Avalon Acoustics reputation

A few years ago I owned a pair of their Isis speakers which I liked very much, however the diamond tweeters blew out and they wanted $10,000 for a replacement pair of the Acuton diamond drivers. I sold the speaker and said I would never have anything to do with Avalon again and that still is my stance. They make a good speaker, however they will kill you on a repair. There was also a real sense of arrogance with their customer service people. 

It's my intention to audition Avalon speakers as soon as i can.

One respected audio friend has the PM3, another the Osiris. Which are on my shortlist as potential replacements for my current Focal Stella Utopias.

In fact they might be the only speaker on that list that aren't dipoles or omnis.

In truth i love my Stellas so much i simply haven't gotten around to it.

No experience with their service department.  I just think they're the Gold Standard for home audio.  I absolutely love how they sound.  I wish I could have afforded them.

I run a set of Linkwitz Orions, which to my ear, sound very much like the Avalon loudspeakers I've heard, so they're my "forever" loudspeaker.  The Linkwitz LX521 system would also be in that class.  Because they are a DIY system, you are your own service department. 

Avalon Eclipse 

what a beautiful sounding speakers.

i think it was the best model in their line up.

Over the years I have had five pairs of Avalons, including Diamond Eidolons.  They were great speakers, but I never had to use their customer service, other than an upgrade that went very well.  When I was with Wadia Digital, we used Avalon Eclipses to voice our products.

@petaluman . I agree with you. I believe there may be other small "boutique" exceptional quality manufacturers may be heading that way as Founders or chief technologist age out of working life. Any come to your mind? 

It's disappointing. Their website indicates great products, and I heard a demo sound excellent, but this reputation puts me off. I also noticed another well known reviewer 'doubting' the perfection they claimed for their Tesseract. I did a double take one time when one of their promo ads claimed 'flat response to 100,000cps' since this is impossible with available materials and technology. Thought maybe just a typo? 

Small companies (which most audio makers are) often struggle to survive their founders' passing.  Even if they're not sold & gutted, the vision & passion that birthed the company is very difficult to sustain.  Sounds like Avalon could be going down that road.  It was founded by the late Charlie Hanson (Ayre).

Looks to me you should move on.  It is important the manufacture feels responsible to back their products after the sale.  I have an ARCAM AVR 550 and sent it in.  They replace everything with the 950 except the power supply.  It was like getting the extra upgrades for free.  The 950 costs $3,000 more.  The audio world is quite small.  Consumers talk and they can make or break their future sales.

Still lots of great customer service companies. For my experience it’s Pass, Rowland, Cerious, Aerial 

Being a previous owner of Avalon in 90s its a new ball game now...one company that needs to hang out at pass labs customer service for awhile to see how it's done...I'd avoid this brand totally. 

m-db : probably because you clearly didn’t have an issue.

Its been eight years since I accidentally ruined a tweeter on one of my standard Eidolons. Avalon Acoustics responded to my email the following day with an order form. I received the part the following week. 

I didn't find a need to discuss my issue. 

https://www.soundstageglobal.com/index.php/component/content/article?id=114:awful-avalon

Keep on trucking DUDE!!

great speakers...they never responded to minor question I sent a few years ago...

I can confirm the service aspect, they are terrible at helping their clients out. I worked for a dealer a few years ago and trying to get replacement parts from them was a big hassle every time.