Richard Vandersteen spills the beans on the sneaky audio industry tricks that fool our ears and empty our pockets.
Richard Vandersteen, founder of Vandersteen Audio, has pulled back the curtain on what he perceives as the audio industry’s dirty little secrets. In a candid interview with The Audiophile Zone, Vandersteen pointed out the industry’s sketchy practices that result in higher costs over better performance.
Exposing the “Heroic” Waste
Vandersteen’s criticism centers on a basic truth about speaker design that many manufacturers seem to have forgotten—or chosen to ignore.
However, Vandersteen argues that many manufacturers go far beyond what’s necessary to achieve this goal.
“So we see today heroic, I mean, just unbelievable amounts of money spent on cabinets, the speaker cabinets. But once they’re silent, they’re silent. There’s no need to throw any more money at them.” he said.
“It isn’t going to make the speaker any better. It’s just going to make it more expensive. It might make it prettier, but it’s not going to make it perform better.”
This obsession with over-engineering, Vandersteen suggests, is more about marketing than musicality.
The result? Speakers that are prettier and pricier, but not necessarily better performers.
The Folly of Multi-Driver Designs
But Vandersteen’s critique doesn’t stop at cabinet construction. He also takes aim at another common practice of the audio industry: the multi-driver speaker design.
While many companies praise the benefits of using multiple drivers for the same frequency range, Vandersteen sees it as a recipe for sonic disaster.
This “smearing,” Vandersteen argues, is the result of timing misalignments between multiple drivers. As a result, it compromises the very clarity and precision that audiophiles crave.
Plus, Vandersteen also reveals that the often-praised wide “sweet spot” of multi-driver designs is actually a warning sign.
“If you had a sweet spot that was four feet wide, that’s your first indication that you’re using something low resolution,” Vandersteen explains.
“The resolution isn’t there to make it really special at that one spot.”
This insight challenges the claims of many high-end brands that promote wide sweet spots as a good thing, when it might actually be hiding poor performance.
Add to this the complex and expensive crossover networks needed to manage multiple drivers, and you get what Vandersteen sees as unnecessary complexity and cost—not to mention potential distortion and phase issues.
The Tiring Hi-Fi Technique
Vandersteen also exposes another industry trick that he believes misleads consumers: The artificial boosting of treble to create an initially impressive but ultimately fatiguing sound.
This technique, he argues, is a short-sighted approach designed to win sales at the expense of long-term listener satisfaction.
“They just play them louder to make them sound more highi, more spectacular, easier to sell, at least, at least keep them sold till the check clears.” he says.
“Then they find out they’re bright and the wife doesn’t want to listen anymore, and the cat and the dog are unhappy, but hey, they sold the product.”
He claims that it’s common among some high-end brands. But, takes advantage of how our ears tend to think brighter sound is more detailed or “hi-fi” during short listening sessions.
It uses what he calls “nonlinear errors“, which are subtle distortions that sound impressive at first but become tiring over time.
“The brain can fix that to a degree, not totally, but to a degree.” he explains.
“The problem is it takes a lot of brain power. It takes a lot of effort. This is where listener fatigue comes in.”
Basically, he argues that the speaker with this technique may sound good in a short showroom demo. Yet, it might not be enjoyable for long-term listening.
So, this gives brands immediate sales appeal. But, it leaves buyers with expensive speakers that become less pleasant to listen to over time.
Debunking the Price-Performance Correlation
All in all, Vandersteen challenges the common belief in the audio world that price directly relates to performance.
“There is a perception among some that performance is equal to what you paid,” he notes.
“I disagree with that. I think there’s evidence in the marketplace that that’s not true.”
This statement goes against much of the high-end audio marketing, where very high prices are often justified by claims of better performance. Vandersteen’s view suggests that buyers might be paying extra for perceived value rather than actual sound improvements.
The Vandersteen Way
Unlike these industry practices, Vandersteen outlines his approach to speaker design and manufacturing.
He claims that he focuses on solving acoustic problems efficiently and not “throwing more money at something once you’ve solved the problem, just for the sake of doing it.”
At the core of Vandersteen’s design philosophy is a focus on phase correctness and time alignment. This approach, he argues, reduces listener fatigue by presenting sound in a more natural way that requires less mental effort to process.
“When some people would say, ‘Well, Vandersteens are easy to listen to because they’re rolled off.’ They are not rolled off,” he clarifies.
