Acapella vs. Avantgarde

The crossover in the Violons is physically separated into three parts. Each of them can be driven by a separate amp so theoretically even tri-amping is possible. When I spoke with Hermann Winters of Acapella he said that bi-amping works great on these speakers and that two sets of the Einstein OTLs sound much better that a single set.

I had the pleasure to listen to Fernando's wonderful system last weekend and I was really impressed with the overall speed, dynamics and bass slam of his Unos. In these three areas the Unos sounded better than any other Avantgardes I ever heard. I think that it had a lot to do with Fernando's room, which, unlike the listening rooms in the U.S., has a very rigid structure built of brick, stone and concrete. My listening room is a typical American construction, which I believe is responsible for a relative lack of low end speed and dynamics, not only with my Acapellas, but any other speakers I had before (including the MBL 101Ds, known for their exceptional speed and bass dynamics).

As far as the Acapella vs. Avantgarde question goes, having listened to the Duos and Trios on several occassions and owning a pair of High Violons, I find the Avantgardes to be better in the frequency range covered by the Violons 10" mid-woofer (800Hz and below): they are fast, dynamic and in the right room can sound very visceral with amazing impact and well defined leading edge. They are so good in this respect that the slight lack of low end extension and slight discontinuity in the upper bass are something one could easily live with. The Violons don't quite have such explosive dynamics and the amazing speed, but their bass seems a little more of a piece, is pretty tight and nimble albeit it doesn't quite have the slam and gut moving impact of the Avantgardes. From 800Hz up and particularly in the treble (the plasma tweeter is unbelievable), the Acapellas are hard to beat, with gorgeous, very realistic tone, amazing presence, transparency, tons of natural detail and superb extension. The Avantgardes are not quite as tonally dense and sound relatively less refined, but are still better than almost anything else on the market.

Now, the perfect speaker would have the Violon's section from 800Hz up, the Avantgardes' big horn to go down to 200Hz and a great woofer system (perhaps the AG bass-horns) for the bass. One such system already exists (although it uses standard woofers): Acapella Triolon Excalibur. Unfortunately it retails at $145,000...

Yes, the Violons can be bi-amped, however the overall coherence of the sound will suffer if the amps used are quite different. Remember, the crossover point is high at 800Hz, which means that the amp driving the bottom section would work pretty far into the midrange. A plate amp would definitely be a very bad idea.

On the other hand the high crossover point means that the amplifier driving the top section would only see frequencies from 800Hz up. This opens up a lot of doors, including the option to use 300B SETs. Finding a solid state amp that would offer a seamless blend will not be easy, but it doesn't mean it's not possible. After all the Violons are already a mixture of three different driver technologies and I'm still amazed at how seamless and coherent they sound.

One thing I have to stress is that even though to my ears the Avantgardes sound better below 800Hz, the Violons are still superb in this area.

I'm sure you're going to love the Violons. I did some experimenting with mine over the last couple of weeks and contrary to what most people tend to think, these speakers responded very well to bi-amping with quite different amplifiers.

I already found the perfect amp to drive the midrange horn and the tweeter: Jadis SE-300B monoblocks. These single ended amps put out only 10 wpc but it's seems like it's plenty of juice for this application. I preferred the Jadis to the mighty Lamm ML 2's and several different push pull amps I tried. The Violons sound spectacular now with all the magic you would expect from well implemented 300B single ended circuit.

I am still playing with different solid state amps for the woofers, but so far I love the combination of the Jadis monos with Belles 350A Reference. The blend is almost seemless.

The Violons need a very careful setup to sound good in the bass, but once everything is right, the bass is quick and quite extended. From my experience the stock footers should be replaced with something more adequate. I had a set of the largest Sistrum Audio Points custom made to fit Acapella threads and the improvements they brought in were very dramatic: tighter, quicker bass and better focus and microdynamics. $400, but well worth it.

If you're willing to make some changes to your electronics, the Supratek Cabernet Dual is a fabulous preamp and will make bi-amping much easier to implement. It has basically two preamp circuits in one chassis (one based on 6H30 tube and the other based on 6SN7 and 101D DHT), with independent gain control and one master volume. This way your will be able to perfectly match the levels if your amps have different input sensitivity. The Supratek pre is truly amazing and it happens to be made not far from your home!

Yes, the Einstein OTLs are great with the Acapellas but the combination of the Jadis 300B SETs and the solid state Belles sounds as good or even better than the Einsteins so I'm sure that there are other amps out there that would provide a great match. The 211AE's definitely seem like a good choice.

Good luck and please keep us posted!