Eventually everything is burned in.  Power cords and jumper cables needed 2wks.  I'm happy with the sound.  

 

I was going to have a GTG this month but Audio Apocalypse meant I had to put off until it is safe.  By the time of a GTG I will probably have made a few tweaks.  

COVID-19 late night Lockdown cure:

 

 

All sonic problems solved.  The problem was that diffusers were set up for dipoles.  I moved two diffusors from the front wall to the back wall, facing the speakers.   I was stunned by the improvement.  Diffusors are essential to get good sound.  AVs need diffusors on the back wall because they put out so much energy in treble and midrange.  The sound is now as good as I have heard.  

Edited July 14, 20205 yr by GroovyGuru

Time to relax and enjoy! 

On 14/07/2020 at 1:53 PM, alistairm said:

Time to relax and enjoy! 

Yep.  Everyday I dread the uglies will return but it sounds better and better.  I think the SR blue fuses have burned in. 

Hi Peter,

 

I have enjoyed reading about your ongoing system refining, along with seeing the pictures, it looks great.
 

Not sure if you have tried this tweak or not? Thought I would mention it anyway, after having had a bottle of graphene sit in a draw for several months I recently applied some on the speaker and interconnect banana plugs and the improvement in bass and midrange was more than impressive. You don’t have to put on much to achieve very good results.

I would say the sq improvement was at least as noticeable as when I installed a SR Black fuse in the PS Audio P10 that feeds my components.

 

cheers,

Terry

Edited July 18, 20205 yr by TerryO

Vicoustic panels installed.  The Roomtune panels behind the listening seats made the most difference.  Vicoustic reduced noisefloor and improved timbral depth.  All set up and room problems solved.  System now sounds as good as I can get it with current setup IMO.

 

 

 

 

On 18/07/2020 at 5:28 AM, TerryO said:

Hi Peter,

 

I have enjoyed reading about your ongoing system refining, along with seeing the pictures, it looks great.
 

Not sure if you have tried this tweak or not? Thought I would mention it anyway, after having had a bottle of graphene sit in a draw for several months I recently applied some on the speaker and interconnect banana plugs and the improvement in bass and midrange was more than impressive. You don’t have to put on much to achieve very good results.

I would say the sq improvement was at least as noticeable as when I installed a SR Black fuse in the PS Audio P10 that feeds my components.

 

cheers,

Terry

I used Deoxit Gold on my connectors.  It is quite cheap at JayCar.  I can't remember if there was much improvement, but I put it on when the connecters were new and it is meant to keep connections clean.  I probably need to give them another clean.  

This ain't Vogue Lifestyle, it's better.  I have eventually extracted the potential from the TrioXDs by adding a pair of Basshorns.  Right out of the box the Basshorns were a level above the Sub231.  I never thought the TrioXD with the Sub231 sounded as beautiful as the MG20.7.  BUT the TrioXD with Basshorn sounds more beautiful than any speaker I've heard.  Burning in takes at least 60hrs, and probably another 200hrs to complete.  The only way I can upgrade my speakers again it to add more stacks of the Basshorns.  Interestingly, AV ship these with custom fuses.  The fuses are not badged, but look like hifi tuning fuses. 

 

Wow, what a system !!!

 

Were the REL subs an experiment that didn’t turn out so well ? Or are they still used ? And are they the se or sx models ?

 

 

11 minutes ago, GroovyGuru said:

This ain't Vogue Lifestyle, it's better.  I have eventually extracted the potential from the TrioXDs by adding a pair of Basshorns.  Right out of the box the Basshorns were a level above the Sub231.  I never thought the TrioXD with the Sub231 sounded as beautiful as the MG20.7.  BUT the TrioXD with Basshorn sounds more beautiful than any speaker I've heard.

 

 

W.O.W.

 

I'm free tonite 😀

 

5 minutes ago, Ray H said:

Wow, what a system !!!

 

Were the REL subs an experiment that didn’t turn out so well ? Or are they still used ? And are they the se or sx models ?

 

 

I believe the Sub231 was flat to 35/40hz.  The Basshorns IMO are flat to 40/45hz.  I had to increase the crossover on the REL SE212s to about 40hz to get the system to work.  Anyone who knows how subwoofers work will tell you that subwoofers are essential to getting instrument sizes to be full scale.  It's not just about low bass.  The RELs are flat to about 25hz IMO.  If I switch the subs off the sound shrinks.  Subwoofers are not an experiment.  

I was lucky enough to visit @LazyAudiophile last Thursday. 

 

WOW!  What a difference the basshorns have made to Peter's system.  Truly the best audio experience I have had.  As a comparison, if I give it 10/10 currently - then the Trios & subs without basshorns was 7/10.

 

But you need a laaaarge room!  

 

Andy

 

16 hours ago, andyr said:

I was lucky enough to visit @LazyAudiophile last Thursday. 

 

WOW!  What a difference the basshorns have made to Peter's system.  Truly the best audio experience I have had.  As a comparison, if I give it 10/10 currently - then the Trios & subs without basshorns was 7/10.

 

But you need a laaaarge room!  

 

Andy

 

Thanks for the generous words.  Still more work to be done on some aspects.  The key goals I try to maintain is beautiful sound that captures the gestalt of the music.  Resolution is just a byproduct. 

Thanks to @andyr for bringing over the gadgets to measure the room.  This helped me get to where I wanted to go a lot faster. 

