Very musical,sweet,wide soundstage

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Very neutral and pleasant sounding speakers. These speakers can be listened to for hours at a time at almost any volume without discomfort. The user adjustment for high and midrange is very useful in my bright room. These are the best speakers I've heard under $8000. The imaging is superb, bass is tight and highs are clear. They aren't the fastest speaker on the market but they don't bring the harshness of some of the quicker, "audiophile" speakers either. The B&W 802 Nautilus speakers had slightly better imaging, and had a taller soundstage but they were too analytical and not nearly as musical as the Vandersteens. At $5,200 the demo model 802's were very tempting. I listened to them in my house for a week but they were so bright that they hurt my ears after about 15 minutes. The Vandersten 3 Sig's do nothing wrong. Biwiring makes a noticeable difference as does proper setup. Plan on using an extra 2 feet of speaker cable per side since the connections are about 2 feet off the ground.
Associated equipment:
ARC Ref 2
Wadia 861
Levinson 332
Transparent ultra interconnects
Mit 750HE biwire cables

Similar Products Used:

B&W 802, Revel

Does music right at an affordable and livable price

Looks kind of plain jane. I guess thats why its not so much $$$ for looks

Great speakers. Audition them if you can. It does music right. Many friends are amazed by the natural and correct-ness of the sound. It just sound right. Go listen to them. I upgraded these from 3a and changed the wood panels to match my decore. On the way back to me , the trucking company "lost" them. Good news was Richard V. himself called me up and said a new pair were on their way with a new 5 year wanranty. Cool. and they sound better then ever. Highly recommended.Shop till you drop. Then buy these...

Similar Products Used:

Theil, Polk, Advents, JBL, Aucustic Research, Audio Designs, Allsion Accoustics, Boston Accoustics, etc...

Excellent Vocals, Soundstage, Owner of Company is pretty cool-he must love music and have a great ear.

Could use some teeth as far as looks. But hey, sometimes the uglyone w/o teeth gives head(room).

First, if you have 3a reg, go and spend the money to upgrade. Its cheaper than new speakers, and its like falling in love all over again once you get them back...

Second, if you are looking, listen and remember what it is suppose to sound like. Try and think what that piano or violin or trumpet or reed instrument is like in real life. These speakers are true to the sound of reproduction.
Buy em casue you love em. You know you can't go wrong...

Thrird, Richard thanks for sending a new pair after my other pair was stolen in California on the way back to me.
You are a classy person for calling me in person.

Need I say more? Look for my system pix...hopefully...

Last----

I want to say, although i am using a computer, I want to say I hate them. They always need upgrading, they somtimes break down and I just hate how cold they are.
Audio-give me audio. Turn it on and it does what it suppose to do- pure enjoyment. So perfect is aduio. A great speaker is a great speaker, and by any other name is just as sweet. An amp, a good amp will never be absolete. Same goes for an excellent cd player. Audio. Never cold. Always warms the soul.

Similar Products Used:

3a, Thiels NHT, allon, counterpoint

Transparency, top-to-bottom integration, dynamics, bass response.

None, although exterior appearance is less than sexy.

Let me begin this review by going directly to the punchline: the Vandersteen 3A Signature is an excellent speaker on an absolute basis, and is a superb value at its price point. Richard Vandersteen's design philosophy is to provide very high VALUE, so the manufacturing costs go into the cabinetry and drivers, not the exterior facade. I have owned my Vandy 3A Signatures for about 6 months, and prior to them I owned a pair of Vandy 3A's and a pair of Vandy 2Ci's (purchased in 1988). The 3A is an excellent speaker in its own right, but the 3A Signature's higher performance level is worth the extra cost. I am, at times, astonished at the accuracy of the 3A Signature. It may not offer the ultimate degree of transparency or "slam", but it competes strongly against speaker systems at twice its price. I have been an audiophile and music lover for nearly 40 years, and the one thing I like best about the 3A Sig is the outstanding job it does of conveying the "whole fabric" of music. The 3A Sig has excellent tonal balance from top to bottom (down to about 26-28 Hz), and conveys very subtle nuances of sound and performance. It is a revealing speaker, but not to the point that it distracts from the music. The music sounds real, without the etched quality sometimes found in high-end speakers (which, to my ear, is not what live music really sounds like). The Vandy 3A Sig also images well (about an 8 on a 1-10 scale), but this is dependent on the listening room), and has very wide soundstaging (8-9 on the 10-point scale, but also rather room dependent). I am using a Bryston 4B-ST as the main power amp, and the resulting sound with the 3A Sig's is very clean, transparent, neutral in balance, and highly dynamic. The bass response and dynamic response of the 3A Sig is so good that I do not feel the need for a subwoofer. Although I use the speakers mainly for serious listening, they also are the speakers for my home theater setup (with the Vandy VCC-1 Signature center channel speaker, and B&W rear surrounds). I highly recommend the Vandy 3A Sig to those who, like myself, need a speaker that is the basis for a excellent audio system that must also double for home theater use. I think the Vandy 3A Sig serves admirably in my small combo living room/audio room/ home theater. Home theater sound is excellent, with music, dialogue, and sound effects all reproduced very cleanly. My wife, who has much more acute hearing than I, has commented a number of times at the realism of the reproduced sound, noting that with well-recorded music and movies the speakers virtually disappear. On very high quality recordings, the performers often seem to be in the room, either at or slightly behind the speaker plane. The Vandy 3A Sig does not reach out and grab you by the throat, nor are they extremely analytical, so audiophiles and "component of the month" freaks who want to listen to their equipment may want to look elsewhere. Music lovers, however, should put the Vandy 3A Sig on their very short list of speakers to audition. In the $3500 price range (MSRP), the Vandy 3A Sig has very little competition, and I have NEVER been disappointed with the performance of this wonderful speaker. I intend to have the 3A Signatures in my system for many years to come.

