They and I arrived home Saturday nite, I got them running Sunday, and got them positioned Monday.My 5As are about 3 years old and were the 1st pair painted a color–Porsche Arctic Silver--different than black, my dealer tells me.
I put them in about the same positions previously occupied by the Avantis, installed carriage screws (instead of spikes) so the heavy boxes would be easier to move, and leveled them. They’re toed in somewhat...10 degrees?...but intersect WAY behind me.
I again used a pinknoise generator and third-octave RTA to adjust the bass-system equalization; that went fairly quickly. Still evident are the combined-bass-nodes peak at 28Hz and the broad notch centered around 80Hz, but they’re certainly lower in level. Speakercable is 4 feet of inexpensive AQ Rocket88, one of their two-bundles ‘flatrock’-type cable. I unzipped the 2 halves for most of the length and counter-spiraled some Neotec OCC-in-Teflon conductors around the 2--18g. Copper for the LF cable and 23g. Silver for the HF.
The systems have about 40 hours on them, and these are my first impressions.
Overall, these are the best-sounding speakersystems I’ve ever heard. The sound is relaxed, natural, coherent top to bottom, etc. In the MOST-important midrange (MR), they are highly transparent, more so than my highly improved Avanti IIIs--and MR was the Avantis’ best area. The treble is smooth--that is, NOT course or rough sounding--clean and extended. I can now listen to my brighter-balanced recordings at higher-overall levels because the treble is no longer slightly unattractive. The transition from treble to MR...or MR to upperbass or upperbass to lowerbass, for that matter...is seamless as far as I can tell. Instruments with fundamentals in the lower-MR to upperbass such as cellos and bassfiddles sound like one instrument instead of two. Acoustic bass that’s well recorded, with some air around the instrument, etc., sounds excellent; one can hear the harmonics from the strings and the warm sound of a hollow wooden chamber resonating. (1)
The transition from upperbass to lowerbass is also not apparent to me. The bass from the powered woofer is tight, authoritative, and goes down about forever. The sounds of particularly-low-tuned orchestral bassdrums are reproduced with so much information that one can hear the initial impact and immediate fundamental and then the wave as it resonates thru the hall. (2)
Imaging and soundstaging are both as good as I’ve ever heard, even with my barely tweaked positioning. The speakers are as dynamic as I’ll ever need, and my 160-into-8 Monarchy SE-160s drive them effortlessly.
I agree with others that the closeness of amplifier-heatsink fins prevents the use of typical audiofool powercords, but Pangea 14s fit finely and fairly tightly on the inlet prongs, so I’ve ordered a long-enough pair.
WOW what magnificent sound. More later.
BTW, anyone who wants more pics of the rather-busy crossovers...
...should e-mail me at jeffreybehr(at)cox(dot)net.
(1) For excellent-sounding acoustic bass, try Opus 3's ‘Knud Jorgensen Jazz Trio’, CD #CD 8401, recorded very naturally with, I believe, a single figure-8 stereo mic. GREAT music too.
(2) My favorite recording of Holst’s ‘The Planets’ is Adrian Boult’s latest, LP #ASD 3649 and CD 0777 7 64748 2 3. ‘Uranus’ contains that bassdrum strike at 2+ minutes in.
