Vandersteen Audio

Every time Richard Vandersteen adds a new model to his loudspeaker lineup, it's like adding a new precious jewel to a lovingly-crafted necklace. Richard will work, modify, and agonize over each design, sometimes for years, until it's exactly the way he wants it. The new Treo floor-standing model ($5995), which just recently started shipping, is no exception, and it is well worth the wait.

The Treo uses the same slim and elegant truncated pyramid as the Quatro, and, in fact, is very much like the Quatro minus the latter's powered subwoofer. A passive, 8-inch subwoofer driver is used instead. Thus, the tweeter, midrange, and woofer are exactly the same. To recap, the Tweeter is a 1-inch, critically-damped, low-distortion, dual-chamber, ceramic-coated, alloy dome that is Ferrofluid cooled. The midrange is a 4.5-inch curvilinear, tri-woven, composite cone with a die-cast, aerodynamic basket and magnet system which also uses Ferrofluid voice coil cooling. (The "aerodynamic" basket design prevents sounds emanating from the rear of the cone from reflecting back through the cone and smearing the sound.) The woofer is a 6.5-inch, woven fiber cone and a precision-formed magnet assembly, with a copper Faraday ring. The subwoofer driver, which is exactly the same as that used in the 2WQ and V2W powered subwoofers and which extends the bass down to 36 Hz, is an 8-inch, carbon-loaded, cellulose, flat cone unit with a long-throw motor assembly and a down-firing port. Needless to say, the Treo is both time- and phase-aligned, as are all Vandersteen models.

Subjectively, the Treo has the same open, spacious, neutral, and rich sound as the Quatros (with just the right amount of true detail) less the deepest bass that that model's subwoofer provides. But if you are in a smaller room or just can't afford the extra cost of the Quatro, or just don't need that last half octave of bass, the Treo may be just the perfect solution.