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Musical and nuetral. (Component Friendly)

none

This review will be short and sweet, Richard Vandersteen has simply made one the worlds best speakers the 3A's better the 3A Signatures are amazing. Just a very musical pleasing presentation that will that will bring a smile across the face of any music lover.

Similar Products Used:

Hales Rev3, NHT3.3,Theil,Martin Logan

Swwwwwwweeeeeet highs, extra wide soundstage, detailed sound

The look, not the deepest bass, not a highly dynamic speaker. Need a powerful amp to really deliver.

Great speaker, the tweeter is from the Model Five. Very high quality high and mids. Pretty good bass response.

The soundstage is ultra wide but not as deep as B&W Nautilus series. This is due to the boxless design. You need to sit closer to the speakers to fully enjoy.

That's the best speaker I heard that is able to recreate a live sound. The upper range might be too sweet for some listener's tastes. Quite similar to ESL speakers.

Quite agile with all kind of music.

Not perfect but better than most of 7000$ speakers. 5 stars

Similar Products Used:

Totem: Model One, Sttaf, Forest
JMLab: Cobalt 815, Electra 920
B&W: Nautilus 803

Imaging, soundstage, tuneful bass, smooth mids

Exhibited rolled off highs and blurry mids in certain recordings. Not the best looking speaker I've ever seen.

This is an impressive speaker. Heard it for the first time the other day for a solid two hours, but it didn't take nearly that long to realize that there were some good things happening. The 3as were being powered by the new Bel Canto EVo amp and later with Rogue tubed monoblocks. The front end was a Cary CD player into a PSE preamp.

There was very little I didn't like about this speaker, and most of it I really liked. The soundstage was absolutely lifesize and imaging was excellent. All instruments and voices sounded very natural. One of the most surprising aspects of this speaker for me was the bass, which was not only well-integrated and but very tuneful and portrayed tonality in this region that I have heard from very few speakers. The midrange for the most part was liquid smooth as were the highs, yet there was enough detail to keep me interested. All this combined into a very pleasant listening experience that made it seem like a very short two hours.

There were a couple pockets in the performance spectrum that I felt didn't quite measure up to the rest. This was not the most dynamic speaker I've heard, but for me it was certainly dynamic enough. More noticeable was the upper end of the high frequency range. As noted above, detail was quite good, but on rock/pop/jazz recordings cymbals in particular were softened to the point of sounding artificially muffled. It didn't sound bad, but compared with the natural sound and realism in the rest of the sonic picture it seemed a bit inconsistent. For example, I've heard Keb Mo's "Slow Down" CD on many many excellent systems, and in this case there was a lack of top end air and detail that simply sounded wrong. There were also a couple cases where the midrange seemed a little less focused than natural, but as I'm not familiar with the electronics that were driving the 3as this may have been a factor.

For my tastes the Thiel CS1.5s and Soliloquy 5.3 offer much of the realism, soundstaging, imaging, and tonality characteristics of the 3a while offering more top end air and microdynamics that make them just a bit more involving.

So the way I come out, overall this is an incredible speaker with a couple caveats considering my taste in music and music reproduction. Others with different tastes will think it's just an incredible speaker, and I certainly wouldn't argue. I think everyone considering speakers in the under $5000 category should plan to audition the 3a before they make any final decisions.

Similar Products Used:

Thiel, ProAc, Soliloquy, Linn, B&W, Hales, Magnepan, Martin Logan, Joseph Audio, Meadowlark, Sonus Faber, Coincident Technology, Gershmann, Audio Physic, many others