If you have a Golden Ear Club membership at The Absolut Sound's web site (avguide.com), you can get early access to the Avalon Transcendent review from Alan Sircom at Hifi+ (http://www.avguide.com/review/avalon-transcendent-hifi-78). Alan Sircom notes in his review the following comment about the CES showing of the Transcendent:
If you do not have GEC membership, you can pick up a copy of Hifi+ (Issue 78) with the full review. He liked the speakers calling them a smaller version of Avalon's Time speakers. Hope this helps.
I wouldnt take the action at shows as too much of an indicator of ultimate performance, because the results can vary both from room to room and the last room you visited alters your perception of the sound of the next room. And its here where I lay perhaps my biggest criticism of the Transcendent, right at the feet of the company that makes it. In the US, Avalon is also the distributor of Acoustica Applicatas DaaD room acoustic treatments and Prolifemo and Phemo Helmholtz resonators. Nothing whatsoever wrong with this, but in this years CES, the Avalon room was so dominated by acoustic treatment that people walked out of the room unsure whether the sound was down to the room, the treatment or the speakers. Acoustic treatments are vital, but this profusion of DaaD treatments clouded the issue.
If you do not have GEC membership, you can pick up a copy of Hifi+ (Issue 78) with the full review. He liked the speakers calling them a smaller version of Avalon's Time speakers. Hope this helps.