What's funny here is that I take a relatively balanced view of Vandersteen speakers. If you have articulate upstream gear, and listen to high end Focal speakers, and Vandersteen 2Ce Signature III's you are going to hear more details with the Focals.
Why people take this as a personal attack is interesting. Focals are not bright, so if they are more detailed than Vandersteens, then by definition, Vandersteens are warmer/darker.
Objective truths are not attacks, they just are. As previously stated, IME, most people prefer warmer equipment. It's neither a good nor a bad thing, it's a chocolate vs vanilla choice.
Vandersteens being warmer than Focals doesn't mean they are the darkest of dark, it just means that there is information, generally at higher frequencies, that are more easily discerned with other speakers.
It would seem that for many that information is fatiguing. Again, chocolate vs vanilla. Personally I want every detail in the recording to be audible. This absolutely means that there are recordings that are difficult or even all but impossible to listen to. Chocolate vs vanilla.
Most people while acknowledging the clarity of my system wouldn't choose such a system for themselves.
One other issue is that it necessarily precludes the use of equipment that might not be objectionable with a warmer system, but with a neutral system the least amount of brightness makes such gear unlistenable.
When CD players were all the rage, I used to us a lot of Linear Technology opamps. They were quite bright, but due to my warm system they just sounded detailed.
That said, there are different forms of brightness, at least 2. One is tipping up highs, the other is outright distorted highs. The TL opamps I was using disproportionately amplified the highs.
Until I got into more neutral gear, I had no idea because the warmer gear was muffling those highs.
Chasing details I bought and sold a lot of older gear back in the day. I'd chase my tail looking for something that would do X, because of a preceived lack of that quality in my system.
Eventually I began collecting more neutral equipment. Tail chasing ended, and the improvements became increasingly small and incremental.
The one troubling issue remaining were speakers. I refuse to spend tens of thousands of dollars on speakers.
Perhaps the Linwitz LX531.4 is the ultimate, but then you get into finding neutral crossovers and amplifiers. I have a Parasound JC5 Halo amp. Buying 3 more is crazy, and IME lesser amps are lesser amps, though the latest GaN amplifiers appear to be pretty awesome. Anyway, it's too big a money pit for me.
So while I had gone from ARs, to Quad 57ELSs, to Acoustat 3s to Vany 1As, to Acoustat 3300's, etc., I always liked the big Vandersteens and Thiels in theory, and Thiel 3.7's in particular. I just wasn't ready to spend the money, and Vandersteens were too warm for me.
Anyway, I began tweaking crossovers. Vandersteen experience covered above. I found that very expensive speakers often had low sound quality parts.
I had a pair of Revel F208 Performa 3s. I bypassed their caps in the audio path with V-Caps and had a completely different sounding speaker. Yet when played, cymbals, for instance, were dull/muted as compared to a full range speaker with no crossover. I didn't have the proper value resistors on hand, so I had left the sand cast resistors in circuit. 3 Mills won-Inductive wirewound resistors per speaker later and minus time and phase alignment, they were very good sounding speakers.
Caladans didn't improve with V-Cap bypasses, Clayton was using a really nice bypass capacitor already.
I have done time and phase aligned B&Ws, and Kefs as well. I don't seem to be as phase and time aligned sensitive as many other are.
So, the earlier Vandy 2s I looked at had issues making bypassing a negative thing. So I'd still love to check out the new 2 version 3's, or 3A Signatures. Why, because without a sound speaker to begin with, results are doomed. Bad designs are laid bare with good components be it a CDP, DAC, an Amp, or a pair of speakers, IME.
YMMV
IME, details are very dependent on good crossover components.
Why people take this as a personal attack is interesting. Focals are not bright, so if they are more detailed than Vandersteens, then by definition, Vandersteens are warmer/darker.
Objective truths are not attacks, they just are. As previously stated, IME, most people prefer warmer equipment. It's neither a good nor a bad thing, it's a chocolate vs vanilla choice.
Vandersteens being warmer than Focals doesn't mean they are the darkest of dark, it just means that there is information, generally at higher frequencies, that are more easily discerned with other speakers.
It would seem that for many that information is fatiguing. Again, chocolate vs vanilla. Personally I want every detail in the recording to be audible. This absolutely means that there are recordings that are difficult or even all but impossible to listen to. Chocolate vs vanilla.
Most people while acknowledging the clarity of my system wouldn't choose such a system for themselves.
One other issue is that it necessarily precludes the use of equipment that might not be objectionable with a warmer system, but with a neutral system the least amount of brightness makes such gear unlistenable.
When CD players were all the rage, I used to us a lot of Linear Technology opamps. They were quite bright, but due to my warm system they just sounded detailed.
That said, there are different forms of brightness, at least 2. One is tipping up highs, the other is outright distorted highs. The TL opamps I was using disproportionately amplified the highs.
Until I got into more neutral gear, I had no idea because the warmer gear was muffling those highs.
Chasing details I bought and sold a lot of older gear back in the day. I'd chase my tail looking for something that would do X, because of a preceived lack of that quality in my system.
Eventually I began collecting more neutral equipment. Tail chasing ended, and the improvements became increasingly small and incremental.
The one troubling issue remaining were speakers. I refuse to spend tens of thousands of dollars on speakers.
Perhaps the Linwitz LX531.4 is the ultimate, but then you get into finding neutral crossovers and amplifiers. I have a Parasound JC5 Halo amp. Buying 3 more is crazy, and IME lesser amps are lesser amps, though the latest GaN amplifiers appear to be pretty awesome. Anyway, it's too big a money pit for me.
So while I had gone from ARs, to Quad 57ELSs, to Acoustat 3s to Vany 1As, to Acoustat 3300's, etc., I always liked the big Vandersteens and Thiels in theory, and Thiel 3.7's in particular. I just wasn't ready to spend the money, and Vandersteens were too warm for me.
Anyway, I began tweaking crossovers. Vandersteen experience covered above. I found that very expensive speakers often had low sound quality parts.
I had a pair of Revel F208 Performa 3s. I bypassed their caps in the audio path with V-Caps and had a completely different sounding speaker. Yet when played, cymbals, for instance, were dull/muted as compared to a full range speaker with no crossover. I didn't have the proper value resistors on hand, so I had left the sand cast resistors in circuit. 3 Mills won-Inductive wirewound resistors per speaker later and minus time and phase alignment, they were very good sounding speakers.
Caladans didn't improve with V-Cap bypasses, Clayton was using a really nice bypass capacitor already.
I have done time and phase aligned B&Ws, and Kefs as well. I don't seem to be as phase and time aligned sensitive as many other are.
So, the earlier Vandy 2s I looked at had issues making bypassing a negative thing. So I'd still love to check out the new 2 version 3's, or 3A Signatures. Why, because without a sound speaker to begin with, results are doomed. Bad designs are laid bare with good components be it a CDP, DAC, an Amp, or a pair of speakers, IME.
YMMV
IME, details are very dependent on good crossover components.
