Avantgarde or Tonian?

Interesting and tough choice!

My guess is the Avantgarde has more upside but will be harder to get setup properly and tweaked to sound just right.

I'd probably lean towards the Tonian for top to bottom coherency and towards Avantgarde for dynamics and overall potential, especially at more realistic listening volumes.

Avantgardes are plenty "musical" if properly set up and driven. If you heard them with Lamm ML2s, you'd not disparage their musical satisfaction...have not heard the Bernings, though they have a very good rep.

Ggavetti what don't you like about the Ocellia sound? I think any PHY based speaker is the more musical speaker over the avantgarde speaker. The avantgardes are good sounding speakers but more hi-fi sounding than musical and in the long run the Tonian or Ocellia wold be my choice.

What does "more hifi sounding than musical" mean? Hi fi used to mean high fidelity. High fidelity was the goal. What in the blue h--- happened?

Hello. I think the Ocellias are great speakers, don't get me wrong. The model I have might have a better extension in the upper frequencies. I have considered adding a supertweeter. Tonians use the same driver but they also mount a ribbon tweeter and I've read superlative reviews. So, I was curious.

By the way, the Berning Siegfried is the best amplifier I've ever listened to (and I had pretty good ones, but for the most part push-pull).