Well, I met Bill a few times back in the day and have heard MANY pairs of Phantoms, my friend Hart sold quite a few to people I know and Hart (who I did hi-end repairs for) continued to sell them until Bill stopped making them as I recall. My pair came toward the end of the run and I liked them quite a bit overall at the time despite the slight reservations I had about them.

I am glad that you are happy with your speakers. The nice thing about liking a speaker like the Kindel is that there is no "Kindel cult" to bid 'em up when they show up used. And I would love to hear them with your latest mods for myself.

3ox June 28, 2005 13:01

Sorry to get back to you so late! I used ARC SP8 and D90B with the Kindels. Funny, at the time the dealer who sold Fuselier and Kindel had Vandy's but wouldn't play 'em for anyone. I finally got him to play the Vandy's (2c at the time) and felt they were more natural than the Kindels (although the top end was not up to the leaf tweeter in the Kindels). I could always hear that the drivers didn't quite cohere in the Kindel and I am (over) sensitive to that. But don't get me wrong, I like 'em and if I ever see a pair cheep might pick 'em up for old times sake. Too bad Bill K didn't stick with it, would be interesting to see what he would have come up with.
Ironically, the original store owner (Hart Huschens, Audio Connection, Verona NJ) sold out to John Rutan who recognized what a fine speaker Vandersteen made, picked up the ball and has sold them like crazy!
As far as Richard goes, he actually is a delightful guy IN PERSON. But he seems to not particularly like to talk on the phone, especially to people he doesn't know. He ticks some people off because he won't send out drivers etc. and let people fix their own speakers, but that's a business decision, he doesn't want defective speakers out in the field, he likes to make sure that after the repair the speakers are up to snuff. I can see both sides of that argument, I guess.
I have over the years had a lot of hi-end speakers and am not wedded to Vandersteen, but was taken by the Vandy 5. But kinda big and expensive (of course not so expensive for a flagship design where other companies have 100k$ plus stuff). But the new Quattros really caught me and I bought a pair. A really great speaker, not cheap at about $7000, but at least attainable to a poor country broadcast engineer. Of my arsenal of speakers (many of which are now gone) the only one that could keep up was the old Quad 57s which probably means something.
Good Luck with those Kindels!

Regards, Kevin

3ox June 25, 2005 00:37

Surprised you had problems with Richard, but my guess is that you wanted to work on your speakers yourself and he is pretty adimantly negative about that. I had Kindel Phantoms many years ago, a local dealer was pretty hot on them. I am surprised that only 300 were made, I have known of about 7 pairs myself, including one pair for sale at a pawn shop! They were interesting, but ultimately not that coherent to my ears, at least back then. Would be interesting to see what I think about them today. The other speaker he was keen on was the Fuselier, another obscure speaker. Ultimately, I prefered the Fuseliers but that's what makes a horserace...

Regards, Kevin

3ox September 21, 2004 12:56