Vandersteen, Bitches.

[Larry]

The 2ce's take a bannana plug, and really should be biwired. I've tried them both ways, and it makes a difference. I power my 2ce's with a Yamaha 1020. I've also used a Marantz 2275 and they drive them fine. Though, they can handle much more.
Larry

 

[ginovino]

Shakespeare -

"He who hesitates, is lost"

How many of us, (don't be afraid to nod yes) made the fatal mistake of walking away from an obviously "TOO GOOD A DEAL", only to kick ourselves in the ass the next day when its TOO LATE and TOO GONE. Smucks All, said He.... :yes:

 

[dave123456@mail.com]

True, so true. However if i had the cash on me, and they said Vandersteen on them, then i woulda bought them regardless- I know the name and know that the cheapest model is worth more than 150$ , especially the bigger ones.

 

[mucklechumps]

I found a pair of Vandersteen model 3 speakers at a thrift store in NYC a few months back. I didnt know what they were either, but there was another guy drooling over them, and he left to get his checkbook so of course I snapped em up. I had to re-glue the 8" rubber surrounds which meant flipping the speakers upside down, unscrewing the base, unstapling the cloth and rolling it down like a sock. After putting them back together and getting them home to Maine (good thing I have a station wagon) I hooked em up to the B&K ST140 I bought at the thrift store and WOW! They sound amazing!

 

[mucklechumps]

Oh, they were $300. Not super cheap but I'd buy them again any day of the week.

 

[dave123456@mail.com]

here's the really painful part-- i found that set of vandy's that russ is showing off here at SA on wednesday of last week, but walked away because i was not sure of the model, make, could not figger out how to get the 'sock' grille down to look at drivers, with the SA guy standing there. so i figgered i'd go home, look 'em up on the net, and go back the next day if research panned out. $150 the pair. sent russ an email to see if he knew anything about the model, he offered to go get 'em on thursday as i was unable to, and THEY'D BEEN GRABBED! AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!

by that time, i'd seen enough on the net to know i shoulda been slapped for walking away from 'em. and who should get a call on friday morning but russ, from one of his own scroungers calling to ask if he'd like a set of vandy 2's, for considerably more than $150? and looking at the pix, i know for a fact that them there are those.

AAAAGGGGHHHHHH!! Moe, Larry, Cheese, whoooowhoooowhoooo!

shrinkboy

i was referring to this post.

 

[mucklechumps]

I understand that, I was just sharing my own Vandersteen experience. I was lucky that I had the money and the speakers turned out to be something good.

 

[GordonW]

What type of binding posts are on the 2CEs? Can bananas be used??

How power hungry are they?

Scott

The 2CE's and 2CE Signatures have flush banana posts- they MUST be used with banana plugs. Also, they MUST be bi-wired... there are TWO SETS of flush banana plugs.

The 2CEs and 3As all like pretty serious power. With that woofer and the "active coupler" (passive radiator with a voice coil, tuned to only come in below 35 Hz or so), some pretty heavy-duty current in the bottom end makes these speakers sound SO much better than a "wimpy" amp will. I'd recommend at least 100w/ch... stuff like the NAD C272 power amp and C372 integrated amps get 2Ce's into their "sweet spot" as far as power capacity is concerned, IME. 200 or 250w/ch isn't at all uncalled for... I've seen many people run these on stuff like NAD 218THXs, Acurus A250s and Aragon 4004s, with VERY good results.

Also, if anyone has an opportunity- listen to any of the Vandersteens, with a BIG HONKIN' tube amp. Say, like an Audio Research D76, D79 or D150, one of the big Music Reference amps, or a VAC 105/105 or such. Richard Vandersteen is a big lover of Audio Research tube amps... in fact, last time I checked, he was using some of these in his "voicing room" where he does most of the final tweaking of his designs, IIRC... and they DO work REALLY WELL on these type amps, as a result. Tube preamps also seem to help... in fact, one of the most impressive installations of Vandersteen 2CE's I've heard, had an old Conrad Johnson CJ1 tube preamp, running into an Aragon 8008 amp. Great midrange!

Regards,
Gordon.
Audio Atlanta Service Manager (Vandersteen dealer...)

 

[fredt300b]

I've found the Vandies to be very tube-friendly too. If you'll look on the Vandersteen site you'll see that the impedance is well controlled (+/- two ohms as I recall). I have driven 1C's nicely with an eight watt 300B set amp and 2CE sigs with a 40 watt EL34 amp. In both cases I could drive the speakers to room filling levels without straining the amps at all. The Vandies tend to sound a bit polite compared to some other brands (with their out-of-phase drivers and forward-sounding overly bright tweeters), but the actual frequency response is very smooth. They do like bright sounding speaker cables - the best sounding diy cables I ever used with mine were braided teflon cat5 cables. Good buy; you'll enjoy these!

 

[RuSsMaN]

Thanks for the words guys, these are pretty fun to listen to, it's all I've been doing for the past couple of days. Got a fresh bottle of rum, I'll be in the 'cave' most of the night tonight too.

Tube dish - Telefunken Smooth Plate 12ax7's that I need to test and get into boxes.

