2. speakers
  3. 1198362006

Anybody else heard the Avalon Acoustics Isis?

I spent a delightful afternoon on friday listening to the Avalon Acoustics Isis speakers. These retail for $62000.00, so I was expecting a high level of performance, but was still surprised at how wonderful these speakers were at creating the sound of real music.

Even though this was in a store environment with electronics that are not my favorite cup of sonic tea, current Mark Levinson gear, the Isis's offered the following:

1) I'm quite enamored of the type of soundstage and natural layering that planer dipolar speakers provide, my home reference are MG-20's, the Isis was one of the few box enclosure speakers that offered this type of illusion regarding space. They just did not disappear, but offered this very natural 3D imaging without making individual players sound like "cutouts" against a background, but layering in a very natural way that sounds more like live music.

2) Great macrodynamics and resolution without sounding etched or in your face, and this was with electronics that I personnally don't find to be very musical! I would want to hear these speakers with a great tube pre and SS amps like Pass Labs XA's.

3) The whole sonic presentation was seemless, again reminding me of what great planer speakers have to offer, with a quick and rock solid bottom end.

I have listened to Wilson's, Kharma's, B&W's, Magico's, Dali's reference speakers on other occasions, and I was not as impressed as I was yesterday. Am I trading my MG-20's for the Isis's, no but if you have a chance to hear them I think you find it a very enjoyable experience.
teajay
strapper211
119 posts
 
Good point,first off my room is 15x25 and the Isis throws a soundstage about twice as wide and twice as deep as a diamond.The Instruments in that soundstage are layered and seperated with much more blackness between them.It added another octave to the top and bottom over the diamond,It can move a lot of air and the top really fills the room.It is much more transparent in the midrange believe it or not and it has outstanding impact that the diamond was lacking and lastly it is much more coherent or should I say involving.I also forgot to mention that it is 3 db more efficent and will play very loud and dynamic,also I was told the new price on them is 65,000 for standard finish.
I have had them almost 2 years now and I have yet to find their weakness,before that I had the diamonds for about 3 years.If you cannot afford still take a listen it will amaze you what they can do especially for a speaker with their size.
Robert
samuel33
53 posts
 
Branimir, you say that you prefer the Rockport Altair than Avalon Isis ; where have you compared them ?

Because I don't know a place where you can find both.

So I can imagine you have compared them in differents rooms with differents electronics and with your auditive memory : quite tuff to have an opinion with all this parameters, non ?

By the way with which amp/pream have you heard them ?

You forget to mention the problem with the omnidirectional MBL : music is recorded with microphones so the illusion can be restitued with directional speakers, so with mbl this trick doesn't work anymore -except if walls are far, far from the speakers- so the image stereophonic is quite problematic.
branimir
236 posts
 
Samuel33,
There is a dealer that have both Avalon and Rockport. Goodwins in Boston. Another dealer for Rokport is Ultimateaudiovideo in Chicago(they have both Arrakis and Altair).

I audition Altair with Boulder 2060/2010 and Wavestream V8(this amp was used in HK Show in August last year). Isis with Boulder 2060/2010, Krell Evolution One/Evolution Two and CAT JL2/SL1 Ultimate.

Regarding comparison them from auditive memory: Isn't this a usual audio reviewers habbit as well? I liked Altair more then Isis. But, I can live with both.

Regarding MBLs I fully agree with you.
More to discover