Break in period

[ghamilton]

I just bought a new pair of 2 Sig lll.

They seem to sound uninvolving and a bit dull. Will this pass after break in?

[Holmz]

I’d leave em on for a week or return them.
They are not generally bright and fatiguing.
And some people just like more of a sparkly speaker.
(the main thing that changes is a bit more bass, so in your case it seems like they are not bright enough?)

It’s probably best to talk to the dealer and make a plan if they are not suited to your wants.

They certainly do one less good if they don’t like the sound, so I would not wait too long before reaching out.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Holmz

[Richard Vandersteen]

4 hours ago, ghamilton said:

I just bought a new pair of 2 Sig lll.

They seem to sound uninvolving and a bit dull. Will this pass after break in?

ghamilton, they will become more coherent, and the bass will clean up as the resonant frequencies of the suspensions come into proper alignment.  They will not become more Technicolor or bright unless the program material is.  Part of break-in is the speaker changing but also allowing the listener to accept a new standard.  After time one stops focusing on the speaker and what it does and discovers they just get out of the way and let the music play.  This is not the mindset we have when making an expensive purchase as we expect the speaker to impress and remind us, we are playing Hi-Fi, but they were designed to not call attention to themselves.  If you want the speaker to constantly impress, they may be wrong for your expectations.  Break-in is not dramatic but is a refinement and most enjoy how they get out of the way of the music.  Setup especially tilt is very important as is filling the Bases with dry sand.  Call your Dealer for help getting the most out of them along with the members of this forum as they know how to make Vandersteen's sing.  RV

[stratocaster]

@ghamilton I saw the picture you posted of your setup on FB. You need to try to place them a little apart and listen to the differences. I sent you a video of how far apart my Sig IIs are for reference.  It took me a while to get the improvements I was looking for but at the end of the day room size and acoustics will determine how they sound and what needs to be adjusted.

[TomicTime]

i am not on Facebook, can OP post a picture of setup…. I heard @stratocasterwell setup 2’s recently…. musical and involving…. we want to help OP get the most out of your new speakers / system.

Jim

[ctsooner]

Gary, I read your post on FB (as I always do).  I'm with the rest as to proper set up and taking the time up front to do it correctly.  What the speakers will do as you know, is show up all the warts upstream.  I've noticed that with various speaker upgrades I've personally done over the years, but for some reason, upgrading TO the Treo's (originally) showed me how revealing they are.  I've heard various Vandersteen's with uber expensive equipment to 2's run with the $499 NAD integrated and a very inexpensive TT.  Never fatiguing, but highly revealing in their price ranges.  As Richard pointed out, it's often the recordings. 

Keep us posted, but I'm sure you will get them broken and and dialed in soon! 🙂. Enjoy the music Gary.

[ghamilton]

Still working on placement. It's getting better but week center fill.

[BKDad]

Here's my 2 cents, which isn't much given inflation over the decades...

It looks like you are sitting on a chair like an Ekornes lounger or something similar.  (Great choice, BTW!)  Unless you have a really long torso, that tends to place your ears relatively low to the floor and maybe below the optimum height for listening to Vandersteen loudspeakers.  You can test this wild guess by putting some pillows between your, ahh, chair interface and the chair itself to raise your body.  See where you like the sound the best.  Then, adjust the tilt of the loudspeakers to align them with your normal sitting position.  Getting your ears at the proper level is a big deal with these loudspeakers.  This is explained in the user manual in some detail.

In addition, it looks like the speakers are toed in a fair amount.  This could be a photographic illusion, of course.  Anyway, I've never found good results by doing that, either with our previous 2Ci's or our current Quatro CT's.  Even though our speakers are further apart than yours, they are barely toed in at all.  I just measured and our CT's are 22.25" from the inside top back of the cabinet to the rear wall and 22.75" from the outside top back.  That's a whopping 1/2 inch of toe-in.  Yeah, the cabinet dimensions of the 2 series are different, so that number wouldn't necessarily apply for you.  But, that does illustrate how little toe-in there is.  I'm sure others will have differing opinions on that, but the toe-in will affect the center fill.

