New Vistas

[amey01]

After a long audition a week ago, I'll be picking up a pair of dark cherry Vistas this evening. Will post pics in due course.

This wasn't an easy decision as the Vistas do a couple of things worse than my current Aerius speakers, however in the final analysis of it they do a lot more right than wrong! I hope further listening will confirm this!

 

[ralflar]

Adam,

Interesting. I plan to upgrade from my Aeons to Vistas or Vantages myself, or even Summ it up, who knows.

Which aspects of the Aerius do you prefer over the Vistas and vice versa?

 

[amey01]

Adam,

Interesting. I plan to upgrade from my Aeons to Vistas or Vantages myself, or even Summ it up, who knows.

Which aspects of the Aerius do you prefer over the Vistas and vice versa?

Honestly, I spent many many hours listening. The Aerius really have a better bass in my opinion - it seems more controlled, more musical. The Vistas go deeper and seem to have a bit more definition, but also a bit more mechanical. I'm not sure why this is, however the panel on the Vistas are great - better in every way - that is what made the decision for me.

 

[ralflar]

Ah, so it is just what I hoped it was, the improvement is mainly in the panels. The Vistas' bass can be fixed with a decent pair of subwoofers anyway. As far as I know the Aerius bass cabinet is sealed while the Vista uses a bass reflex setup. I am not too thrilled about that myself although it works well enough in my Aeons. Thanks for the info.

 

[sleepysurf]

Interesting, as I also noticed some loss of bass control/clarity when moving from my Aerius to the Summits. The Summits go much lower of course, with more visceral punch, but at the cost of a little more "mushy" sound.

As with any speaker "upgrade", gotta weigh the pros/cons.

One major PLUS for the Vista's is that you still have the option to play with bi-amping (unlike the Summit or Vantage). What amp(s) do you currently have?

 

[amey01]

Ah, so it is just what I hoped it was, the improvement is mainly in the panels. The Vistas' bass can be fixed with a decent pair of subwoofers anyway. As far as I know the Aerius bass cabinet is sealed while the Vista uses a bass reflex setup. I am not too thrilled about that myself although it works well enough in my Aeons. Thanks for the info.

You are correct - the Aerius bass cabinet is sealed. So I'm not the only one that suspects the porting might have something to do with what I heard. I personally don't like the concept of porting, however many many ultra high end manufacturers use it so it must do something correctly. Anyway, the panel is a stunner so you can forget all about that really. For nice controlled bass, you can't go past the Summit, but I would never have been able to put that much money past my wife!!

 

[ralflar]

Right. The Summits tempt me because of the lower bass from a sealed compartment, the larger panel, and the lower crossover frequency.

But one wonders. If the Vantages represent 80% of the Summits sound quality like it was written here before, and if the Vistas and the Vantages utilize the same panel and frame, the only differences being a 450Hz vs a 400Hz crossover, and of course the bass, well: how good would a pair of Vistas supported by a pair of the best subwoofer buys available be, in comparison to the Vistas?

I suspect they'd be pretty close. The subs I'm talking about are the Vandersteen 2Wq, $2500 for the pair including the active crossover to be inserted between pre and power amps as a lowcut filter for the main speakers. Diverting the low frequencies away from the Vistas should remove undesirable bass reflex effects.

If you have separates this would work. You could surely sneak the first one past the wife and get the second one in later.

 

[amey01]

Interesting, as I also noticed some loss of bass control/clarity when moving from my Aerius to the Summits. The Summits go much lower of course, with more visceral punch, but at the cost of a little more "mushy" sound.

As with any speaker "upgrade", gotta weigh the pros/cons.

One major PLUS for the Vista's is that you still have the option to play with bi-amping (unlike the Summit or Vantage). What amp(s) do you currently have?

I am currently using a Classe 101 with a Copland CTA305 valve preamp - a magic pair! This I am happy with - the source will be the next!

 

[amey01]

Right. The Summits tempt me because of the lower bass from a sealed compartment, the larger panel, and the lower crossover frequency.

But one wonders. If the Vantages represent 80% of the Summits sound quality like it was written here before, and if the Vistas and the Vantages utilize the same panel and frame, the only differences being a 450Hz vs a 400Hz crossover, and of course the bass, well: how good would a pair of Vistas supported by a pair of the best subwoofer buys available be, in comparison to the Vistas?

I suspect they'd be pretty close. The subs I'm talking about are the Vandersteen 2Wq, $2500 for the pair including the active crossover to be inserted between pre and power amps as a lowcut filter for the main speakers. Diverting the low frequencies away from the Vistas should remove undesirable bass reflex effects.

If you have separates this would work. You could surely sneak the first one past the wife and get the second one in later.

Interesting you mention subs, because I'm currently getting sub-bass nirvana from a Whise Profounder, made here in Australia. www.whise.com.au

 

[amey01]

Interesting, as I also noticed some loss of bass control/clarity when moving from my Aerius to the Summits. The Summits go much lower of course, with more visceral punch, but at the cost of a little more "mushy" sound.

As with any speaker "upgrade", gotta weigh the pros/cons.

One major PLUS for the Vista's is that you still have the option to play with bi-amping (unlike the Summit or Vantage). What amp(s) do you currently have?

So I'm not the only one! I have heard a few others mention it, but I must say it did make me think very seriously about the upgrade, however the Gen 2 panel is what swayed me - its fantastic!