Avalon Avatar vs. Avalon Eclipse

Hooper ke,

I'm in the same boat as you. I've owned my Avatars for several years now, I'm very happy with them. I live in Phoenix, there is no Avalon dealer in Arizona. The only Avalons I've seen come up used locally were identical to mine, my friend bought them.
I do watch the used Avalon speakers on Audiogon. Until I got my Avatars, my favorite speaker was the Apogee Mini Grand. These speakers in my room sounded great. They were very demanding of everything upstream. The Avalon Avatars
do everything my Mini Grands did, just on a smaller scale.
I have read up on the Avalon Eclipse, it is still a 2 way, but it is appreciably bigger & heavier than the Avatar.
I also watch the newer Avalons on Audiogon. I know the earlier models like ours (designed by Charles Hansen), were all sealed, and the new ones (designed by Neil Patel), are ported. I usually prefer sealed speakers, and I'm using my Avatars now with a James EMB1200 sub. This sub is sealed & I do have another one I'll add to my system as soon as I add dedicated lines.
I'll either stick with these Avatars, or take a vacation & drive to another state to decide on an upgrade in this brand.

I don't have an Avalon dealer in the Las Vegas valley either so I cannot go to a dealer. I am using a modified Genesis 928 sub with my Avatars. It is a closed sub that seems to work real well with the Avatars. I really am not sure how much improvement the more expensive Avalons would bring if I have addressed the lack of bass in the Avatars. I have considered a Behringer crossover with a program I can use on my laptop to equilibrate the system to my room. Again, I don't know how much that will help because I don't know how adverse my room is. Thanks for posting.

Well I am intimately familiar with the Eclipse,but not the Avatar...sorry!

In any case the Eclipse is a fabulous speaker,with wide dynamic range and contrasts.It has superb resolution and can play very loud.Soundstage is superb.It does best with some power behind it.The speaker likes room to breath,and imo can compete with some of today's priciest/best/high cache designs.....Like I said,I know that speaker well.A great one!!

I previously owned the Ascent Mk II,which is still a world class speaker(God that was a great design-:).It had a superb dedicated mid range unit,that to this day was amazing.It also had a seperate crossover unit and it outperformed the Eclipse "only" in subtle upper mid detail and some bass depth.I found the Ascent to outperform the Eidolon,to be honest,but that is only one man's opinion.

Anyway,as for the Eclipse,if it still comes with the superb manual about placement and drive capabilities,I'd read it cover to cover.Great stuff within.

The Eclipse is,imo,a true audiophile speaker.No phoney baloney here today and gone tomorrow design...

Good luck