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

[nirodha]

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.

Congrats: you now own the answer to the question: whatsbestaudio. One thing is of interest to me: does the current amp (iTron) make expensive cabling obsolete?

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron joined me for one visit.

In 2015, after our visit to the Avantgarde factory, I wrote here:

While I could happily live with the sound from this system for the rest of my life, I was disappointed in the rigidity of the frame on to which the horns are attached. Even a small amount of lateral pressure applied to the frame would move the thin skeletal structure of the Trios. When the Trios are playing music the frame vibrates, and when I touched the tubular cases of the horns they were vibrating also.

I would like to see the horns mounted on a truly rigid, rock-solid frame of some sort with much thicker and heavier horn cases such that the frame does not vibrate and the horn cases do not resonate when music is playing.

I was so happy to see the new G3, which addresses completely the rigidity criticism. (AG finally listened to me! (just kidding).)

 

[bonzo75]

In 2015, after our visit to the Avantgarde factory, I wrote here:

While I could happily live with the sound from this system for the rest of my life, I was disappointed in the rigidity of the frame on to which the horns are attached. Even a small amount of lateral pressure applied to the frame would move the thin skeletal structure of the Trios. When the Trios are playing music the frame vibrates, and when I touched the tubular cases of the horns they were vibrating also.

I would like to see the horns mounted on a truly rigid, rock-solid frame of some sort with much thicker and heavier horn cases such that the frame does not vibrate and the horn cases do not resonate when music is playing.

I was so happy to see the new G3, which addresses completely the rigidity criticism. (AG finally listened to me! (just kidding).)

with those older horns people would put something like sand bags over the frame. And support at the bottom. Jim smith used to set them up this way when he was distro he might have more details of what he did

 

[mtemur]

In 2015, after our visit to the Avantgarde factory, I wrote here:

While I could happily live with the sound from this system for the rest of my life, I was disappointed in the rigidity of the frame on to which the horns are attached. Even a small amount of lateral pressure applied to the frame would move the thin skeletal structure of the Trios. When the Trios are playing music the frame vibrates, and when I touched the tubular cases of the horns they were vibrating also.

I would like to see the horns mounted on a truly rigid, rock-solid frame of some sort with much thicker and heavier horn cases such that the frame does not vibrate and the horn cases do not resonate when music is playing.

I was so happy to see the new G3, which addresses completely the rigidity criticism. (AG finally listened to me! (just kidding).)

IMHO what you’ve written is very accurate criticism about older generation of AG speakers. A couple of friends who had Duo and Trio in the past made the same criticism and complained about plastic horns but when we heard new Trio in Munich last year we felt that it is much more better regarding rigidity. I really liked new Trio.

When I heard AG speakers in Munich 2010 with their own amp I called my friends owned AG speakers and told them yours’ sound much more tamed than this. AG has improved it’s products significantly over the years.

 

[sbnx]

Thank you all for the kind words.

I don't think the iTron makes expensive cables irrelevant. Quite the opposite. Of course, with iTron I don't need speaker cables so those are obsolete and listed for sale on US Audiomart . Most have probably read the literature or watched videos on iTron but to summarize what it does is amazing. It has incredibly fast rise times and the ultimate control over the drivers. This combined withe the super efficient, low motion/low overhang drivers means that the speaker system is capable of incredible time resolution. (One note does not blur into the next note). I think that some cables are also very articulate and some not so much. I chose Odin2 for its ability to get out of the way. The other cable line that was in serious running was from the Chord Company. Their SarumT is something special with regards to articulation. (It does other things really well too but with timing it smacks you in the face. When I compared using Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 1 the pianist on the other cable souned like a 3rd grader compared to SarumT). The ChordMusic takes that up even another level. For some reason this cable line gets very little credit in the US market. When the Odin2's arrive I can report on what that brought to the table with the Trios compared to others.

The frame on the Trios is definitely much more rigid than the previous version. There is no flexure if you push on it. However, if you put your hands on it while it is playing you can still feel vibration. I have already purchased several bags of lead shot. I plan on putting a couple large bags on the bottom support and "cross" bar. (The main reason for this is that the 3.1 degree rake forward feels like the speaker needs a little weight on the back to help counterbalance). My wife is making some smaller bags that I will fill with the shot to make little 5 pounders. I plan on putting these strategically on the metal tubes. I will do this after the rest of the setup is complete and assess if it makes a positive or negative difference in the sound. I mostly think that damping the frame & tubes is a good thing but sometimes (and I have no idea why) these types of things can just kill the sound.

Dive on in Mike the water's fine. Seriously, I laughed out loud When I saw your post a little while back that you considered the Trios and then took a nap to sleep it off and feel better now. I know how you feel as changing speakers at this stage of the game is a major undertaking. You seem to be really enjoying the music in your room and have carefully selected the components to get you there. I was not happy with my music and thus had to make some kind of change. I decided I am going to stop chasing the rabbit and just slay the dragon.

~Todd

 

[mtemur]

Thank you all for the kind words.

I don't think the iTron makes expensive cables irrelevant. Quite the opposite. Of course, with iTron I don't need speaker cables so those are obsolete and listed for sale on US Audiomart . Most have probably read the literature or watched videos on iTron but to summarize what it does is amazing. It has incredibly fast rise times and the ultimate control over the drivers. This combined withe the super efficient, low motion/low overhang drivers means that the speaker system is capable of incredible time resolution. (One note does not blur into the next note). I think that some cables are also very articulate and some not so much. I chose Odin2 for its ability to get out of the way. The other cable line that was in serious running was from the Chord Company. Their SarumT is something special with regards to articulation. (It does other things really well too but with timing it smacks you in the face. When I compared using Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 1 the pianist on the other cable souned like a 3rd grader compared to SarumT). The ChordMusic takes that up even another level. For some reason this cable line gets very little credit in the US market. When the Odin2's arrive I can report on what that brought to the table with the Trios compared to others.

