phill, you must be an IDIOT to think that accuracy is perceptable solely by those who produce or engineer recordings. that means that one can hear the accuracy of a recording only if the speakers through which it is replayed are the same as those used as monitors by those at the most critical point in the recording process. the electronics used in the recording chain, of course, are also important. hence, from your thoroughly IDIOTIC point of view, a recording produced with spectral gear using avalon speakers as monitors, would be accurate only if played back through the same electronics with the same transducers as those used to record it. hold on a minute, that means that we would have to trust the guys at the stores tbonephile mentions to sell us something that will produce accurate sound, notwithstanding their complete lack of knowledge as to what a "musical" system sounds like. now i'm confused. maybe, just maybe you're not an IDIOT. maybe you've found the audio equal of the rosetta stone, or even synthesized, at last, the unified field theory. so please, please phill, you audio god you, tell us what we're to buy to assure our systems are both accurate reproducers of recordings and "musical" too. BTW, i have owned 3 different pairs of avalons and now have eidolons in my system. i have heard the whole avalon line numerous times mated with spectral/mit. IMHO, the spectral/mit stuff is ok with avalons but, auditioned side-by-side with other high-power ss electronics (e.g., rowland, accuphase and boulder), sounds pale, lifeless, dry and veiled. here's my prediction (feel free to write it down) within the next year or year and a half, you will see fewer and fewer quality highend dealers pairing avalons with spectral electronics. what's the point, now that the radian hc is history?
Some of the biggest audio places carry..
Stores that are ultra high end like Goodwins Audio And Overture Audio and Progressive Audio and many others seem to carry Avalon and Spectral, They seem to prefer it to all the Krells and Levinson and Pass and Conrad-Johnson And Audio Research, which more of these stores also carry. They all of coarse carry MIT. I think that when you get into ultra high end it becomes more a factor of buying as a system. And I think Avalon/Spectral/MIT are some of the best sound money can buy. Anyone agree? Spectral gear is very analytical, but when their hooked to a laid back Avalon, and "smoothed" out by MIT, their the most detailed sound out there