Vandersteen 2C Klippel data by "hardisj"

[SPOautos]

I took my Vandersteen 2C to forum member @hardisj aka Erin of Erin's Audio Corner and left them for a month or so for him to play around with them and test them with his Klippel. Super nice guy. Anyway, I know a lot of people were curious how they would test. Here is a link to all his testing data on his website https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/vandersteen_model_2/

He hasnt published the video yet but when he does I'll update the post with that as well.

 

[Rick Sykora]

Thanks for sharing!

I owned a pair of these and a pair of 1Bs of comparable vintage. I liked them both for different types of music, but after I moved on, they got stored in the basement and got victimized by flooding during the "storm of the century". At that point I salvaged them for parts. I offered to send the parts to Vandersteen but they were not interested. I still have woofers and midranges...

The woofer and the tweeter were both known models from established brands. Pretty sure the tweeter used ferrofluid, so that has likely dried up on the ones Erin tested. The midrange is harder to determine but later measured mine and found them to be one of the best midrange drivers I have encountered. The crossover was a mixed bag. It was entirely coated something like epoxy and so the only marginally salvageable parts were a few inductors. Originally thought Vandersteen had coated to protect IP, but later realized it was more likely done to prevent vibration.

Given the quality of the midrange, the frequency response issues may be more likely due to the measurement axis and cabinet design. Despite some clear use of molded parts and felt, always seemed that the top of the unit could be problematic.

Anyway, Stereophile reviewed them a few times over the years and that is here. It appears their measurements were for the 2Ci and do not offer much that can be compared to Erin's effort. The 80s Stereophile measurement equipment was not up to the resolution of a contemporary Klippel NFS.

 

[richard12511]

Actually looks not bad for a speaker made in 1977. Though there are many "resonances", the overall tonality shape looks mostly correct. Similar to the JBL 4309, but without the stellar directivity. That said, the horizontal globe and beam plots are better than I would have guessed them to be.

@hardisj , did you measure a step or impulse response?

 

[Holmz]

Firstly: Thanks @SPOautos and @hardisj

As I have a set of these as well. I have a few questions…

1)

Though there are many "resonances", the overall tonality shape looks mostly correct...

You mean lobes? Or actual resonances like in cabinet resonances?

2) I have been toying with the moving on the PrimaLuna Tube amp… And the VTLs always seem to have one monoblock or the other not working… So I have been thinking about Class-D and maybe using a Hypex 253 (250w/250w/125w) plate amp.

2b) Is it a totally bone headed concept to consider ripping out the passive XO, and Tri-amping the 2C?

2c) Can that lobing be fixed with time delay, and maybe ALLPASS filters in the Hypex DSP?

3) Should I be concerned with the harmonic distortion pod the drivers?


Basically I have been considering making some speakers for a while, but the cabinet scares me to an extent (and passive XOs more so), and while I have some accelerometers for measuring resonance, I am more focussing on cabinets and tables for the gear… than speaker cabinets.

There are some things with the 2C that seem well thought out, and the nuance could take a career to work out… which, looking at the calendar… is getting a bit late.

Hence; the idea of hot rodding what I have… or do we have fundamental flaws that I cannot get around? Which make it a biome headed concept?

Ex:

… That said, the horizontal globe and beam plots are better than I would have guessed them to be.

…

 

[mightycicadalord]

I heard these at a coworkers house recently and the measurements here line up with what I heard. I didn't really like them. Erins subjective review lines up with what I heard to a T. I was able to play my own music so the deficencies were really obvious. Coworkers were cool, they knew about ASR but don't like it as they said they disagree with Amir's mission statement (does he even have one?). They were young, had some other speakers, all what I'd consider "vibey hifi" stuff. Invited them to come hear some genelecs in a treated space but no one took the offer.

All in all an enlightening experience like Erin said that makes me happy to own neutral speakers.

 

[Daverz]

Nice to have this vintage speaker measured as a sort of baseline. I wonder how more recent 2 models do (the latest is the 2CE Signature III).

 

[SPOautos]

Firstly: Thanks @SPOautos and @hardisj

As I have a set of these as well. I have a few questions…

1)

You mean lobes? Or actual resonances like in cabinet resonances?

2) I have been toying with the moving on the PrimaLuna Tube amp… And the VTLs always seem to have one monoblock or the other not working… So I have been thinking about Class-D and maybe using a Hypex 253 (250w/250w/125w) plate amp.

2b) Is it a totally bone headed concept to consider ripping out the passive XO, and Tri-amping the 2C?

2c) Can that lobing be fixed with time delay, and maybe ALLPASS filters in the Hypex DSP?

3) Should I be concerned with the harmonic distortion pod the drivers?


