If you had to choose only ONE pair of speakers for rest of your life ...

Richard

If you have heard them both, what do you find the differences to be between the Acapella and the equivalent AG. The High Cellini looks as if that would be the Duo XD
 
I haven't really been impressed with Avante Garde as I have found them to have that horn shout and ring about them. I have only heard them at their dealer in Hong Kong and a show - but people have explained to me that it is the construction of their horn mouth that lets them down. The High Cellini I have only auditioned once at the California Audio Show and Mike and Nelly and Herman were the show runners. I was greatly impressed with the cohesiveness of them - something that I find lets down all big speakers. Big speakers and the sound should come from single point in space theory usually falls down and IMO does with AG. The Cellini was pretty spot on which is why I liked them over the High ViolencelloII.

I think the companies are quite different - the High Cellini is something like 91dB sensitive while the AGs are well over 100dB sensitive. Usually I like the higher efficiency but I simply enjoyed listening to Acapella over AG. So far. It may be that AGs simply show up up the chain weaknesses more. So they could just be more fussy which isn't a bad thing but needs more work to get them right. Still the times I've heard Acapella they were in my top 10 at one show and my show winner at CAS 7 under my final report.
 
RichardAusten said:
I haven't really been impressed with Avante Garde as I have found them to have that horn shout and ring about them. I have only heard them at their dealer in Hong Kong and a show - but people have explained to me that it is the construction of their horn mouth that lets them down. The High Cellini I have only auditioned once at the California Audio Show and Mike and Nelly and Herman were the show runners. I was greatly impressed with the cohesiveness of them - something that I find lets down all big speakers. Big speakers and the sound should come from single point in space theory usually falls down and IMO does with AG. The Cellini was pretty spot on which is why I liked them over the High ViolencelloII.

I think the companies are quite different - the High Cellini is something like 91dB sensitive while the AGs are well over 100dB sensitive. Usually I like the higher efficiency but I simply enjoyed listening to Acapella over AG. So far. It may be that AGs simply show up up the chain weaknesses more. So they could just be more fussy which isn't a bad thing but needs more work to get them right. Still the times I've heard Acapella they were in my top 10 at one show and my show winner at CAS 7 under my final report.
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Which model AG,

Sharkey Mikes trio has no Horn shout at all, sometimes What is noticed as Horn Shout is from clipping , Horn coloration and poor timbre is usually from poor design, the AN speakers for example has boxy coloration that some hate and some like because of the "warmth" but it kills timbre and those sensitive to it will avoid.



Regards
 
What people don't realize is that, at 100dB+ efficiency, every little thing matters.
Imagine your own system. That cable you tried that made the sound really harsh... Now imagine that on 100+dB speakers... Yeah, unbearable. Or that Class D amp that drove you out of the room... Yeah, try that on a 100dB horn...
So, it's all too easy to blame the AG and find some random fault with it, when it's likely just a matter of poor set up and/or poor component matching.
When we presented AG a few years ago, we had to run our phono stage at its minimum gain setting, and that was with a LOMC Koetsu, otherwise, guess?, it would be a little "too much". Once dialed correctly, everything locked into place, and even at crazy loud volumes, the sound was gorgeous.
 
RichardAusten said:
I haven't really been impressed with Avante Garde as I have found them to have that horn shout and ring about them. I have only heard them at their dealer in Hong Kong and a show - but people have explained to me that it is the construction of their horn mouth that lets them down. The High Cellini I have only auditioned once at the California Audio Show and Mike and Nelly and Herman were the show runners. I was greatly impressed with the cohesiveness of them - something that I find lets down all big speakers. Big speakers and the sound should come from single point in space theory usually falls down and IMO does with AG. The Cellini was pretty spot on which is why I liked them over the High ViolencelloII.

I think the companies are quite different - the High Cellini is something like 91dB sensitive while the AGs are well over 100dB sensitive. Usually I like the higher efficiency but I simply enjoyed listening to Acapella over AG. So far. It may be that AGs simply show up up the chain weaknesses more. So they could just be more fussy which isn't a bad thing but needs more work to get them right. Still the times I've heard Acapella they were in my top 10 at one show and my show winner at CAS 7 under my final report.
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I've heard the Acapellas a number of times - the Cellini was quite nice the last show I was at. But I fail to see the point of a 91db horn speaker - all of the issues, none of the benefits. And their tweeters costs $2500 to replace and it happens regularly.

I'm pretty sensitive to horn shout, but AGs usually don't have it in my experience. I have heard them sound lean and they require good tube amplification. The one that has a lot of horn coloration (puts on flame suit) is the Volti. I've also heard cupped hands on an older Cessaro speaker, thought not on the newer Wagner.

It seems like most MBL owners don't own them for life - I'm not sure exactly why, but the amp requirements may be a component.
 
a.wayne said:
Which model AG,

Sharkey Mikes trio has no Horn shout at all, sometimes What is noticed as Horn Shout is from clipping , Horn coloration and poor timbre is usually from poor design, the AN speakers for example has boxy coloration that some hate and some like because of the "warmth" but it kills timbre and those sensitive to it will avoid.



Regards
Click to expand...

