Vandersteen Audio

To put it mildly, Richard Vandersteen is not a me too kind of guy. For decades he has resolutely designed and refined products that have remained true to his philosophy of minimum phase delay, minimal baffle diffraction and time-aligned drivers. Richard has received a number of patents, both in high fidelity and other areas including aviation and scuba diving.

I have long been a fan of minimum phase designs going back to Thiel Audio (my friend Jim Thiel's speakers), and of course Vandersteen.  Richard has long been known for being practical and focused and, though I've never told him, I suspect he would have gotten along well with Leo Fender. His Model 2 is the biggest selling high performance speaker in history, and it still exists today, many incarnations later. The Treo, Quattro, and Model 7 provide a much sleeker look, with all but the Treo providing a built in sub that removes the low bass burden from your amplifier while employing a "first do no harm" approach to the crossover. These are great speakers that are known among industry insiders for providing performance that is normally reserved for products sold at twice the price.