The frame on the Trios is definitely much more rigid than the previous version. There is no flexure if you push on it. However, if you put your hands on it while it is playing you can still feel vibration. I have already purchased several bags of lead shot. I plan on putting a couple large bags on the bottom support and "cross" bar. (The main reason for this is that the 3.1 degree rake forward feels like the speaker needs a little weight on the back to help counterbalance). My wife is making some smaller bags that I will fill with the shot to make little 5 pounders. I plan on putting these strategically on the metal tubes. I will do this after the rest of the setup is complete and assess if it makes a positive or negative difference in the sound. I mostly think that damping the frame & tubes is a good thing but sometimes (and I have no idea why) these types of things can just kill the sound.

Dive on in Mike the water's fine. Seriously, I laughed out loud When I saw your post a little while back that you considered the Trios and then took a nap to sleep it off and feel better now. I know how you feel as changing speakers at this stage of the game is a major undertaking. You seem to be really enjoying the music in your room and have carefully selected the components to get you there. I was not happy with my music and thus had to make some kind of change. I decided I am going to stop chasing the rabbit and just slay the dragon.

~Todd

I enjoyed reading your posts. Thank you for sharing. I wonder if big opening on the ceiling cause any acoustical problems?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I enjoyed reading your posts. Thank you for sharing. I wonder if big opening on the ceiling cause any acoustical problems?

i have essentially the same ceiling design, and those chambers help to smooth the bass. no ill effects.

the issue is a flat ceiling.

but a horn does work differently than a dynamic speaker. so there is that.

 

[Republicoftexas69]

Very impressive equipment and room.

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

concrats on great commercial horn speakers
I lived with 1 gen trios for 12 years before I took the leap into designing my present DIY system
one thing I reacted to on the old frames is that they were steel and magnetic and the cables to the different horns went through the magnetic frames
when I rerouted the cables outside the frames the system took a major leap in SQ
SO if the present frames still are steel I´d try to route the cables on the outside of the frames,or at least gnd the frames or shield the cables
good luck
best
Leif

 

[sbnx]

I thought I would post a pic of the new spikes that I had made for the speakers. I had these made at a local metal shop that I use. They are made from Grade5 titanium with a lock nut and Titanium spike shoe. The short ones in the pic are still substantially longer than the OEM spikes. The longer one is for the rear as the speaker requires a lot of rake. (as mentioned).

Yes, I really am that far off the edge.

 

[Kodak805]

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.

An exceptional photo of a very beautiful room and system. Congratulations and best wishes on your new loudspeakers.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Todd, any thoughts on the practicality of a non height adjustable 43" high tweeter?

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

are you sitting to close since you need the substantial rake?
still see the tweeter height is about 8" higher than would wish

 

[sbnx]

I don’t want to speak for Avantgarde on this as there are always engineering challenges to meet the product objectives. Also, there is always room for improvement that we would likely see in several years on the G4. I doubt this is one of them but who knows what some clever engineer will come up with. I think it is great that they gave one degree of freedom in adjusting the speaker forward and backward. To be able to additionally adjust the tweeter for listening height would pose a whole new set of problems. One issue is that if the tweeter were lowered it would start to be blocked by the lower midrange/upper bass horn.

On a side note, all speakers need some degree of rake adjustment. Most speakers need to be raked back as the speaker is projecting the sound in a downward direction. But this is typically only a few tenths of a degree. There are other speaker designs that have tweeters that are very high – Wilson and YG come to mind.

With regard to listening distance -- I am not sitting too close. AG recomments a 3-4 meter listening distance. I am sitting at 11' 1" tfrom my ear to the tweeter horn (3.4m). The sound is coherent so there is no issue there.

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

I was 4,5 away and still felt it was too close and the drivers didn´t integrate properly and the ss moved when shifting head position
if you can, try to add another meter and see what happens

 

[sbnx]

Listening distance is a personal choice. I have 100% flexibility in my room as to where I want the listening seat and where the speakers go. I have set the listening position using the "Jim Smith" method of finding the spot that has the smoothest bass response. (My bass is +/- a couple dB from 35Hz to 100Hz without the use of the DSP function in the spacehorn.) There are a few candidate speaker positions and I am certainly not done at this point but I do not like sitting far from the speakers. The speaker is very coherent. No issues there at all. If someone just sets the speakers on the floor without taking care in selecting toe-in, rake and azimuth then I have no doubt that they would not sound coherent.

I have included some pics here of a couple tables. This is for those that aren't mathematically inclined. This will get anyone setting these up in the ballpark. Ear height has a bigger impact than listening distance. So, if I were to sit in a more upright chair then I would not need quite as large an angle.

 

[bonzo75]

Not seating far from speakers for a smooth bass works sometimes for cone speakers. For speakers like trios if you have a big room use it can be fantastic. Pointing straight ahead

 

[nirodha]

Avantgarde company video 2023: new TRIO generation 3: ein leckerbissen, as the Germans would put it.

 

[adyc]

Are horn speakers in general difficult to set up? Is the sweet spot is also very narrow?

 

[sbnx]

Avantgarde company video 2023: new TRIO generation 3: ein leckerbissen, as the Germans would put it.

Very nice video. I had not seen that one. AG is definitely giving their marketing a boost.