Since the Vantages are on backorder, the dealer allowed me to take home the floor models for the meantime. I will be picking up my true Vantages soon! Probably in 3 weeks time.
I think I have settled in with the MAPLE as my color of choice as it is a lot easier to match with lighter furniture. The Dark Cherry is very elegant but I have a weakness for light wood I suppose. I have until monday to decide so I have all day tomorrow to ponder about it.
Regarding the sound, these demos are only 2 weeks old so they havent been completely broken in yet. However, these sound SUPERB! Very clean and balanced from top to bottom. Vocals are very clear and have the right amount of "weight" to them without getting out of control, unruly, synthesized-sonically, or artificially sibilant. The midrange is to die for.... very liquid and in spades. The bass is excellent! Although the Summits would do better as a true full-range speaker, the Vantage arent slouches in the bass department. I like the quickness and the transient nature of the Vantage's bass... very clean. I am also very fond of the Vantages ability to image..... very precise and much easier to "see" than ANY of my previous speakers (Polk LSi9, Polk LSi7, Onix Reference 1, Sonus Faber Concerto, Sonus Faber Concertino, Axiom M22ti, Martin Logan Mosaic). These Vantages are exactly how I envisioned sound to be (Ok... maybe the Summits are, but these are close enough). Very black between the notes, very good instrument separation, very good 3D depth soundstaging. Very cohesive and "leveled" soundstage width, too. Lastly, I must give props to this soundcard and power conditioner combo, very low noise-floor... not even static. The Vantages at the dealer hooked up to $10,000 of Krell equipment had a nasty buzz when nothing was playing, mine are - luckily - quiet as can be.
I like everything about the Vantage, from its sonic capabilities to the way it looks. The only thing that I regret is not having a dedicated room to do these guys complete justice.
Final thoughts (for now), I started my adventure exactly 5 years ago when I was a freshman in undergraduate college. I had a pair of $15 Altec Lansing 2.0 computer speakers connected to a 64mb MP3 player and I thought I was living the life. Later that year I found out about the .1 - the subwoofer. I bought a $40 2.1 PC speaker setup and I was in heaven. Then, my girlfriend (same one as now) bought me a Klipsch Promedia 4.1 setup... I was moving up, I thought. Then I started with some Yamaha floorstanders (NS-8390 is the model, I still remember), a Yamaha receiver, and an Inifinity Entra 12" sub. Then I moved to Axioms, then to Polk LSi. Later, I changed the Yamaha receiver to an Harman Kardon AVR-330 receiver and the Infinity sub was replaced by an SVS PC+ subwoofer. Later, the HK was replaced by Rotel and the Polk LSi were replaced by Sonus Faber (Concertino then Concerto). The SF were replaced by the Martin Logan Mosaic (until I decided to save up until the Vantage - 6 months ago) which were returned to Tweeter within 30 days and I temporarily replaced it with the Onix REF1 bookshelf.
Then I sold everything and bought the Vantage.
At 23, I think I'm done for a while... atleast until I graduate.
