Avantgarde UNO set-up tips needed

Paul,

Which uno's do u have? Nano, 2.1, 3.1...?

Hi Paul

Ok, first thing is that these speakers take FOREVER to fully break-in. If they don't have at least 500 hours on them, imaging will not be perfect. These types of drivers essentially don't move at all. I thought mine were great until I had them a year and suddenly one night, I experienced teleportation. It’s been that way ever since. The midrange's excursion is minuscule so it takes tons of play time for it to properly loosen up. I bet most AG dealers have no idea how good they can sound because they don't use them enough before selling them. You basically have to live with them for months to discover their true capabilities.

Now having said that, the main problems you are hearing are not due to lack of break-in. Whart and Duomike are exactly right: you are hearing your electronics. And you don't like them as much as you thought! Hopefully you won't take it personally but your brain will constantly try to trick you in believing this is not true. It has happened to me many times. These speakers are capable of extreme resolution and dynamic range - levels that go beyond the design considerations for most amplifiers/preamps/sources. When this is the case, the flaws in the amps' designs will become apparent for the first time. Once you have tried several combinations of electronics with the Nanos, you will hear how significant the differences are even when you're only changing one component. People who think all amps sound alike have never experienced properly-setup Avantgardes.

Which leads me to my final point, and Whart mentioned this too: You need to experiment with your sub settings. Freq of 9 is definitely too high for your room and it will cause an imbalance, especially with the speakers that close to the back wall. My room is a similar size and I generally use Volume 5.5 and Freq 5. Even one little tiny click will be an audible change. I recommend you turn Freq down to 3 and then very gradually raise it back up until it sounds right and stop there. The sub settings can accommodate a lot of rooms/positions when they are set right – that’s one of the beauties of having adjustable bass, so take full advantage of it. The electronics play a role in the optimal settings, but it is minor compared to the room’s impact.

Contrary to popular belief, tubes are not a requirement with AGs. In fact, one of my favorite amps on my Nanos is a 450W solid-state amplifier. If you do go with tubes and can find an amp that uses the EL84 power tubes, you should definitely give it a try. Lovely tube. Kora of France made a lot of magnificent amps that used it, Manley Labs does too, some older VTL, and of course Tom Evans. The Nanos will tell you very quickly which amps have “magic” and which don’t. There is no other way to predict it. This does not mean they have to be expensive – they simply need to be designed by people who truly know what they are doing.

Keep us posted on the evolution!
Arthur

First, I should thank you all for the thoughtful replies. Whart and Arthur
thanks for taking the time to write such long posts. Whart, you have even read
my past comments on my virtual system threads. Thank you very much!

I will start by saying that after following Whart's advices things have improved
quite a bit. I am already very happy with the sound I am getting from the
UNOs! The most important thing I did was to toe-in the UNOs even more than
they were before. Now the "shooting" direction of the horns
intersects in front of me – a meter or so. (Initially, I have followed the
directions in the Avantgarde manual and made almost an equilateral triangle
between speakers and my listening chair, with the horns "shooting" directly at
me. As mentioned, in this configuration some instruments, e.g. double bass
and drums, had a much larger size than in reality. To correct this, I have
played quit a bit with the toe-in, unfortunately in the opposite direction - that
was my feeling after looking at the dispersion drawings in the Avantgarde
manual.) I have also moved my rack with electronics so now it does not sit
between the speakers anymore.

Regarding my electronics, my experience is the Accuphase electronics work
very well with Avantgarde speakers. It is certainly not an uncommon
combination here (in Europe). A few year back I went to an Avantgarde show
organized by a dutch dealer. He was using Audio Note electronics, but when I
told him I have an Accuphase class A integrate at home, he has immediately
switched the AN electronics with Accuphase without any fear of compromising
his demonstration. He knew it is a good combination, and indeed it was - I
had a wonderful audition.

Accuphase class A integrated amps and power amps play very well music even
when using 1 watt or less so. My "problem", however, is that I
have changed all my electronics in the last month. This has screwed up quite
a bit my reference sound. I moved from an Accuphase class A integrated to
separates, i.e. C-2410 pre-amp and an A-45 power amp (45 Class A watts
into 8 ohms). I have even changed my cd player to a much more expensive
sacd (also Accuphase). These changes brought about a much blacker
background and also a much faster and detailed sound - this with my old
speakers (Micro Be + REF Stentor 3). The UNOs made these things even more
apparent. It is not difficult to imagine that a "slower" and
"fatter" sound can at first sound better balanced.

On top of all these changes, I have spent two days measuring the sound
response of my room with the UNOs in it looking for the position that gives
me the best bass response. As some of you know, one has to crack up a bit
the volume to get a good signal for the microphone. Listening for two days at
80 - 90 dBs for hours is tiring for one's ears. Consequently, the last
statements made in the end of my initial post were not entirely accurate. That
is, after taking a listening break of two days (but letting the music play all this
time) the system sounds very nice and very well balanced - also when played
at 60 - 70 dB, which is the level of most of my listening sessions. (I use a
Radio Shack digital level meter - C weighting.)