Finally, what's under your carpet?  If it's concrete, it's always helpful to poke the spikes right through the carpet onto the concrete surface.  If you have wood floors, you might consider adding a granite base between the speaker base and the carpet.  You can get those at a very reasonable price from your favorite custom counter top fabricator.  That has worked very, very well for me and I know other Vandersteen owners have had good luck with that as well.   Vandersteen sells some spike sneakers that work just great atop a granite base.  They prevent the spikes from sliding on the granite and are just right "acousto-mechanically", in a Goldilocks sense, too.

It may be that you don't even have the spikes screwed into the bases yet since you are busy finding the best locations for the speakers.  That probably means that the tilt isn't set yet.  My own experience is that tilt and getting the bases right have a really large effect on the overall clarity of the loudspeaker presentation.

When you get it right, you shouldn't be able to tell where the loudspeakers are from the sound.  Different sound sources will have different apparent widths, heights, and depths.  That's also a function of the equipment you use with the speakers.  It's surprising and a little maddening how much of a difference that all can make.  

"It's always something." - Roseanne Roseannadanna

[TomicTime]

what is ear height at listening position ? Chin height approximate this very well, then follow manual…. for TILT….. 

[ghamilton]

Still working on placement. It's getting better but week center fill.

[ghamilton]

They are about 43 in apart measured from insides. My ears are about 37 in high. I am about 9 ft from the speakers. I have about a 1 in tilt.
Room is 12 ft wide behind speakers.
14 ft long. 9 ft ceiling.

[TomicTime]

the illusion of stereo is closely related to an equilateral triangle….  move your chair forward into the 6’ range or move speakers farther apart….or a bit of both.

just my $.02 

[Holmz]

A bit of chaos central, but when I look at mine versus your setup I see that mine are spaced wider and with only touch of toe.

Even with all the moving crap flotsam, and the bike in the way, it still sounds pretty o’rioght.
But mine are certainly broken in by now…

[ctsooner]

Gary, if you are able to set them up the way that BK and Jim are sharing, I promise you will be much happier.  It's funny as we always talk about proper ear height etc... with Vandersteen's, but honestly, it's like that with nearly any speaker I listen to.  I know a few who have 2's and 3's and did the granite (I use slabs for Quatros) over wood floors and heard a nice difference.  There is a great thread on here somewhere where we talk about that (if you haven't already read that thread).  Keep moving them and sharing pics and thoughts.  It will be interesting to see what your favorite dimensions are.  Have fun with this.

[nymarty]

I have 3a Sigs and agree with the recommendations.  You’re too far from the speakers given how close they are to each other.  Either move them further apart (preferred) or move your listening position in. I sit just inside an  equilateral triangle with the center of the speakers and the center fill is strong —- without any toe-in.  Also, try with no tilt at all since you sit relatively low.  Lastly, curtains for that glass.  I have same situation and have thick pleated paper blinds down when listening.  Makes a big difference and I even need to change that to curtains or something even thicker.  Good luck.  

[ghamilton]

They are about 43 in apart measured from insides. My ears are about 37 in high. I am about 9 ft from the speakers. I have about a 1 in tilt.
Room is 12 ft wide behind speakers.
14 ft long. 9 ft ceiling.

[ghamilton]

Well I pulled my seat away from the wall behind me about a foot and I started to get some center fill with certain music.

Also tried pointing speakers less toed in but that took away center fill. So I toed them back in. Better now.

 

[aubbrin570]

This placement can drive you nuts.  I know it did me but when you find it, trust me it's incredible.  When I first got mine I thought I made a mistake in the purchase.  I stuck with it and finally got what it is, and will be hard to beat.  All music genres and even bad recordings draw you in.

I tried the manual and got ok results but wanted more. Tried Cardas method and so many others.

