I heard a rumor that one of our own went to a demo of the Avantgarde Duo Grosso.
I wonder who that was :hi:
Ok I will chime in :hey: Please accept my apologies for bad writing. I'm not a reviewer and not really good at this
While I was waiting for my wife to get her hair done I had some free time and decide to go to store and figure out whats the fuzz about the these horn speakers . I had a chance to listen to Uno about 3 years ago and I was very impressed then and it is time to listen to them again see if the magic is still there. I went to store who is becoming a North America distributor for Avantgarde speakers. The store is well-known and been a truly Hi-end audio store in Toronto more than 30 years.
The Duo Grosso was located on second-floor showroom and paired with Vac Signature Mk IIa,Statement450s and Esoteric K03.( IMO it was too much power for 107 db speakers ) I was surprise the size of horn first ( It was humongous with size and height of speakers ) but they were so beautiful look at with rich red color and there are 2 x 12 inch woofers in box with made by paper cone and the woofer was very fast and accurate. ( also powered with class AB built in power amp - new model now equipped with Class D amp )
Unfortunately, the system didn't hook up with any analog source so I started with Melody Gardot's album in to Esoteric K03 cd player. As soon as first track started I opened my eyes in few seconds ( I usually listen with eye's closed

) and couldn't believe how lively sound was. Melody was right in the middle and The decay and hanging electric guitar chords in left channel, the crisp piano on right channel and her voice was just dominated the room. The timbre and separation was one of the best I ever heard.
It continued to shock me with classical music as well. It handled the full orchestra with no short coming. the high was very crisp and bass had a lot of punch plus you can customize the level of bass depends on your room size also as I mentioned earlier I just couldn't believe how fast and clean bass was.
Of cause there was shortcoming as well , I loved the "Lively" sound of what Avantgarde does however not sure if you want to hear all album sounds like "Live" sounds...also compare to box/conventional speakers it was missing some of the weight on music YMMV.
I really enjoyed every minute and planning to go back there with my NAF set amp next week to do another private session. I think my S.E.T amp will pair them very well.
If you are looking for a last pair of speakers for life , I think you should put Avantgarde on your short list to listen