Basically I have been considering making some speakers for a while, but the cabinet scares me to an extent (and passive XOs more so), and while I have some accelerometers for measuring resonance, I am more focussing on cabinets and tables for the gear… than speaker cabinets.

There are some things with the 2C that seem well thought out, and the nuance could take a career to work out… which, looking at the calendar… is getting a bit late.

Hence; the idea of hot rodding what I have… or do we have fundamental flaws that I cannot get around? Which make it a biome headed concept?

Ex:

I've wondered if just putting updated drivers and a custom crossover, would really breath new life into them. Since the 2 series is still made today, in its 8th version, I assume they got a little better with each version. From what I'm seeing, the only real changes over the years has just been updated drivers and crossovers....I *think* the overall design and structure is still the same. That said, I'd imagine the best you could hope for is to get then sounding as good as the current version....but is that good enough? Theres obviously better sounding speakers out there as even within the Vandersteen brand, the 2 series is second from the bottom. So I guess it just depends on your goal and
how good you want them to be. Maybe you could put some extremely expensive drivers and crossover components in the 2C and have something better than the current 2C (which I suppose is built on a budget)....but at what expense? It may be better to start with a different speaker that has a better foundation.

 

[SPOautos]

On a side note, it is pretty dang amazing in the electronics world that there is something designed in 1977....nearly 45yrs ago (actually I bet over 45 years from when he started working in the design)....and is still being made. The overall design has barely been changed in all these years! Basically it's got new drivers and crossover tweaks over the 8 generations. That is really amazing. What are some other speakers or electronics that have been on the market for 45yrs with minimal changes???

 

[Blumlein 88]

Firstly: Thanks @SPOautos and @hardisj

As I have a set of these as well. I have a few questions…

1)

You mean lobes? Or actual resonances like in cabinet resonances?

2) I have been toying with the moving on the PrimaLuna Tube amp… And the VTLs always seem to have one monoblock or the other not working… So I have been thinking about Class-D and maybe using a Hypex 253 (250w/250w/125w) plate amp.

2b) Is it a totally bone headed concept to consider ripping out the passive XO, and Tri-amping the 2C?

2c) Can that lobing be fixed with time delay, and maybe ALLPASS filters in the Hypex DSP?

3) Should I be concerned with the harmonic distortion pod the drivers?


Basically I have been considering making some speakers for a while, but the cabinet scares me to an extent (and passive XOs more so), and while I have some accelerometers for measuring resonance, I am more focussing on cabinets and tables for the gear… than speaker cabinets.

There are some things with the 2C that seem well thought out, and the nuance could take a career to work out… which, looking at the calendar… is getting a bit late.

Hence; the idea of hot rodding what I have… or do we have fundamental flaws that I cannot get around? Which make it a biome headed concept?

Ex:

The off axis lobing is coming from the use of 1st order crossovers. Not really something you can fix.

 

[Holmz]

… It may be better to start with a different speaker that has a better foundation.

What would you recommend?
What “foundational“ part is limiting it?

I mean I could throw a bunch of drivers in a box, but if that box is resonating and rattling, and the drivers have diffraction happening, then that will not be making a good foundation.

What part of the foundation would be a limiter other than the drivers and the passive crossover?

The off axis lobing is coming from the use of 1st order crossovers. Not really something you can fix.

Did you read my section #2 about going active, and using the DSP for the crossover?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Did you read my section #2 about going active, and using the DSP for the crossover?

I did, and of course you could switch from 1st order to 4th order. As the speaker is constructed as it is just to make 1st order workable, I don't know how much the results would improve. Or if they would. Why go to all that expense and trouble when you could just buy a more modern speaker? Unless you just dig them that much, and that itself has intrinsic value.

A friend of mine is always the guy doing the silk purse from a sow's ear route. He loves modding things that give unexpectedly good results. He is prone to going well off the deep end. At which point, you would be better off just buying the silk purse. You of course miss out on all the positive feedback and satisfaction of your own efforts making something much better than expected. That value only accrues to you however.

The Vandersteen's were pretty good in their day. I've had friends that owned them and have listened to them quite a lot.

 

[Rick Sykora]

I've wondered if just putting updated drivers and a custom crossover, would really breath new life into them. Since the 2 series is still made today, in its 8th version, I assume they got a little better with each version. From what I'm seeing, the only real changes over the years has just been updated drivers and crossovers....I *think* the overall design and structure is still the same. That said, I'd imagine the best you could hope for is to get then sounding as good as the current version....but is that good enough? Theres obviously better sounding speakers out there as even within the Vandersteen brand, the 2 series is second from the bottom. So I guess it just depends on your goal and
how good you want them to be. Maybe you could put some extremely expensive drivers and crossover components in the 2C and have something better than the current 2C (which I suppose is built on a budget)....but at what expense? It may be better to start with a different speaker that has a better foundation.