For me, the key was the bass was hardest to get right and needed to happen first.   I have a 12x17 room and have my chair about 1/4 into the room.(dedicated listening room)  Then I moved the chair and placed one single Vandy model 2 where my chair is, but upside down to get the woofer close to ear/listening height.  Hooked the low end of the speaker up to my amp only(not the tweeter section) Playing some thick bass recording,  I crawled on my hands and knees, (close to normal right side up woofer height which is close to the floor) all over the possible spots for placement on the left side and marked each spot that sounded good with tape.  Only listening for full and balanced bass.  If I got close to my corner, bass got boomy, too far into the room it got lean, but detailed.  Found the happy medium and moved the speaker there.  Once that was done, matched the right one to the left and done!  From my chair, I have the best bass these speakers can make.  Toe and tilt can now take place for the mids/highs but shift/move the speakers or you will loose the "calibrated" bass.  I had to add some absorption panels to first and second reflection points.  Now I hear the direct sound from the speakers only, and not the room reflections, as this was causing smear and probably comb filtering.   Ended up with zero toe in and zero tilt for me but it could be different for every room.   Point is it took some real work but wow, worth it.

[BKDad]

2 minutes ago, aubbrin570 said:

(the rest of the post)...  Point is it took some real work but wow, worth it.

Very clever!

[aubbrin570]

2 minutes ago, BKDad said:

Very clever!

Thanks!  

Just make sure if you do this trick that your family is not home when you are crawling around the floor.  They will make fun of you.  Don't ask how I know...

[BKDad]

I did it the olde fashioned way.   I still got/get made fun of.

Quatro's probably don't like to be stood on their heads, anyway.   Don't try that at home, kids.

One of the really big advantages of the more expensive Vandersteen speakers is that you can adjust the subwoofer to get the right bass response.  This gives you more freedom to place the speakers where you get the best performance for the sound coming from the mid-woofer on up.  Then dial in the subwoofer.

I still am impressed by your creative solution.

[ctsooner]

Love the thread.  Ever since my ability to make a lot of changes with speaker placement was diminished greatly, I just decided to enjoy what I do have and not worry about what I am missing.  When friends come over who are able to help move things and also know what they are doing, it'll make an adjustment or two.  I may get better sound (nearly always and not with much movement), but I still love what I hear regardless.  It took me until my 50's to truly realize that I loved the music as much and probable more than my gear.  Do I have to turn in my audiophile card for this faux pas?

[Richard Vandersteen]

2 hours ago, aubbrin570 said:

This placement can drive you nuts.  I know it did me but when you find it, trust me it's incredible.  When I first got mine I thought I made a mistake in the purchase.  I stuck with it and finally got what it is, and will be hard to beat.  All music genres and even bad recordings draw you in.

I tried the manual and got ok results but wanted more. Tried Cardas method and so many others.

For me, the key was the bass was hardest to get right and needed to happen first.   I have a 12x17 room and have my chair about 1/4 into the room.(dedicated listening room)  Then I moved the chair and placed one single Vandy model 2 where my chair is, but upside down to get the woofer close to ear/listening height.  Hooked the low end of the speaker up to my amp only(not the tweeter section) Playing some thick bass recording,  I crawled on my hands and knees, (close to normal right side up woofer height which is close to the floor) all over the possible spots for placement on the left side and marked each spot that sounded good with tape.  Only listening for full and balanced bass.  If I got close to my corner, bass got boomy, too far into the room it got lean, but detailed.  Found the happy medium and moved the speaker there.  Once that was done, matched the right one to the left and done!  From my chair, I have the best bass these speakers can make.  Toe and tilt can now take place for the mids/highs but shift/move the speakers or you will loose the "calibrated" bass.  I had to add some absorption panels to first and second reflection points.  Now I hear the direct sound from the speakers only, and not the room reflections, as this was causing smear and probably comb filtering.   Ended up with zero toe in and zero tilt for me but it could be different for every room.   Point is it took some real work but wow, worth it.

aubbrin570, what are the dimensions you ended up with?  Almost always it will end up being 1/3, 1/5, 1/7, 1/9 or 1/11 ratio for each dimension but not necessarily the same one.  Trying all those ratios looking for the best coupling to the room is what the ratios are all about.  RV

[aubbrin570]

RV,
They are slightly more than 1/7 into the room from front wall. They are slightly less than 1/5 into the room from side walls(I had to get home and measure) hopefully that is what you were asking? Acoustics center is 30” from front wall and 25.5” from side wall, in other words.

[BKDad]

Are you in Australia or otherwise below the equator?