Todd's AG Trio G3 System -- it's about time

[Uwiik]

For me It is very surprising that Roy's views on the comparison of Ongaku and iTron on Trio G3 were completely opposite to yours!
Did you compare iTron and Ongaku with the same Preamp? And are you sure that the Preamp was matched with the iTron in terms of impedance matching? And its output impedance is not too high for iTron? Since the input impedance of the iTron is only 10k ohms, And Roy had reviewed iTron with CH Preamp, which output impedance is below 100 ohms.

These are Roy's comments after he heard Trio G3 with Kondo Ongaku and Heritage M7 Preamp at the show in Portugal and compared it with iTron..

"Having waxed lyrical about the qualities of the active Trios, it was fascinating to hear just how musically coherent, engaging and entertaining they could be, driven passively with the Kondo electronics. Sure, the system didn’t have the ‘you are there’ presence, immediacy and unfettered dynamics of the active rig, but it was wonderfully relaxed, responsive and fluid. Playing records or files, phrasing and musical shape were first class. Tonality, integration and spatial coherence were all excellent and if the slightly rounded dynamics and roseate shadings of the Kondo were apparent, they certainly didn’t intrude"

"Oh, you’ve got an Ongaku (or some other, fabled SET)? I don’t care: the iTron will kill pretty much any standalone amplifier – and it will do it at a fraction of the price! It’s faster, more accurate, more dynamic, more precise and with far more natural timing, presence and immediacy than any voltage amplifier at anywhere even close to its price"

Some people just love to hate SET…. I came to the audition with neutral opinion and actually very very ready to pension my Ongaku until I heard it with Trio G3….I wasn’t alone in my opinion, there are three other listeners and the dealer who is big on solid state said so himself.

I am 100% sure the tweeter wasn’t setup properly during my audition, and just like @sbnx stated, without proper setup iTron will really highlight the ugly side of the Trio G3. In my experience Ongaku is much more forgiving in that matter. Whether that is for the worse or better I don’t know, the jury is still out there….

Compared both Itron and Ongaku with same preamp, Kondo G70….Tried Kondo M7 on both too but it was too anemic to our taste, Kondo G series I think is a special cut above the M series, definitely a lot more dynamic to be had on the G series. The dealer have complete range of CH Precision on demo but I didn’t want to try it because I just do not want to open that can of worm… Again this is only my opinion….

 

[bonzo75]

Even the older model of the trio required drive, you could not use any set. Ron and I compared the 9 watts audionote 300b, 9 watts airtight 300b, and the older AG SS amps on the trio. The audionote could not drive it properly. The airtight was quite better. Iirc airtight uses feedback. Kondo models like Kagura have more drive than souga. Dunno what drive the TN 300b has and if it is sufficient to push the trios. German boxers can comment on that

 

[exupgh12]

Interesting as I moved away from tube amps for a number of reasons 3 years ago after 17 year with SETs powering my Uno or Duo systems. I started with the proviso that any solid state amp would have to equal or surpass the enjoyment factor of the SETs, although I didn't need the ss amp to mimic or sound like tubes, ie I just wanted maximum musical enjoyment without worrying about what was feeding the speakers.

I bought or borrowed 12 amps of Class A, AB and D, expecting the As (Accuphase, Sugden, etc) to be my first choice,. ABs from the likes of Mark Levinson, GamuT and Ds from Devialet, NAD. Other brands included Lyngdorf, Bakoon, Benchmark, Valvet, etc. All these amps were highly recommended and used by other AG owners on various forums.

To my surprise, I found a Class D to be an excellent match for Avantgarde, with the advantages of relative low purchase price (allowing me to upgrade to latest Duos), low maintenance, very high SN ratio and negligible running costs. I chose the leading Class D technology and avoided the cobbled-together offerings one finds on Ebay, etc with Eval board based Purifi Eigentakt amps. I’m very pleased with my Class D amplification. The GamuT came a close second, let down only by its bad manners when turned on or off! I really wanted to like the beautifully executed Accuphase but it turned out just a little too “polite”. The Benchmark was by far the biggest disappointment, despite rave comments from a Trio owner.