“You can look at the measurements that John Atkinson has taken over the years in Stereophile, and when you look at the near-field measurements, you can see that they are flat out to beyond 20k.”
This commitment to natural sound even extends to using rear-firing tweeters in some models, which Vandersteen uses to adjust for room acoustics rather than artificially boosting treble.
But, Vandersteen’s philosophy isn’t limited to design; it also applies to his manufacturing process.
Despite higher labor costs, Vandersteen insists on U.S.-based production. He credits this decision to the quality focus and pride of American workers, suggesting that domestic manufacturing can compete when combined with smart design and careful cost management.
Overall, Vandersteen’s revelations offer a rare insider’s critique of high-end audio practices.
As the industry keeps pushing prices higher, his words remind us that not everything expensive in the audio world is gold – or even needed for better sound.
Richard has always been a down to earth, stand up guy. One of my all time favorites.
My experience is that simple crossovers can sound more free and natural. It seems as if the shunt elements consume amplifier power and shorten the decay of sounds. Also his point about multiple drivers used to cover the same frequency could cause comb filtering, but the over and under designs seems to work well, at least with the tweeter between on a 2 way. Stretching to 3 and 4 way starts to get harder as seen with curved or stepped cabinets to try to focus the sound at the listening seat. I have never heard an over and under woofer sound right. Perhaps because the top one is not floor loaded unless it literally went to the ceiling to match the loading which would be nearly a custom fit design to the room. He didn’t address dipole sound, but that presentation has always appealed to me. His comments about brightness ring true to me as back in the 90’s when tweeters were able to be made with much lower frequency of resonance, many designers let the tweeter handle the top of the midrange which sharpened the imaging, but to my ears always sounds unnaturally thin. I have been most happy with speakers that let the midrange handle the whole mids and left the tweeter only to do the treble. Just sounds more human to me. So, my only disagreement with Richard would be that one midrange can handle everything when dealing with music that has a huge midrange going on like big band, symphonic and choral, or even synthesizer. So my taste does prefer multiple midranges, but where they are covering different ranges in a symmetrical over and under layout. Surprisingly the old Infinity RSII did this rather well, but it’ s poly drivers were far too soft and colored. But it could handle anything in the mids.
I’m sorry but realism requires an onslaught of treble information..you get used it and once you do there’s no going back to bs warm speakers, instead you simply divide your music collection into ‘correct’ ‘tolerable’ and ‘ridiculous’.. I want vocals to sound real at the expense of a rock concert being fatiguing…..because they are.
Love the “silent cabinet” analogy! Also, less is more in a crossover…in my opinion, get a driver to react as you want it to with mechanical adjustments, rather than electronic. Keep stuff out of the signal path as much as possible. Also my opinion, to a point only, higher efficiency drivers will have less mechanical distortion, and when you find the correct efficiency range, there is a magical sweet spot, however there IS too high efficiency as well. I have found the magical low distortion efficiency range of speaker drivers is 96db-100db…beyond that, there is new types of mechanical distortion, and below that, materials make noise. Have always cosidered Vansersteen spekers to be some of the best. I dabble in speaker design, and have repaired vintage audio for over 40 years, and I must say Richards attention to useful detail in his speakers is impecable. Would love to hear a bit higher efficient Vandersteen in the future!
Much respect for Mr. Vandersteen for posting this. I want to amplify (apology for the pun) his point about price-to-performance not always being there — especially for some of the European brands. A $500,000 pair of mono-block amps? A $270,000 pre-amp. Seriously?
But where I respectfully disagree is on the issue of sweet spot. If one is willing to tolerate a super narrow sweet spot why not go all the way to horns? Sure, you can’t move your head while listening but they can sound amazing in that one spot.
I listen to music all the time, all over my loft, while I’m doing a variety of activities, i.e, not always sitting dead center on the couch. It’s therefore worth some tradeoffs for a wider sweet spot. I find line arrays, using multiple drivers as a line source, to be a great answer. That said, I also use active room correction for phase and timing alignment.
I have owned many different types of speakers including ESLs and many different systems including Valve and Solid State, my current system and possibly my favourite of all after 30 yrs is my Vandersteen 2ce driven by my QUAD classic 2 valve integrated,i also have my big Grunt system using Musical Fidelity 308 cr at 250 RMS per channel into my Dynaudio Contour, but the marriage of the Vandies and the QUAD is made in heaven, just don’t drive your hard Rock and Metal through it, that’s what big solid state is for, cheers 🥂