These are difficult speakers to mod. Along with the cabinet top likely causing reflections, could never get the bass to sound right to me. Erin’s measurements do show some higher bass distortion across the board than other speakers.

Otoh, if I still had, would replace the tweeter, and consider active bass. Would leave the HF passive crossover alone and experiment with the bass alignment. Not sure whether it is that active coupler or something else, but liked the bass better on my 1Bs and they did not use.

 

[hardisj]

Nice to have this vintage speaker measured as a sort of baseline. I wonder how more recent 2 models do (the latest is the 2CE Signature III).

I actually emailed Vandersteen over a year ago asking if I could get a loaner set of their newer speakers. No reply. I may try one last time and send them the link to the measurements of the 2c... maybe they'll see I'm serious about wanting to understand their designs a bit more.

 

[squeedle]

I actually emailed Vandersteen over a year ago asking if I could get a loaner set of their newer speakers. No reply. I may try one last time and send them the link to the measurements of the 2c... maybe they'll see I'm serious about wanting to understand their designs a bit more.

Wish you were closer, I have 2CE Signatures, am dying to see results for them and would love a road trip to drop them off but you HELLA FAR.

 

[pozz]

@SPOautos Thanks so much for sending these speakers to Erin. I love seing high resolution, modern measurements of vintage classics. Really helps contextualize the old debates and current approaches.

 

[Holmz]

I actually emailed Vandersteen over a year ago asking if I could get a loaner set of their newer speakers. No reply. I may try one last time and send them the link to the measurements of the 2c... maybe they'll see I'm serious about wanting to understand their designs a bit more.

Their website shows a dealer in Atlanta, Ga. I think they might be the closest?
Maybe they have interest?

HiFi Buys
3157 Peachtree Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA 30305
770 931 0606
https://hifibuys.com

 

[hardisj]

I just added this bit to my review. I planned to discuss this in the video review but apparently people just assume the worst when someone doesn't like a speaker they do so I had to go back in and add it to the written review...


"Note: I know people are sticklers for positioning and a proper listening experience means time should be taken to find the ideal axis to listen at and place the speakers in the room. While I did not have the OEM stands, I did, of course, take the time to try a few positions and sitting heights to find what worked best in-room. Looking around online, I found the OEM stands have a slight tilt to them so I experimented a bit with that as I moved the speaker about the room as well. Though, I do find it odd that so much attention was put into the physical offset of the drivers to time align them via the large step-stair enclosures *yet* the design still uses a stand that has a physical tilt as well to time align them. Seems a bit redundant to me. One would think you'd have one or the other and not need stands to do what the actual build of the speaker seemed intent on doing. Moving on... The best location in the room wound up being with the speakers pulled about 3 feet from the front wall which was really no big surprise. In my room nearly every speaker I have listened to thus far has sounded better at about this distance with the exception of a rare few (Dutch & Dutch 8c and a couple other DIY designs that were designed with an anechoic droop so that the listener could place them closer to the front walls). I have seen some say that these sound best facing directly forward but in my case the treble droop and midrange dip were much worse in this case so placing them on-axis yielded the best tonality with a tradeoff of stereo width. That's normal, though. As for vertical positioning, normally it is assumed the tweeter axis is ideal. I didn't find documentation stating anything else was ideal and without that I was left to go with the "norm". But when listening subjectively, I always move above and below the designed (or assumed) target axis. In which case, I did sit both above and below the tweeter. As I state below, sitting above the tweeter line is a bad idea. Sitting below is reasonable but there is a significant loss in HF detail even as you go to -5° of the tweeter line. The speaker sounds quite harsh because the upper-midrange is boosted relative to the treble. And - not surprisingly - the data tells the same story."


I hope that helps clear up any confusion going forward.

 

[hardisj]

Always remember: audio is supposed to be fun.

Blast from the Past!!!! Vandersteen Model 2c Review.

 

[Ericglo]

Their website shows a dealer in Atlanta, Ga. I think they might be the closest?
Maybe they have interest?

HiFi Buys
3157 Peachtree Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA 30305
770 931 0606
https://hifibuys.com

They used to be a major retailer in Atlanta with a couple of locations. Not sure they would ship a speaker, but may loan one if Erin picked it up. Kind of a hump though.

 

[Holmz]

They used to be a major retailer in Atlanta with a couple of locations. Not sure they would ship a speaker, but may loan one if Erin picked it up. Kind of a hump though.

Can someone photoshop Erin’s picture on here?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GzDSYCqX7vo/TKbFatwwRYI/AAAAAAAABxc/809NfzPo_3A/s1600/Have%2BGun%2BWill%2BTravel.jpg