I guess that would depend on the room. They have a tiny footprint, maybe 1 ft sq. They are prob best, out from the back wall at least a couple of feet. City dwellers use them in some very small rooms. I used to demo them in a rather large room, maybe 18 x 30.
Don't underestimate the quality of a Vandersteen. These are time aligned and minimum phase. Vifa custom makes drivers for him and they were far and away my favorite speaker anywhere near that price range. They might not be showy or super impressive like some wild looking piece of sculpture but they are coherent and can really sound nice.
If you're not familiar with the company, expect something warmer than a Dynaudio and with probably less SPL capability and transient response performance. On the other hand they would blow away a small pr of Maggies or similar. Other 2-way 8" weren't much competition either. Companies like Snell, Thiel, B&W etc were 10 times the money and never equalled the coherence and natural sound of the 1b. They're for listening to music, not looking at a hype sheet. They're in Calif and I would imagine would support if you need a part or whatever. These might be pretty old so you should check them out. Id guess that you'd have to spend 5X that on a new pr, to find something worthy of comparison.
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