If I look back at the progression of speakers that I have owned over the past 30 years they have become increasingly lifelike and dynamic in their portrayal of music. I have been looking for a presentation with a musical connection that my former speakers (Vivid Spirits and others) were not able to consistently deliver. So, I started on a journey to find what element(s) I was missing in the system and what components would be needed to deliver on my expectation. To make a long story shorter what was missing was timing and micro-dynamics.
I set out to find a speaker that would satisfy my lust for that emotional connection to music that was so hit or miss with previous systems. I had very few speakers on my list of candidates and interestingly the Avantgarde Trio G3 wasn’t originally on the list. I have never owned or seriously considered a horn speaker before because I had never heard a horn system setup in such a way that there weren’t compromises. But as fate would have it, about the time I was getting serious about a purchase the Tio G3 showed up on the scene. I listened at AXPONA 2022 and was not all that impressed with the sound. Sure the speaker looked cool but I was not convinced at that point. Knowing that one should never make strong judgements based on show conditions I contacted a few people to discuss what they thought was so great about the Trios. They said I really needed to hear them in a better location and that the Trio G3 is really a fantastic, world class speaker when setup properly. So, I contacted American Sound of Canada and arranged a visit to her place in August 2022. (I wrote about this visit in another thread.) The speakers sounded much better at her place but still not displaying the greatness I was expecting. What was obvious about the setup at American Sound is that the speakers were not optimized as they were not even on the spikes. But even with them not being very precisely setup they did not sound shouty or overly aggressive. I thought this was encouraging. Again after speaking with some industry experts I decided to take a leap of faith and purchase a pair of the Avantgarde Trio G3’s with the iTron amplifiers and a pair of Dual Spacehorns.
Other system elements are being put into place as well. I am looking for components with as little time smear as possible and are “quiet”. The component has not only the leading edge of the transient but also have lots of decay. With 109dB efficient speakers noise is a huge enemy of achieving realistic music. I spent a good amount of effort trying to understand the impact of the preamp and cables on timing. I purchased and L1/X1 to experiment with as well as playing with a few different cable lines. I will just say that not all preamps and cables are created equal when it comes to timing. I have ended up with an L10 for the preamp. I should get my new cables this week – Nordost Odin2. The digital also needs some work. (Sorry, no analog)
The speakers arrived in late January but there was an unfortunate shipping mishap and I didn’t get the full set of speakers in my room until mid-March. I have spent a good amount of time experimenting with placement and getting to know how the speaker responds to different adjustments. There is really no point in getting everything fully positioned until I get all of the front end settled, installed and broken in.
I am going to eventually post some videos I have done on install and setup of the Trios, but here are a few notes of interest. First, as Avantgarde points out in the manual you need to have your ear on the same equatorial plane as the tweeter. The tweeter sits at 43” off the floor and typical ear height is 36”-37”. In my system, the tweeter is right at 11’ from my ear so to achieve the proper ear to tweeter relationship requires a LOT of rake angle. I am currently at 3.16 degrees of forward rake. This can not be achieved with the provided spikes without putting the rear spike on some kind of thick foot. I had custom spikes make for the speaker that are from grade 5 Titanium and are M12X0.75. I had two spikes made that were extra long to accommodate the extra length needed to get the high rake angle. Problem solved. The second thing relates to what makes the Trio a truly viable speaker in my book. That is the fact that the tweeter distance can be adjusted to maintain driver time alignment as the toe-in is adjusted. I have found that the sound I get is very sensitive to the tweeter adjustment. It is pretty obvious when I have forgotten to adjust this after a small toe-in or azimuth change. The sound can get aggressive and shouty. But when I make a very small tweeter adjust everything gets right back in balance. The third major element is the spacehorn. These things weigh a ton so make sure you have plenty of help when it comes to moving them. I have positioned them on their side and on the outside of the main horns. These proved to not be that difficult to integrate to sound good. The bass is extremely fast and articulate -- no bloat, no overhang. After some adjustment of toe-in and rake they are coherent with the main horns. Of course it has built in DSP that can be used to adjust the crossover point and any EQ that someone might want. It is easy to use and adjustments can be made on the fly while listening.
