Interview with Richard Vandersteen and Brad O’ Toole of Vandersteen Audio

Due to the positive feedback received, I have reached out to several of these “rebel” designers to give them a chance to share more information about their work and art with our readers.

We are very fortunate to have Richard Vandersteen of Vandersteen Audio, carve out some time in his busy schedule to share with us exciting news and information about Vandersteen Audio, and respond to a few questions.

Richard has been the ” heart” of Vandersteen Audio, and has remained firm about working close with his dealer network, bypassing the common current method of speaker purchases by mail. Richard has had so many unique designs, innovations, and advances in technology, for nearly 50 years, his comfort zone has been being “out of the box” and seemingly has no shortage of unique ideas which push the sonic package forward on his products.

Jeff A. Wheaton – Vandersteen Audio (VA) has been building loudspeakers since 1977 and has garnered praise from around the world for their superb sound quality year after year.

Having said that, when looking back to 1977, and looking at VA now, is where you are, what you anticipated as your goals for the company?

Richard Vandersteen – Yes, because all of it was by a plan to control quality. I never planned on becoming mainstream, as specialty is defined by “Few people Care” so this keep things manageable. I could not have planned on all our children becoming part of Vandersteen Audio as they were not here yet, but I am very happy this dream/passion will continue.

JAW – VA has thousands of customers all around the world, with the Model 2 alone, selling over 200,000 pairs (which may be on the low side) since 1977 which I believe is an Audiophile speaker sales record for an independent company.

Which element of music reproduction importance seems to be the most expressed by owners of Vandersteen Audio loudspeakers which command such loyalty?

RV – Those properties that manifest themselves because of being “Time and Phase Correct” which lowers listener fatigue, due to its natural tonal balance, pace and rhythm, leading edge clarity, and harmonic flow into the space. If you hear it the way I do, there is no other choice in the all-analog domain.

JAW – In a little over 2 years, VA will be having a 50th year anniversary. Looking over the past 50 years, what are some of your favorite breakthroughs in speaker design and any specific model you are most fond of?

RV – Being able to offer a wide range of products that are Time and Phase Correct along with material advancements allowing deeper listening into our music sources, making the experience even more enjoyable. Our Quatro CT is the magic speaker in our line as it has a little of everything I find important in a speaker including powered bass and room EQ.

JAW – Will there be any “surprise” products at the 50th anniversary? Will there be a tube line stage, a bigger, better version of the Model 7? Or perhaps something new?

RV – I would like to do something to celebrate our 50th anniversary but I’m not sure what it will be.

JAW – How have the Home Theatre market and the 2-channel market affected VA? Are you finding consumers using 1 system to fit the needs of both or are separate systems being utilized?

RV – I believe we were the first high-end speaker company to come out with a specific center channel for multi-channel audio. Most of our customers add what is required to do HT with an emphasis on two channel priorities.

JAW – Before asking questions regarding specific loudspeakers, what can you tell us about the M5-HPA amplifier? This is an unusual, cutting-edge direction for a loudspeaker company to design an amplifier optimized for your loudspeakers.

What can customers expect to hear with this optimized M5-HPA versus an amplifier off the shelf?

RV – All our more expensive speakers include powered subwoofers, so I decided to design amplifiers with Dean Klinefelter’s help which are optimized for this high-passed situation as we do not need to deal with long speaker wires or large woofers. This allows a circuit with a dozen or more components to be reduced to 5 in the signal path offering significantly greater transparency at the price because we know what the circuit is driving. Nothing special but some would say we are cheating! I believe the combination of our speakers and an optimized amplifier will bring a listener closer to a musical truth but still offer the option over a totally powered speaker. Our M7 and M5-High Pass Amplifiers cannot be used full range. They can be used with some other speakers but would need one or two of our subs to bring the bass back.

JAW – Dean Klinefelter is certainly well-known in the audiophile world. His line of PSE amplifiers and preamplifiers are still very sought after in the used market. Having an amplifier designed for the speaker load takes all the guesswork out of trying to find the “ideal amplifier” for a speaker, which as you said, many would claim is “cheating.”

JAW – Many of your speakers have been described as having an ‘open, panel-like” sound quality free of colorations. How much of this has to do with your proprietary drivers?

RV – It has to do with minimum baffles (less diffraction), one driver per frequency range above 200Hz (multiple drivers smear each other), time and phase alignment (transients involving multiple drivers speak together and in the same phase), and the need for custom wide bandwidth drivers. Every component in our system is time and phase correct so why not make the speaker comply.