I still have a week (till next Thursday) to decide whether or not I will keep the
UNOs, but I am already 95% sure I will. As most of you have mentioned,
further improvements can be achieved when playing with speaker cables,
connections and power cords. Also, like Arthur was pointing out, burning in
the speakers (my electronics are probably also not fully burned in yet!) should
bring further and significant improvements. I also did not play at all with my
Accuphase DG-38 room correction system.

Thanks again guys!
Paul

Hi guys, here are my answers to each of your comments:

Stereo5, the dealer has delivered the speakers to my home in person. I have
asked him to help me set them up (paying him would not have been a
problem) but he was certainly not eager to do it. My impression is that he
really has no idea what to do.

Douger, is it worth while to buy both (i.e. the book and the DVD)? I would
assume one will get more from the book, right? (I am a physicist doing
research on vibrational spectroscopy, so I am quite familiar with the way the
waves interact.)

Duomike, your comment certainly makes sense. Many SS amps do not do the
1st watt right so they sound terrible when driving very efficient speakers. As I
have mentioned in my previous post, I do not think that Accuphase class A
amps fall into this category. However, if I am mistaken, than I will most likely
choose the Accuphase electronics over the UNOs. This week-end I will install
back the Focal Micro Bes and the REL. I will report the differences.

Bmwmcab, I have the current generation of Avantgarde UNO. They are called
G2 (generation 2).

Arthur, you are probably right that the speakers and not yet burned in.
Apparently, the guy has them in his shop for a year and a bit. However, I have
visited his shop twice in the last 6 months, and every time the speakers where
in different rooms, i.e. one speaker was on the ground floor while the other
one on the 1st floor. It was like he was using them as decorations....
Regarding the settings you have suggested, they do not work in my room.
Because my room is decently treated (I have tracks on the walls that allow me
to easily move my acoustic panels so there are not clapping hands echos at
the listening chair), I spent most of the time finding the position of the
speakers/sub and the sub settings that yield the best bass response. When
doing this I perform measurements and also listen to double bass jazz
walking lines (the goal is to have all notes of the double bass equally loud).
For crossover setting below 9 I hear a clear gap between the high and low
notes of the double bass. The current setting are 10 for the crossover and 5
for the subwoofer level.

Any other thoughts and suggestions are very welcome and much appreciated!
Paul

Paul, thanks for the nice words, I'm hardly an expert, but I've lived with the
speakers (Duos) along time and have learned alot about them and
associated equipment through them. I do not think they are a speaker you
can get 'right' quickly due to how sensitive they are to the other equipment
in the chain. It took a long time for me to get them to sound fairly
integrated, low to high, and even then, i could hear some discontinuity. In
fact, although I had a highly regarded line stage and phono preamp, they
still didn't perform as well as they could. Although they sounded wonderful
in the midrange, I still wasn't getting the best bass from them and there was
still a lack of homogeneity until those components were recently changed.
Before that, I could get the bass to sound good but it then plainly sounded
'different' in kind than the horns (louder and slower) , and if I got them to
integrate smoothly, the bass seemed too feeble. I attribute this in part to
the inherent differences in the dynamic, self powered woofer and the
crossover-less midrange horn, as well as the associated equipment. And
that doesn't address placement or burn-in either. The only additional
thoughts I have, beyond what has already been suggested here are:
-email jim smith and see if he is willing to do a paid phone consult for a
reasonable fee (buying the book is fine, I don't own it, I gather it has a lot of
good advice on system set-up that is useful), but Jim really knows
Avantgarde (although he may have less familiarity with the current line) and
now makes his living doing set ups because he is really good at that. He
knows how to tune a system- it won't be the same as his spending time in
your room, but it may be worth a modest fee by phone, if he will do that;
-if the speaker uses the factory supplied jumper cable , replace it with a
better cable; it will make a big difference; that was the first change I made
once I got the speaker;
-get the dealer to loan you a high quality tube amp, just for comparison
sake; I know the Accuphase is highly regarded, but when you hear just how
dramatic component changes are over these speakers, it will show you
how revealing they are, and how very important synergies are. It sounds
crazy, but my wife- who is very much a tolerant non-enthusiast, spent an
hour with me a few months ago comparing footers on the power supply to
my phono stage- she could readily hear the differences and she is not a
'brainwashed' audiophile. The fact is, the speaker can be that revealing (or
intolerant) of everything in the chain, which is why I think they are often
criticized when heard at shows or dealers where they are not properly set
up. One last minute, but very important thought: I didn't realize how
important the noise floor in the system and ambient noise in and
surrounding the room was until I lived with these speakers. They are
capable of reproducing extreme nuances if the system is quiet enough and
the electronics revealing enough to let the information through. This means
even more work to get everything to be as quiet as possible. This may also
have something to do with gain issues among various components. You
then are not listening at very high volume to hear the full measure of the
music on a good recording, and when you get the volume to a 'natural
volume' for that recording, and the system energizing the room properly,
they can be startling; very alive and 'in the room' which is the real magic of
these speakers.
Get it wrong, and they are playing 'at you' and sound intolerable.
Good luck and let us know what happens.