Edits: 04/26/11 04/26/11 04/29/11 05/04/11
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Topic - Jeffrey's Vandersteen 5A thread #2 - jeffreybehr 14:36:30 04/26/11 (34)
- Pls visit my Vandersteen Speakers Circle. - jeffreybehr 15:22:13 07/06/11 (0)
- RE: Jeffrey's Vandersteen 5A thread #2 - fantja 06:46:24 07/06/11 (0)
- RE: Jeffrey's Vandersteen 5A thread #2 - wheezer 10:00:31 06/12/11 (0)
- I use an old Hall Engineering noise generator and an Phonic... - jeffreybehr 12:06:54 06/12/11 (0)
- RE: I use an old Hall Engineering noise generator and an Phonic... - wheezer 14:49:56 06/12/11 (0)
- Tired legs? Yes indeed. :-) - jeffreybehr 22:24:48 06/12/11 (0)
- RE: Tired legs? Yes indeed. :-) - wheezer 10:46:08 06/13/11 (0)
- Use the 1Kz tone of the Hall noise generator. As I wrote previously, it's tunable... - jeffreybehr 11:52:54 06/13/11 (0)
- Power cord - wheezer 14:09:50 05/15/11 (2)
- Yours is the Bob Crump Asylum PC? - jeffreybehr 16:25:37 05/15/11 (1)
- RE: Yours is the Bob Crump Asylum PC? - wheezer 17:13:33 05/15/11 (0)
- After having a schematic traced but without removing and measuring... - jeffreybehr 17:16:57 05/13/11 (0)
- I continue to make minor adjustments. This afternoon I adjusted the bass levels... - jeffreybehr 14:55:53 05/04/11 (0)
- I'm an incorrigible tweakist, and I want to improve the parts in the x-overs. - jeffreybehr 13:51:11 05/04/11 (0)
- RE: I'm an incorrigible tweakist, and I want to improve the parts in the x-overs. - joeljoel1947 18:20:17 06/12/11 (0)
- ...and two+ weeks later they still sound fabulous. - jeffreybehr 15:44:44 05/03/11 (2)
- Four words of encouragement - M3 lover 13:25:30 05/04/11 (1)
- TY; I shall. (NT) - jeffreybehr 13:51:55 05/04/11 (0)
- My friend and I are still struggling to create a schematic of the crossover. - jeffreybehr 15:02:07 04/29/11 (3)
- So much for "simple" first-order crossovers! - caspian@peak.org 14:44:38 05/04/11 (2)
- You're so right about phase-coherent first-order filters being complex. - jeffreybehr 15:04:10 05/04/11 (1)
- The good news on DIY . . . - caspian@peak.org 16:28:17 05/04/11 (0)
- Those are the most attractive 5As I've seen - Daverz 20:32:02 04/27/11 (1)
- $3K, I believe. V'steen will paint them any color that PPG makes, apparently. (NT) - jeffreybehr 22:32:48 04/27/11 (0)
- My experience mirrors yours with the 5A's nt - lochrider 18:15:54 04/27/11 (0)
- Yow! What are those SUBS? - caspian@peak.org 14:44:09 04/27/11 (1)
- The bass drivers are no-longer-available SoniCraft SCC300 woofers... - jeffreybehr 22:30:58 04/27/11 (0)
- A non-speaker question - M3 lover 11:41:29 04/27/11 (1)
- Yes it is...a 96.1"-wide (NOT diagonal) 2.35-ratio screen. - jeffreybehr 14:24:06 04/27/11 (0)
- Charge-coupled crossovers? - badman 15:31:03 04/26/11 (12)
- Vandersteen - unclestu 13:57:06 04/27/11 (0)
- JBL K2 - djk 02:04:49 04/27/11 (10)
- Aha! - badman 11:07:37 04/27/11 (9)
- Hmm...so THAT's why there are so many caps in series/parallel! - jeffreybehr 14:29:14 04/27/11 (8)
- The basic idea - badman 14:54:39 04/27/11 (7)
- crossover capacitors. DC bias - Lew 08:42:50 07/05/11 (0)
- First, it's 'biasing', not 'bias-ing', just as it's talking and not talk-ing. Next, the capacitance... - jeffreybehr 15:05:08 07/06/11 (0)
- Can you draw this? - Lew 11:27:25 05/02/11 (1)
- Here 'tis. - jeffreybehr 15:33:46 05/03/11 (0)
- RE: Here 'tis. - Æ 16:19:27 07/06/11 (0)
- Did you read the 'DO NOT 'believe' the nature of the lettered devices other than...' - jeffreybehr 15:58:29 07/07/11 (0)
- TYVM. I certainly believe that Audioquest's Dielectric-Bias System... - jeffreybehr 22:10:12 04/27/11 (4)
- RE: TYVM. I certainly believe that Audioquest's Dielectric-Bias System... - unclestu 12:30:01 05/02/11 (1)
- RE: The idea was to raise the signal current above the zero point so that it never crossed zero. - badman 13:20:35 05/02/11 (0)
- The problem with cable - badman 09:25:28 04/28/11 (1)
- Well...the music conductors aren't used in the DBS system. - jeffreybehr 15:04:07 04/28/11 (0)
- Agree totally - Des 14:42:42 04/26/11 (0)