The AG website used to feature a Gallery section where owners of AG speakers could upload photos and details of their systems. It was interesting that, despite the oft-claimed SET / horn combination being mage in heaven, more users had ss amps than tubes.

I haven't spent time with Uno or Duo (the local distributor is friend of mine), but I'm quite familiar with the trio. These speakers are highly sensitive and require patience during setup. When comparing the Tub to SS amplifiers, SET amplifiers simply brings out their best with so much more finesse, something I haven't witnessed so far with any SS amplifier.
after attending several manufacturer demonstrations in the last couple years at the of Munich shows I hold my opinion, the AG Trio’s are at their best when using SET or Tub amplifiers.

 

[LL21]

Best view on the whole issue so far. Excellent points!!!

100% agree. I think SBNX has very likely nailed it. In which case...would your dealer take a risk on time/effort and set up the AG 3 in your home with iTron and really finetune it (you will have to figure out a temporary bass solution)? That would enable you to hear it set up/finetuned to see if you are ready to part with the Ongaku (which is what enables you to make this trade)?

 

[Uwiik]

100% agree. I think SBNX has very likely nailed it. In which case...would your dealer take a risk on time/effort and set up the AG 3 in your home with iTron and really finetune it (you will have to figure out a temporary bass solution)? That would enable you to hear it set up/finetuned to see if you are ready to part with the Ongaku (which is what enables you to make this trade)?

The difference won’t be that much actually, should be able to swing it both way if I am willing to postpone on the basshorns. Now I am just tip toeing between getting non iTron and keeping my Ongaku, get iTron and still keep my Ongaku or get iTron and let go of my Ongaku + get the basshorns sooner…. Regardless of what I think about Ongaku+Trio G3, one of the reason I have interest on the G3 is actually the highly regarded iTron, I like to play music non stop for background music and iTron would enable me to do that without thinking about wasting my expensive and rare 211 tubes… I am still undecided and still waiting for valuation of my used gears from the dealer…

 

[Argonaut]

Regardless of what I think about Ongaku+Trio G3, one of the reason I have interest on the G3 is actually the highly regarded iTron, I like to play music non stop for background music and iTron would enable me to do that without thinking about wasting my expensive and rare 211 tubes…

Well … This recent disclosure would seem to tilt the balance of your Dichotomy somewhat , for my part your most logical path would seem to be ‘All In’ with the AG Trio G3 Including the bass horns in one swift Cut !

“ When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

Alexander Graham Bell

 

[spiritofmusic]

Hi Spirit,
What's your take on the Cessaros showing so impressively?

Caesar, I may be an outlier in really liking them. I have a tendency to put aside negatives when I get emotionally connected to a sound. Others are more cooly analytical, and won't be swayed overall.
It was also the first time I heard a proper holistic horns sound with no subs issues (Trios horns w cone 242 subs heard just before were seriously flawed).
So, despite massive room bass nodes issues, they really touched me emotionally, with a vibrancy and immediacy that totally convinced. Yes, those nodes took me out of the moment. But in a bigger room...
I have heard them subsequently in the same room, but Class D amps and AD-DA process to vinyl, and the nodes were killed...but so was the magic.
And I've heard them in a bigger room ostensibly better set up w 211 monos and a great TT front end, yet they were not fully convincing.

 

[Kozak170]

Well, one could just point the speakers pretty much straight ahead or give them a little toe-in but keep the ear out of the tweeter window. The sound is still quite good this way but certainly not precise. If one is going to go this way then choose your favorite SET and enjoy the lushness of it all. Nothing wrong with that.

You made a very good point, I had seen a photo of this dealer's setup before, where the speakers were toed in and tweeters were pointing directly at ears and it seems that it was only set up for the iTron mode at the time.
But later, when the dealer brought some SETs like Airtight and wanted to compare iTron with passive mode for visitors, he made some changes and it is clear in the new photos, where trios pointing straight ahead with no toe-in, which can be critical for iTron and cause less pin point imaging and less realistic sound compared to passive mode and Ongaku.