I can only go by what is demonstrated - the AvanteGarde speakers in Hong Kong were north of $20,000 US run with varying tube gear (NAT) north of $100,000. I didn't take the model number down because they didn't make my cut. from the pictures I would assume the Uno.

The source was from Abbingdon Music Redearch(AMR) and Nottingham Turntables. Really nice with cymbals - Pink Floyd - really poor with vocals Eva Cassidy.

Manufacturers who only make one part of an audio chains such as speakers that have uber fussy requirements really should not be leaving it open so that everyone can use poor matching equals poor sound as an excuse. The dealer set it up so someone will say - NAT is too high powered - or AMR isn't good enough, or Nottingham is this or that and that's why the speakers sounded middling. If that is so - the speaker maker needs to dictate to the dealer which amp and which cable and which source should be used to make the speaker sound good.
 
KeithR said:
I've heard the Acapellas a number of times - the Cellini was quite nice the last show I was at. But I fail to see the point of a 91db horn speaker - all of the issues, none of the benefits. And their tweeters costs $2500 to replace and it happens regularly.

I'm pretty sensitive to horn shout, but AGs usually don't have it in my experience. I have heard them sound lean and they require good tube amplification. The one that has a lot of horn coloration (puts on flame suit) is the Volti. I've also heard cupped hands on an older Cessaro speaker, thought not on the newer Wagner.

It seems like most MBL owners don't own them for life - I'm not sure exactly why, but the amp requirements may be a component.
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The best horn and possibly the best speaker I have heard was from a DIYer in Hong Kong - butt ugly speakers similar to the WE but he had had a company design and build the bass units from scratch and that horn was integrated - no hiss or other noises and was flat out stunning. DIY cost was over $50,000US. And ugly. But at these sorts of dollars - he's not just some yuppy trying to show off that he can spend a few bucks on a name brand - he's spending the same if not more on quality sound reproduction that has no name cache. I asked him what he thought of production horns (like AG)- the main issue is a lack of driver to driver integration - as well as the materials uses on the horn mouth being rather inferior for the prices paid.

That's one opinion - obviously AG has been around many years selling at high prices so you take stuff or you leave it. Like I said - as it stands now I prefer the sound of Acapella. But this is two whole auditions at a show. Still if you do well at a show - you probably do even better at home right? I mean if you can sound really good under bad conditions there is hope. I have heard a lot of speakers over the last 25 years in my homes, dealers, shows in Hong Kong, Canada, the US, South Korea, Thailand, and Japan so lots of different wall constructions, room sizes, etc. I have heard speakers like YG Acoustics and MBL that I felt were bottom 5 at one show and then at another venue they were both top two! My own speakers have pretty well stunk at one show and were sublime at another.

So I don't want to get on AG for two auditions - the Acapella High Cellini was set-up in a big room (though the dealer didn't love the low ceilings) and by Herman the designer - so it has an edge compared to the AG dealer in HK using front end electronics probably 1/10th the price. The Acapella had $100k integrated amp and $100k digital front end.
 
RichardAusten said:
I can only go by what is demonstrated - the AvanteGarde speakers in Hong Kong were north of $20,000 US run with varying tube gear (NAT) north of $100,000. I didn't take the model number down because they didn't make my cut. from the pictures I would assume the Uno.

The source was from Abbingdon Music Redearch(AMR) and Nottingham Turntables. Really nice with cymbals - Pink Floyd - really poor with vocals Eva Cassidy.

Manufacturers who only make one part of an audio chains such as speakers that have uber fussy requirements really should not be leaving it open so that everyone can use poor matching equals poor sound as an excuse. The dealer set it up so someone will say - NAT is too high powered - or AMR isn't good enough, or Nottingham is this or that and that's why the speakers sounded middling. If that is so - the speaker maker needs to dictate to the dealer which amp and which cable and which source should be used to make the speaker sound good.
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Never heard the Uno and from those hearing them , they were negative on them too ....
 
The Uno is superb. I think you heard them at the Lampi event. They were the Avantgarde’s in the other room that everyone loved.
 
Yes , i did like those , but i didnt take that into account as i knew setup was not for auditioning , ( they were on the lampi amps) so i have yet to evaluate the Uno's personally and those reporting on the uno's as mentioned to me were a few years back , i was told the current model is an improved version ..



Regards
 
a.wayne said:
Yes , but i didnt take that into account as i knew setup was not for auditioning , so i have yet to evaluate the Uno's personally and those reporting on the uno's as mentioned to me were a few years back , i was told the current model is an improved version ..



Regards
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With the old model, I would agree. XD is a completely different level.
 
If looks could slay...

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Oh, they sound great too!
 

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Mike said:
The Uno is superb. I think you heard them at the Lampi event. They were the Avantgarde’s in the other room that everyone loved.
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I heard the UNOs once at a show and they were magnificent. I was standing may be 30 feet away and the voices were as clear as a bell.

I had the Duo Primo Xd driven by an Ongaku for a while but WAF made it a no no :sigh::sigh:
 
Howie

I ran the AG possibility past my wife a couple of days ago and got a similar reaction as I was curious about the Uno XD. I guess that idea needs to lay dormant for a while.
 
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