Passive Radiator with a voice coil? Huh? It's an active woofer with a flat cone.

These are original Model 2's, not the "c" model, or any of the other later variations. The tweeter is a silk dome, and looks to be pretty similar to the old Peerless 810665 that we have all come to know and love. The reponse is very smooth, perhaps even too smooth for some, but I'm digging it so far.

Single set of input jacks (banana only) on rear, with separate L-pad contouring for Mid and HF.

I'd really like to hear these on tubes, my 'biggest' tube amp right now is an 8w push-pull, perhaps I'll try it tonight.

Cheers,
Russ

 

[GordonW]

Ah, the original Model 2s are different... it's a TRUE passive radiator (no voice coil), and a paper cone 8" woofer. Not as much bottom end extension as the 2CEs, but OTOH, the original Model 2s and 2Bs are more efficient and, to my ears, slightly "faster" sounding than the 2CEs, until you connect the 2CEs up to a seriously beefy amp, at least.

If it's an original 2, it should have a dome midrange, right? The original 2 had a 2" dome mid (Audax) and the Peerless 810665/KO10MRF tweeter, while later models (2Bs) had a SEAS 11FM 4.5" cone mid and either the Peerless dome or an Audax HD25D6x8 rectangular-flange dome tweeter. Kinda looks like the Peerless, just a narrower rectangle flange (more square-ish) and without the exposed voice coil leads on the front...

Also, if it's an original 2, it should have a ribbed, un-treated paper cone woofer. 2Bs had a (Becker built) coated paper 8" woofer. I've had to recone one of the latter ones (the Becker), but never had one of the earlier ones apart...

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[RuSsMaN]

It has a mid with what appears to be a treated foam or cloth surround - 4.5", and Peerless-style tweeter. The rear woofer is active also. On that front, it is either a PR or an active woofer, WTF is Passive radiator with a voice coil? A 'true' PR? A PR is a PR, period. There is no halfway, or otherwise, and no PR has a voicecoil attached to it, what purpose would it serve?

I've got plenty of 'beef' a Carver TFM-45 at 375 wpc.

Cheers,
Russ

 

[GordonW]

Vandersteen calls it his "active acoustic coupler"... it acts like a passive radiator, except that the voice coil is driven at VERY LOW frequencies... so it actually ADDS to the bass response, below the point where a passive radiator starts to roll off. This is how, in essence, Vandersteen gets the bass extension beyond that of a similar-size ported box, but with the phase/time coherence of a sealed box. The only trade-off is efficiency... it does take a rather substantial amp to make 'em move.

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[RuSsMaN]

If it's ACTIVE, it's not PASSIVE, period. It's a flat-cone woofer, with a bandpassed (limited) freq response. Of course it ads to the bass response, its playing frequencies from roughly 26-35 Hz.

The entire speaker is in absolute phase, with impedance compensation made in the network.

The rear firing 10" woof, and front firing 8" woof both have rubber surrounds, and treated paper cones, why on earth would they ever need to be re-coned? That, and with the price of replacement drivers being so affordable, why bother with a costly re-cone?

WTF man? Are you just guessing at this?

Cheers,
Russ

 

[GordonW]

No, that bit about the "active coupler" is straight from Richard Vandersteen himself. We've had him in the store as a guest, BTW, several times. It's also explained in his literature about the 2Ce:

http://www.vandersteen.com/pages/2celit.html

The 10" coupler is in the SAME BOX as the 8" woofer in the front of the cabinet... and is DRIVEN by the back-energy in the box from the 8" woofer, just like a passive radiator, between about 35 and 60 Hz or so. Below 35 Hz, the acoustic energy provided from the 8" woofer fades away, and the active voice coil takes over from there down to 26 Hz or so (depending on version, it was like 28 Hz rolloff point on the 2Ci).

And if it's rubber surrounds, then it must be a very late model 2B or a very early 2C. 2Cs/2Ci's quickly went to a poly cone 8" woofer on the front. Vandersteen changed drivers regularly, as he found stuff that was more advantageous for him. There's been at least 5 different woofers (ribbed un-treated paper, Becker treated paper, paper cone with rubber edge, and two different Vifa poly-cone 8"), 3-4 different passive radiator/active coupler versions, 4 different midranges (Audax dome/SEAS cone/Peerless sealed-back cone/his own design with neo magnet and low-profile basket ribs), 4 different tweeters (Peerless/Audax/Vifa soft-dome/Vifa aluminum dome) over the years between the original Vandersteen 2 of 1978 and the current 2Ce Signature.

BTW: On everything but the most recent models, the revision is NOT on the label plate. All Model 2s up to the most recent ones, just said "Model 2" on the ID plate, with the "B", "C" or whatnot, in with the SERIAL NUMBER. Look and see what the serial number is... I'd bet there's either a "B" or a "C" in there...

As for the recone: Vandersteen no longer has parts for the earliest models. Heck, some of the companies he used to source drivers from, no longer EXIST. Hence, the need to recone the Becker-built woofer in the 2B, to restore it to original-operating condition...

Regards,
Gordon.