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Acapella vs. Avantgarde

I currently run a Cary CD-306, Cary SLP-05 preamp, and Cary 805AE monoblocks with a pair of ProAc D38's (see system). The combination is sweet and involving, but the combo just does not boogie when asked to play a large orchestral piece, by Mahler/Wagner/Shostakovich. When the volume is turned up, dynamics are poor and the system starts to sound compressed. I suspect that the 50W Cary's simply does not have enough guts to drive the ProAc's, so I am considering replacing them with a more efficient speaker. Since most SET afficionadoes love horns, this led me to look into Avantgarde and Acapella.

I live in Melbourne, Australia. Avantgarde is available through a dealer here, but he does not have any in stock. The Acapella dealer is in Sydney (a plane flight away). I am looking to spend A$30,000 - which will buy a nice Avantgarde Duo, or a secondhand Acapella High Violon.

I have read plenty about the dynamics of the Avantgardes, but my concern is if they have horn coloration. Also, how do they image? Are they sensitive to room placement?

Would the Acapella High Violon's be a better buy, considering the pair I can potentially get my hands on have been heavily discounted? I have read that Acapella's suffer from disjointed sound because of the three different driver technologies (plasma tweeter, horn mids, conventional woofer). How much is this a problem? And are there any room placement issues? Given that the Acapella's have lower sensitivity (91 dB/W/m) would I be achieving a real upgrade by moving from the ProAc's?
amfibius
sychdeli
11 posts
 
Thanks , sub was intended as you said to sharpen up the SUB231-G.
The highest setting is 220 Hz on them, not 500, but they are
well integrated with the midrange driver.
The Acapella tweeter , despite having its own xover and volume control is a bit difficult to integrate, but to my ears sounds sweeter than the "normal" ones, some claim however that ozone ( which is constantly generated) + the strong electromagnetic field can be potentially harmful.
Don't believe sensitivity is such an issue, due to self amplification ( and own volume control).
I'm using above concoction in one of my systems, the main one is still having 5 Permandur ALE drivers, including a quad P160 for the 50' long straight bass horns.
Now we can talk crossover quality to integrate them and time alignment ( like in Haas) of the bass , sadly there is no Jim Smith in Europe :-)
I know there is always a degree of subjectivity, but I like the Avantgarde Solo as well, as well as the DUO for its musical midrange, more than the TRIO that I also have ( with metal membrane), maybe the latter was not optimally set-up, who knows.
Enjoy the music and the weekend,
Dan
dazzdax
599 posts
 
A bit off topic question here: the Acapella system is a "mixed" system, consisting of three totally different concepts (dynamic for bass, horn for midrange and... the incomparable plasma tweeter). This should give lots of problems regarding coherency of sound. What is your opinion? If I'm going to spent that kind of money, I would like to have a speaker that behaves like a "one piece" speaker sonically, not one that sounds like a gathering of different units (no matter how expensive they are), a sort of Lego construction.

Chris
markxiii
109 posts
 
Sychdeli, can the Acapella tweeter be run directly from a preamplifier?? It has a built in amp, however the input impedance is specified as only 600 ohms. Seems low, but then why would it have an RCA input rather than a pair of speaker binding posts?

As far as the ozone issue goes, a friend of mine rented an ozone detector to see how much gas is being produced and surprisingly he couldn't detect anything about baseline, even after the speakers were running for 6 hours straight in a closed room.
hornguys
180 posts
 
Thanks , sub was intended as you said to sharpen up the SUB231-G.
The highest setting is 220 Hz on them, not 500, but they are
well integrated with the midrange driver

It's not about the available settings.

It's about the ability of the driver, if left to run full range, to do so linearily quite a bit higher than its intended crossover point.

Which is why I always disliked the "subwoofer" label on the SUB 225s, 231s, and even Basshorns.

All of them have to work quite a bit higher than a typical high quality subwoofer.

Best regards,

Jim Smith
cmo
471 posts
 
Jim,

I know this is a bit of a general question that has a lot of variables that need to be considered...... But, do you have a baseline/starting place for crossover frequency on the AVG/Sub 225's? I think the manual suggests 220Hz or something crazy (and I think this is where the integration issues come from), but I am getting VERY good results with a setting closer 140Hz.

Thanks,

Chris
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