JAW – I owned a pair of Model 2C speakers in the mid 1980s for over 10 years and found them very forgiving with many different amplifiers, tube or solid state. Will you be expanding your excellent amplifier line for more speaker applications?

RV – I don’t have any plans to make conventional electronics only those that are out of the box solutions.

JAW – This must be where your dealer network takes over and helps the customer find the ideal amplifier for the speakers they choose to optimize against their room size, and choice of music. Does your dealer network have an informal “list” of amplifiers which are recognized as amplifiers to use, and known to work well with your speakers? I recall from the 80s, several dealers I visited with Vandersteen speakers carried both PSE and Quicksilver Audio.

RV – I will ask Brad O’Toole of the Sales Team to take this one and answer this as he interacts with our dealers.

BOT – This is Brad O’Toole – Sales. Richard asked me to jump in and answer this one as I interact with the dealers worldwide. I took a moment to think about what our dealers are using on the Treo CT to see if there is a formula. There is minimal overlap, unlike in the 80s, as mentioned. Our dealers spend hundreds of hours trying different electronics, cables, and accessories to understand how Vandersteen interacts with each piece and if they synergize, or not. There is no set formula, but all are making sonic value they believe in, and one they believe will please many potential listeners, or their job is much more complicated than it needs to be. As a result, they know what to change if you need adjustments to your listening tastes. This represents tremendous effort and financial investment that customers can enjoy by walking in and sitting down to listen. So, I guess I am saying no, there is not an informal “list” or ideal match, but there is a wealth of knowledge available among our dealers.

JAW – This would seem to save consumers considerable time, money, and frustration, having to search on their own to find what combination of amplification and speakers would be ideal, in their listening room, at home. This is a common complaint I hear repeated, and some audiophiles are caught in a buy-sell-buy-sell circle of frustration. This “wealth of knowledge” would seem to also create long-term relationships of trust with dealers and consumers.

JAW – Before moving further into speakers, I understand you are expanding your electronic offerings of amplifiers to preamplifiers. I understand your new preamplifier will be very much in the Vandersteen mold of being another “out of the box” design by your team, which will offer unique, useful features. Can you share some of these features?

RV – We have announced our L5-ACC which is a line stage with a “Smoke and Mirrors” fully defeatable section. Stay tuned for further details. We are not making a phono stage or any digital products.

JAW – Will you be offering a tube version in the future?

RV – We are planning on an all-tube version in a few years.

JAW – Your Model 7 XTRM has garnered praise from around the world. What can you tell us about this unique loudspeaker and the innovations present? What makes this speaker so special?

RV – The SEVEN series speaker uses our patented Carbon/Balsa diaphragms for the mid-bass, midrange, and tweeter which are totally pistonic at the frequencies used and an inert cabinet that offers very low distortion added to the normal speaker parameters of all our speakers. Cost no object approach to what I believe a speaker should be as a neutral transducer with as little color as possible.

JAW – I have always enjoyed the musicality of your Model 5A. The KĒNTO Carbon is now filling in that price point. What can you share about the KĒNTO Carbon speaker?

RV – The Model 5 series has been discontinued and replaced by the KĒNTO because the structure of the Five was not conducive to further refinements in crossover and driver developments. Although based on the Quatro it performs more like a junior SEVEN than a hot-rodded Quatro. A demo will easily show these advancements.

JAW – Vandersteen Audio has a long history of Time and Phase-correct designs with proprietary low-mass drivers, designed in-house, representing a firm commitment to the scientific part of loudspeaker design. This goes all the way back to the beginning of VA. For the entire nearly 50 years of VA, you have managed to have this magical balance of both science and art. You use a listening panel and trust both science and ears. Can you describe a little of how this works? VA is certainly not known for a MKII upgrade every 6 months. Having this balance would seem to slow down the time a product gets to market until it both measures good and sounds good.

RV – Everything is based on listening and measurements discovered nearly 50 years ago with live vs recorded experiments. I purchased test equipment to verify these results and began to optimize them over the years. New discoveries are very hard to come by and we apply them once they are mature enough to bring to the market. It has been my experience that it takes doubling the investment to make a discernible improvement from top to bottom which makes it very difficult/impossible to design intermediate models. Today we add our dealers’ and customers’ comments to our listening panel as they have been exposed to anything they want to sell or buy and help design systems around them that have synergy.

JAW – I want to thank the team at Vandersteen Audio for nearly 50 years of faithful, musical products, and for sharing with Secrets of Home Theatre and High Fidelity more of the reasons your products consistently reproduce music so accurately.