Mods for Avantgarde speakers


I have had Avantgarde Trios for about eight years. They play music with the types of amplifiers that I enjoy, in a way that I like more than other speakers that I have heard. I would like to hear from others that have modified their Avantgarde speakers, what they have done, and with what improvements. Damping, x-overs, cabling, etc. are things that I am interested in.
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Showing 3 responses by hornguys

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I have always wished that the factory speakers were time aligned. However, that discussion never went very far with the guys in Germany (whom I still greatly admire and count as friends, btw).

As such, it was a testament to how good they were in other areas that they could still be as musically involving with such disappointing driver alignments.

Over the years, I privately tried a variety of techniques to accomplish it (time/phase alignment of the treble horn to mid horn).

I managed to make it work, but I was never clever enough to completely overcome the additional issues of reflection from the treble horn, as more of its direct wavefront would be striking the bell of the mid horn.

Not only that, it was butt-ugly!

The general market would have been negatively impacted with my "solution".

So I finally gave up, because - even if it worked - even if it could be made to look less home-made, I couldn't get the factory to consider it as a serious discussion.

Probably because they'd been down that road many times previously.

One other observation - the closer you sit, the more noticeable this aspect is (sonically, and unfortunately - visually - as well).

At ear-to-tweeter driver distances of less than 10-11 feet, anything you can do to get these disparately placed drivers to "hang together" sonically is a good thing.

Certainly front-to-back tilt and/or speaker height become critical.
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Duomike,

Sorry - I didn't put the butt-ugly remark in the right context.

If I listed all of the "zero-WAF-mods" I've done, it'd require several sheets of paper.

I was referring to the ability to manufacture a version that the public would buy.

It were left to me, I would have kept my mod, but dealers, reviewers and consumers visit my demo room regularly.

I never came up with anything that met marketing requirements and still scratched that itch to tweak that we have.

And they did sound good "stock", as has been documented lots of places.
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When I was working with this concept, it was with DUOs, which have a lower crossover frequency, and also a different polarity. So I'm not sure how far back with Trios.

It'd be good if the frame you built had the provision for being able to slide the tweeter back and forth until the sound locks in.

If I was building new frames anyway, I'd seriously consider relocating all of the horns in a vertical line. Especially in a room that is width challenged.

That'll mean you'll have to to tilt the top horn down a bit.

I never heard TRIOs set up with the tweeter on the outside that sounded musically involving, no matter how large the room.
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