The Sound so far has well exceeded my expectations and is delivering all the goods. Even with “cheap” cables and no tweaks it is crazy good. Dynamics are off the chart. Loads of low level detail and expressiveness in the music. There is none of this “cupped hands” or shoutyness or anything else I formerly associated with the “horn” sound. When I first moved them into the room I didn’t spend much time with positioning. Really just got them good enough to have a center image so I could begin the run-in process. They honestly sounded really good just like that and I could see how many might just love that sound and call it a day. It was a very “round” sound that you could just bask in its glow. It was still extremely expressive but it lacked in clarity, dynamics and of course the timing was pretty smeared. Once I got the left speaker dialed in with the current “cheap” cables etc, it is pretty much a WOW type experience. One example might be Paganini’s violin concerto No.2 from the album Paganini: Diabolus in Musica. There is no ear piercing going on with this violin. It is just articulate and extended with all of the expressiveness of a musician.
I know there are some out there that have a distaste for horns. I can understand your point as I would not say that I hated them in the past but it seemed there were some compromises I wasn’t really willing to trade this for that. I do honestly believe that a lot of this in any horn system is related to setup. But what Avantgarde has done with the Trio G3 is give me a zero trade off situation. I get all of the greatness of horns – high efficiency, dynamics, low level detail, musical expressiveness… – with none of the bad stuff I heard in the past – shouty, cupped, piercing, etc. The level of setup control is outstanding. Adjustable tweeter position to maintain time alignment, iTron current amp that allows control over spectral balance, adjustable gain to accommodate the preamp, DSP in the Spacehorn. If you have hated horns in the past you might want to give this new generation of Avantgarde’s a listen.
As the setup comes along I will post more and also post some videos of my comments during the setup process. I added the picture below because as the saying goes “It didn’t happen if there isn’t a picture”. As a note, I left the blue foam on while I was playing with the major positioning. The speakers aren’t in the front of the room any longer. I have pulled them back out to the middle.
Finally getting there.
I set out to find a speaker that would satisfy my lust for that emotional connection to music that was so hit or miss with previous systems. I had very few speakers on my list of candidates and interestingly the Avantgarde Trio G3 wasn’t originally on the list. I have never owned or seriously considered a horn speaker before because I had never heard a horn system setup in such a way that there weren’t compromises. But as fate would have it, about the time I was getting serious about a purchase the Tio G3 showed up on the scene. I listened at AXPONA 2022 and was not all that impressed with the sound. Sure the speaker looked cool but I was not convinced at that point. Knowing that one should never make strong judgements based on show conditions I contacted a few people to discuss what they thought was so great about the Trios. They said I really needed to hear them in a better location and that the Trio G3 is really a fantastic, world class speaker when setup properly. So, I contacted American Sound of Canada and arranged a visit to her place in August 2022. (I wrote about this visit in another thread.) The speakers sounded much better at her place but still not displaying the greatness I was expecting. What was obvious about the setup at American Sound is that the speakers were not optimized as they were not even on the spikes. But even with them not being very precisely setup they did not sound shouty or overly aggressive. I thought this was encouraging. Again after speaking with some industry experts I decided to take a leap of faith and purchase a pair of the Avantgarde Trio G3’s with the iTron amplifiers and a pair of Dual Spacehorns.
Other system elements are being put into place as well. I am looking for components with as little time smear as possible and are “quiet”. The component has not only the leading edge of the transient but also have lots of decay. With 109dB efficient speakers noise is a huge enemy of achieving realistic music. I spent a good amount of effort trying to understand the impact of the preamp and cables on timing. I purchased and L1/X1 to experiment with as well as playing with a few different cable lines. I will just say that not all preamps and cables are created equal when it comes to timing. I have ended up with an L10 for the preamp. I should get my new cables this week – Nordost Odin2. The digital also needs some work. (Sorry, no analog)
The speakers arrived in late January but there was an unfortunate shipping mishap and I didn’t get the full set of speakers in my room until mid-March. I have spent a good amount of time experimenting with placement and getting to know how the speaker responds to different adjustments. There is really no point in getting everything fully positioned until I get all of the front end settled, installed and broken in.
