Vandersteen's $300,000 hi-fi wows audiophiles

The Model Seven

(Credit: Michael Trei/DVICE)

Over at Dvice, my buddy Michael Trei was floored by the sounds at the Vandersteen room at the Consumer Electronics show last week in Las Vegas. The company debuted its new Model Seven speakers in a $300,000 system while spinning LPs.

Richard Vandersteen told me about these new speakers last year, when he was still perfecting his balsa wood/carbon fiber "sandwich" material for tweeters and woofer drivers. It's super lightweight, which enables the driver to keep up with the music's ever changing signals better than more conventional materials, yet it's so strong, you can actually stand on a balsa/carbon cone without damaging it.

Building each driver is, at least for now, a labor-intensive process, so the Model Seven is considerably more expensive than Vandersteen's bread-and-butter models (prices start around $785 a pair. The Model Seven will sell for $45,000 a pair. Vandersteen speakers are manufactured in Hanford, Calif.

$300,000 worth of high-end audio looks like this.

(Credit: Michael Trei/DVICE)

[tomsoundman]

Does the speaker have a light inside it? The photo with the equipment included above looks like the speaker on the right is lit up. Is it a light or a reflection?

[ednerdtheonly]

Reflection.

[lazy-bum]

45,000 and they look like they belong in a Star Wars movie... couldn't they charge a grand more (like it matters when you're shelling out 45 for speakers) and make them look better?

[DaveOCP]

Has Richard Vandersteen heard of binding posts yet? Or does this STILL have a screw down terminal block like it's 1986?

[jawa7609]

If you've never seen speakers this ugly, you should see the Wilson Audio line http://www.wilsonaudio.com/
which are truly stunning to behold (I feel like they should have a joystick so I can play galaga!) but they are also equally stunning to hear. But imagine paying 5 times as much for even uglier speakers?!
I have listened to some Watt speakers with i believe they were Krell monoblock amps (stoooped powerful!) and was utterly brought to tears, which made the view a bit blurry, which is a good thing!

[dkzzzz]

I agree . Wilson Alexandria is uglier, looks like weird alien-humanoid, cost is around 130,000 but when i heard them I could not belive my ears . They were amazingly natural without any bass boom (one would expect form a huge box). They souunded like a live orchestra.
Hope Wandys are good too.