Before

After

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I believe noise floor leads us to why AG chooses solid state over tubes. Most tube gear is noisy. I don't necessarily mean the kind of noise you hear when you get close to the tweeter but some electronics do exhibit this kind of noise as well. I mean the insidious kind of noise that is riding along with the music. This is why the AG preamp runs with batteries -- less noise. With 109 dB efficient speakers we hear everything. To me, the quieter the component the better.

Tubes vs solid state. The old debate that continues. With the Trios I think it comes down to this: Do you like a rounded sound or do you like a more precise sound. With the iTron amp AG has provided the ultimate in precision. It is lighting fast and nothing gets lost in the timing accuracy of the speaker (I say nothing but in fact nothing is exactly perfect. The iTron is as close as I think anything has come)

So here is the dilemma and the nighmare part. The Trios are, in fact, quite difficult to setup to take full advantage of the great amount of precision the iTron offers. The speaker needs to be time aligned with itself and with the other speaker. Then we have to align the space horn at somewhere around 100Hz. All of this is not easy to do. It is easy to get lost and make the speaker sound really, really bad. So what to do? Well, one could just point the speakers pretty much straight ahead or give them a little toe-in but keep the ear out of the tweeter window. The sound is still quite good this way but certainly not precise. If one is going to go this way then choose your favorite SET and enjoy the lushness of it all. Nothing wrong with that.

As far as comparing iTron to SET amps. I do not see how the speakers can sit in the same position and someone can fully hear what each amplifier type has to offer. If the speaker is optimized for the iTron then the SET is going to show deficiencies. If the speaker is setup for the SET then the iTron is going to show deficiencies. I know AG offers the built in switch thing. When I was first considering it I did the demo just like everyone else. But honestly, neither one sounded all that great. (I commented on this in several other posts so if you are interested you can read what I thought of the AG Trio G3 demos there.) So I guess you could say the speakers were not optimized for either. It all comes down to optimization and setup.

when i heard the AG Duo GT at the Seattle show in June, i heard it with SET's and the i-tron. i wanted to like it with the i-tron, but the room set-up made it problematic. it was a large room and very wide, but no matter where i sat front to back or side to side the image jumped around and i could not get the sound to be natural. it was tipped up and quasi-dentist drill like.

the room was run by a friend of mine, and the NA Distributor was there too. i did communicate my concerns and they played around with the set-up some. but the i-tron was essentially unlistenable to my ears.....in that particular situation.

the SET's were 'acceptable', but not super. i did hear plenty of dynamics of course.

and i really wanted to like the i-tron.

my 2022 Axpona G3 experience with the i-Tron was imperfect, but amazing. i heard none of the etch or hardness, while not being 110% natural, i enjoyed it.

 

[Ron Resnick]

setup. When comparing the Tub to SS amplifiers, SET amplifiers simply brings out their best with so much more finesse, something I haven't witnessed so far with any SS amplifier.

Have you compared tube to iTron? Just comparing tube to solid-state I don't think targets the instant question, as even I think the iTron is a "whole new ballgame" in terms of solid-state on AG.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Now I am just tip toeing between getting non iTron and keeping my Ongaku, get iTron and still keep my Ongaku or get iTron and let go of my Ongaku + get the basshorns sooner….

Can iTron be added later? If not, if I faced this decision, even if I thought I would never use iTron personally, I probably would get the iTron version just to help maintain future resale value.

 

[microstrip]

(...) I like to play music non stop for background music and iTron would enable me to do that without thinking about wasting my expensive and rare 211 tubes… I am still undecided and still waiting for valuation of my used gears from the dealer…

Well, in my experience any devaluation of expensive used gear will be much higher than any wear cost of rare 211 tubes. But audiophiles are always looking for rational reasons to change!