I am going to eventually post some videos I have done on install and setup of the Trios, but here are a few notes of interest. First, as Avantgarde points out in the manual you need to have your ear on the same equatorial plane as the tweeter. The tweeter sits at 43” off the floor and typical ear height is 36”-37”. In my system, the tweeter is right at 11’ from my ear so to achieve the proper ear to tweeter relationship requires a LOT of rake angle. I am currently at 3.16 degrees of forward rake. This can not be achieved with the provided spikes without putting the rear spike on some kind of thick foot. I had custom spikes make for the speaker that are from grade 5 Titanium and are M12X0.75. I had two spikes made that were extra long to accommodate the extra length needed to get the high rake angle. Problem solved. The second thing relates to what makes the Trio a truly viable speaker in my book. That is the fact that the tweeter distance can be adjusted to maintain driver time alignment as the toe-in is adjusted. I have found that the sound I get is very sensitive to the tweeter adjustment. It is pretty obvious when I have forgotten to adjust this after a small toe-in or azimuth change. The sound can get aggressive and shouty. But when I make a very small tweeter adjust everything gets right back in balance. The third major element is the spacehorn. These things weigh a ton so make sure you have plenty of help when it comes to moving them. I have positioned them on their side and on the outside of the main horns. These proved to not be that difficult to integrate to sound good. The bass is extremely fast and articulate -- no bloat, no overhang. After some adjustment of toe-in and rake they are coherent with the main horns. Of course it has built in DSP that can be used to adjust the crossover point and any EQ that someone might want. It is easy to use and adjustments can be made on the fly while listening.
The Sound so far has well exceeded my expectations and is delivering all the goods. Even with “cheap” cables and no tweaks it is crazy good. Dynamics are off the chart. Loads of low level detail and expressiveness in the music. There is none of this “cupped hands” or shoutyness or anything else I formerly associated with the “horn” sound. When I first moved them into the room I didn’t spend much time with positioning. Really just got them good enough to have a center image so I could begin the run-in process. They honestly sounded really good just like that and I could see how many might just love that sound and call it a day. It was a very “round” sound that you could just bask in its glow. It was still extremely expressive but it lacked in clarity, dynamics and of course the timing was pretty smeared. Once I got the left speaker dialed in with the current “cheap” cables etc, it is pretty much a WOW type experience. One example might be Paganini’s violin concerto No.2 from the album Paganini: Diabolus in Musica. There is no ear piercing going on with this violin. It is just articulate and extended with all of the expressiveness of a musician.
I know there are some out there that have a distaste for horns. I can understand your point as I would not say that I hated them in the past but it seemed there were some compromises I wasn’t really willing to trade this for that. I do honestly believe that a lot of this in any horn system is related to setup. But what Avantgarde has done with the Trio G3 is give me a zero trade off situation. I get all of the greatness of horns – high efficiency, dynamics, low level detail, musical expressiveness… – with none of the bad stuff I heard in the past – shouty, cupped, piercing, etc. The level of setup control is outstanding. Adjustable tweeter position to maintain time alignment, iTron current amp that allows control over spectral balance, adjustable gain to accommodate the preamp, DSP in the Spacehorn. If you have hated horns in the past you might want to give this new generation of Avantgarde’s a listen.
As the setup comes along I will post more and also post some videos of my comments during the setup process. I added the picture below because as the saying goes “It didn’t happen if there isn’t a picture”. As a note, I left the blue foam on while I was playing with the major positioning. The speakers aren’t in the front of the room any longer. I have pulled them back out to the middle.
Finally getting there.
