open" frame/fabric to hide the stuff. I'll bet anything you can take that off! Call and ask them.

Hi Mg123 & Mark; I have no doubt that you could remove the corner dowels and cover fabric of your 3As but what you would have is "80 lbs. of ugly", so that is not the point. Rather, Mark would like to add his own cabinetry-- an exercise fraught with peril (IMHO) (for the 3A and its sound quality).

Thanks guys. I do have access to a cabinet shop and a guy who actually makes very fancy speaker cabinets with beautiful veneers for a living. my thought was to just remove the top piece and corner dowls, then veneer the WHOLE thing, except the fronts of the upper driver cabinets with the felt.has anyone seen this done or done it themselves? thanks. P.S. I'm a carpenter/contractor myself.

Go for it ! The sock is an attempt to make the basic design more home friendly. It's not integral to the sound of the speaker. Whatever you do, don't remove the felt. It's critical to the sound. The comments about resale value are correct, you won't have any.

Whoa!!! I think you will change the WHOLE SOUND of the speaker if you take off the sock/frame and add your own enclosure. Thats a complete science in itself: the effects of the cabinet. The frame/fabric is an acoustically invisible cosmetic coverup. And yes, it will have NO resale value at all.