Stevie Ray Vaughan

I understood where you were coming from, and I was merely commenting and joining the conversation, not critiquing or arguing with you. And I do dearly love "Little Wing."

I picked up the remastered standard CD of Wish You Were Here. Surprisingly, the acoustic guitar on the title track sounds even better than the acoustic guitar on the SACD version of "Life by the Drop."

I picked up Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. I was quite impressed and I plan to pick up extra copies for my dad as part of his Christmas gift. He only really wants the best-of album, but I can't support that kind of behaviour.

I have the previous SACD version of Dark Side of the Moon. It certainly sounds spectacular in its own right, but it is very interesting listening to it on my Vandersteens. They are very revealing of mixing and studio tricks; they sound their best with minimally miked and mixed recordings, where the natural ambience shines through. (The Trinity Sessions, which was recorded with one Ambisonics stereo microphone, sounds amazing.) So while the sonic detail is strong, the speakers really emphasize the artificiality of the recording.

I picked up the remastered CD for The Final Cut some time ago. It sounds good, but pales next to the original vinyl. That was always one of my favorite demo discs -- the sound of the drums on that album really has a sense of the ambient space around the kit. Some of that seems lost in digital.

I still hold that digital, no matter how high bit rate or sampling frequency is still digital, which can create a pixelated sound (for lack or a better descriptor). Perhaps that is contributing to your sense of lost ambient space.

That said, digital today is far superior to what is was 20 years ago.

Absolutely. Despite the issue with too much compression in the mastering process nowadays and a resulting lack of dynamics (unless you think that "loud" is dynamic in itself,) CDs are sounding better and better. I can definitely live with them. (Granted, $20,000 dollars of speakers and amplification hardly hurts.) But you are right, there is definitely something missing in the process.

How long has it been with the Vandersteens? Any regrets? If you were to do it again, would you still opt for the same model?

Absolutely. The only thing that would change is if I had the disposable income I would have done the Model 7s instead. But for real-world purposes, these were the best choice. In theory the wood version is supposed to have superior sound (Vandersteen said that he would never simply add more cosmetics to a speaker unless he could make other changes at the same time to improve the sound) but even if I wanted to spend the extra money I still doubt that I would have done so. These are definitely the end-all speakers for me. (Barring inheriting a whole lot of money, which is not going to happen!)

Are the wood versions considerably more expensive?

And don't discount winning the lotto. You just never know.

The Quatro woods are about $1000 more. I just checked their prices and it looks like they have gone up across the board. The standard Quatros are now $9400 and the woods are $10,400. (Keep in mind that neither price includes the external crossovers, which are mandatory and went for $895 when I bought mine.) It also looks like they have added a new variation of the Model 5As, which is listed as the 5A Carbon. It must have some of its components upgraded to the ones in the Model 7s. (That is common practice for Vandersteen: trickling down components from the higher end models into the lower models.) That one now goes for $24,000, so he is definitely getting into the pricier gear, even if those prices are still relative bargains in the hifi world. By the way, he does now have a speaker called the Treo, which is essentially a Quatro minus the powered subwoofers and goes for only $5995. But frankly if anyone was going to get into that price range I would only recommend a powered model -- Vandersteens' integration of powered subwoofers into a full-range speaker is simply unmatched, especially after they are properly calibrated by the dealer. There is really no feeling of a crossover point where the subs kick in; they simply join into the coherent whole of the signal. When listening to a descending line on a bass guitar (especially an acoustic upright bass) there is never a sense that some of it is being played by the main speaker and some of it is being played by the subwoofer -- it just sounds like one instrument going through its paces.

That does sound nice. The one thing that has always bugged me about subs is as you just described: the feeling that part of sound is being routed to the main and some to the sub.

Speaking of subs, did you ever end up replacing your dedicated sub for LFE, or have you not bothered?

I did get that AV123 sub which developed the amplifier hum -- after they folded, of course -- so I am no longer using it. I will ultimately add another sub for LFE, and probably spend a bit more. (One can still get some relative bargains from the likes of Hsu Research.)