 

I wanted to know the behavior of the basshorns and the REL 212s.

 

I have been lowering the Basshorn volume from the installed setting but the measurements showed how far I needed to reduce the volume. 

 

I ended up lowering basshorn volume by about half from when installed. 

 

The RELs were having no impact compared to the sub231 because the basshorns have much higher efficiency. I had to increase REL crossover to 60hz (one pair of basshorns does not go low) and I had to increse REL volume to full or almost full to register as a measurement.

 

Reducing the volume of the basshorn improves midrange presence and speed in the upper frequencies, without sounding bright.  

Congrats, Peter. It's tough to get a kind word out of panel lovers for anything but panels but looks like you've converted David and Andy. They tell me your system sounds as good as it looks.

GTG on Sunday 9 Jan 22.  This is pre-release for those following this thread.  Start will be 2pm.   Limit of 15, must be covid vaccinated.  I will check at the door 

 

Cameron Keating of Max Media will be attending to answer queries.   

Edited December 6, 20214 yr by LazyAudiophile

Hi Peter,

 

I have been wanting to hear these things since you bought them two years ago or so!

 

I would love to attend your GTG if there is a spot left.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

3 hours ago, Max054 said:

Hi Peter,

 

I have been wanting to hear these things since you bought them two years ago or so!

 

I would love to attend your GTG if there is a spot left.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

There are plenty of spots left.  Refer my post in GTG forum.

A beautiful Avantarde sytstem ...true endgame setup you have now, time to enjoy. and share with other...

 

Had a similar endless journey with subs to mate with initialy several Electrotats, then Magnapans , now and likely forever its 4 way full active Horns . 

 

Basically any high excursion compact sub i owned and tried never ever intergrated , 

Valodynes DD 18 - JL Audio Fathoms 13 pair , Wilson Watchdog etc. 

All really only suit home theatre applications.

Reality is as i discovered that only Large Driver in large enclosures with low excursion units behave and integrate musically, ideally horn loaded also as you have found.

 

Horns for my tastes simply give the magic of Stats and Planars  however with splendid real life Dynamics that are simply addictive especially when driven by Valves.

 

 

There is a real magic with Avantgarde horns that is hard to go past. Those lucky enough to have the opportunity to hear Peter's Trio's should do so. Avantgarde horns expand music enjoyment horizons like few others. Beautiful Trios you have Peter, and the journey you have travelled with them to get them singing must bring a special joy. Certainly Trios I would love to hear. Thanks for sharing this journey

 

 

On 31/08/2022 at 9:45 PM, aertex said:

There is a real magic with Avantgarde horns that is hard to go past. Those lucky enough to have the opportunity to hear Peter's Trio's should do so. Avantgarde horns expand music enjoyment horizons like few others. Beautiful Trios you have Peter, and the journey you have travelled with them to get them singing must bring a special joy. Certainly Trios I would love to hear. Thanks for sharing this journey

 

 

I learnt a lot in setting the Avantgardes up.  The most important thing I learnt is buying the top of the line will not necessarily give the best sound and set up is most important.  

yes, room and set up of horns is crtical to get best sound quality they are capable of. Avantgardes being very efficient too amkes them specially sensitive too. I have just got some Duo Grossos and am finding that now. No real problems as such, just some fine tuning in the room I have avaialble now to use them.

 

I did have asperations of Trios at some point but not so sure now. Duos set up right and fed with worthy front end some pretty special to me right through the frequency spectrum. Quite effortless sound. 

10 hours ago, aertex said:

yes, room and set up of horns is crtical to get best sound quality they are capable of. Avantgardes being very efficient too amkes them specially sensitive too. I have just got some Duo Grossos and am finding that now. No real problems as such, just some fine tuning in the room I have avaialble now to use them.

 

I did have asperations of Trios at some point but not so sure now. Duos set up right and fed with worthy front end some pretty special to me right through the frequency spectrum. Quite effortless sound. 

Don't give up on the Trios.  I've heard the Duos, the Trios with spacehorns would be a world better.  The key is to have diffusors facing the speakers.  Also suitable subwoofers to take the sound under 30hz so you get scale.  Low frequencies create scale and fill the room with soundstage.  Without the subs my soundstage doesn't go beyond speaker edges.  Subs are not about bass. 

Good set up is about getting rid of bottlenecks. I had a good pair of power cords on the Basshorns but they were not long enough to reach the power outlets so I used a pair of extension cords from Coles. I knew it was a compromise but I did not know how much. Replaced these:

 

With longer lengths of these:

 

Getting rid of the extension leads improved the sound by about 10%. Wish I had done it sooner.

 

I also upgraded the streamer to Antipodes K22. A factor in choosing this product is that it has a Roon endpoint and it can be upgraded with addition of a K41 server. The sound is similar to Auralic G2.1 but more robust. A better streamer resulted in music files on HDD not sounding any better than than streaming files. I discovered this when listening to a 16 bit file then discovering Qobuz had a 24 bit version. The streamed 24 bit version sounded much better. Just realized I need to compare a 24 bit HDD file with streamed 24 bit file. I'll do that later. 

 

Here is a photo of the K22. I added a used K40 server bought on SNT and that is currently being setup.

 

 

 

 

Wow, stunning! I have heard the Avantgarde Trio's once, and I was blown away by them. Well, more than once ... I have heard the same system several times. The other guy was using Kondo amps and it was sublime. I love horns! I would love to have a listen.