 

[Ron Resnick]

Even the older model of the trio required drive, you could not use any set. Ron and I compared the 9 watts audionote 300b, 9 watts airtight 300b, and the older AG SS amps on the trio. The audionote could not drive it properly. The airtight was quite better. Iirc airtight uses feedback. Kondo models like Kagura have more drive than souga. Dunno what drive the TN 300b has and if it is sufficient to push the trios. German boxers can comment on that

If I had AG loudspeakers my first amplifier stop would be Viva Auroras.

 

[Ron Resnick]

my 2022 Axpona G3 experience with the i-Tron was imperfect, but amazing. i heard none of the etch or hardness, while not being 110% natural, i enjoyed it.

When Keith and I heard the Duos with iTron at AXPONA 2023 we were very pleasantly surprised to hear no edginess or hardness. This is why I do think there is something good going on with the iTron electronics (even if iTron ultimately would not be my personal subjective preference).

 

[microstrip]

A question for AG experts - excluding the crossover, horn mount structure or iTron, focusing just on the horns and drive units, what are exactly the differences between the G3 and the XD versions?

 

[sbnx]

A question for AG experts - excluding the crossover, horn mount structure or iTron, focusing just on the horns and drive units, what are exactly the differences between the G3 and the XD versions?

Armin covers most of this in one of the videos. He states that it is easier to list what is the same between the G2 and G3 version of the trio. There are only 4 common parts: The lower and upper horn and two of the back plates that covers the rear of the driver enclosure tube. All of the drivers are redesigned. The tweeter is smaller and the tweeter horn is longer which extends the range of the tweeter in both directions. All of this is great but the big change to me is that they aligned the acoustic centers of the drivers and allowed the tweeter to slide so that it can be time aligned regardless of speaker attitude.

 

[microstrip]

Armin covers most of this in one of the videos. He states that it is easier to list what is the same between the G2 and G3 version of the trio. There are only 4 common parts: The lower and upper horn and two of the back plates that covers the rear of the driver enclosure tube. All of the drivers are redesigned. The tweeter is smaller and the tweeter horn is longer which extends the range of the tweeter in both directions. All of this is great but the big change to me is that they aligned the acoustic centers of the drivers and allowed the tweeter to slide so that it can be time aligned regardless of speaker attitude.

Thanks - my main interest is what are the differences in driver design? New dome materials, new magnets or simply change of geometry?

 

[Hear Here]

A question for AG experts - excluding the crossover, horn mount structure or iTron, focusing just on the horns and drive units, what are exactly the differences between the G3 and the XD versions?

The difference between G2 and G3 can be summarised as the G2 is a passive systen, while the G3 is active.

Therefore the G2 has a conventional passive crossover for the mid and top horns that are powered by the external main amp. The G3 is fully active when the iTron module is used, so no passive XO and each amp module directly drives the top and mid range drivers. Lots of other differences too.

The bass on both is active though and (as far as I can establish) the built-in DSP is simplified with G3 compared with the G2's over-complicated XD system.

 

[sbnx]

when i heard the AG Duo GT at the Seattle show in June, i heard it with SET's and the i-tron. i wanted to like it with the i-tron, but the room set-up made it problematic. it was a large room and very wide, but no matter where i sat front to back or side to side the image jumped around and i could not get the sound to be natural. it was tipped up and quasi-dentist drill like.

the room was run by a friend of mine, and the NA Distributor was there too. i did communicate my concerns and they played around with the set-up some. but the i-tron was essentially unlistenable to my ears.....in that particular situation.

the SET's were 'acceptable', but not super. i did hear plenty of dynamics of course.

and i really wanted to like the i-tron.

my 2022 Axpona G3 experience with the i-Tron was imperfect, but amazing. i heard none of the etch or hardness, while not being 110% natural, i enjoyed it.

This sounds like purely a setup problem. The image should be stable regardless of whether the tweeter is bright or not. It would be interesting to talk to your friend about the setup. Why does he feel he was not able to have great sound? The iTron also has the switch to turn the tweeter down by 1.5dB. I wonder if they were doing that? Not that you should have to do it but it might have helped in that room.

 

[caesar]

If I had AG loudspeakers my first amplifier stop would be Viva Auroras.

Interesting. Why viva? Why not audiopax, airtight, or others?