Best amp for Avalon

I have read in many places people love Pass Labs with AValons. People also really like CJ tubes with Avalon as i understand. Karan also comes to mind. Good luck!

I have heard Avalons with BAT equipment to superb effects. I recently heard them with Rowland amps. Beautiful, almost tube-like presentation.

I'm using a 85 watt Vac 160i Sigma Tube integrated amp and it drives my Avalon Ascendants very well and sound amazing...

Wig
I'm glad to here they do well with low power. Do you know the efficiency of your Ascendants.

Carey

Radian and Ascents (I have the latter) are the hardest speakers to drive. Eidolon, Opus, and Ascendents are completely different.
For Radians plan on using something extremely powerful like 300WPC for bass and something > 70WPC for the mids and highs.

Carey1110

89db

Radian HC means "High Current".
Specially built for the Spectral amps.
TRL S100 monos will be perfect for mid and high.
Not for the 2 power hungry bass drivers in sealed box config.

Johnsonwu is correct. I recall it being a special package with the Spectral amps and special MIT cables and a 3D moniker. A class A amp like one of the offerings from Pass would be a good start. I also noticed an Audia Flight 100 listed for 3500.00 which is an excellent price for 100W of class A power.

Do you have to use identical amps if you biamp? Can you use tube on top and solid star on the bass. What about gain difference?

Most Avalon owners would have to use an RCA to RCA 100k trimpot right hat the input jack of the bass amp which usually has higher gain to attentuate the bass.

I have owned Ascent II, Eidolon, and Monitor and have tried more than 10 amps on the Ascent IIs.
Radian is of similar drivability so be prepared.
The sealed box Eton woofers are almost impossible to drive.

High power tube amp will make the highs grainy.
Low power and it clips very easily.
The only 2 amps that were able to drive my Ascents full range non bi-amp to play at decent volume without heating up the whole house, ironically, were solid state... TRL Samson and Pass 350.5.
You can forget about those Audio Research monos, Krells, and Levinson.

Johnsonwu
Did you go all solid state or tube preamp. Which amp did you like better Pass or TRL

So do you think beaming is better than one big beast?

Biamping not beaming sorry auto correct

Tried all sorts of preamps during my Ascent days.
The only preamp I liked was an MFA Lumi which I eventually cloned myself.
Had a Ref 1 for the longest time when I had the Ascents as my main speakers. Open, quiet, overwhelming, and not musical.
You can't trust sand devices with small signals.
Might as well use a transformer based preamp if you dont want tube pre.
Biamping gets you the space and depth that the Avalons are known for, and using a tube amp for the highs tames the Titanium dome a bit so its less dry (Triode only, UL amps make it worse), but bi-amping is finicky and too much hassle.
You end up spending all your time adjusting the gain of the bass amps rather than listening to music.
Thats why i gave up on the Ascents. Are your TRLs S100 monos or stereo? If its stereo then you absolutely MUST biamp to deal with Radians.

Johnsonwu
The TRL I have is stereo and even with it's low power I can hear the potential of this speaker. I even thought of possibly getting another TRL ST 100 and using one on each side. I also considered an Audio Matiere Equilibre for the highs which is class A tube triode. Just trying to keep from running down "amp after amp" road if I can get some insight on what works. I once heard this speaker at CES and it was amazing but they were using the monster VTL Wotan 1200 WPC. a little over the top for me. Did you prefer the TRL or the Pass in your setup.

You are running the ST100 in stereo/triode mode right?
(Not sure what Paul's orig design was), the TRL S100 Mono I listened to was a DIY hand-held by Paul.

Anyway in terms of solid state driving full range I'd say nothing beats the TRL Samson. A close second would be 350.5.

For now I suggest you borrow a SS amp with high input impedance and huge current capability and stick with the ST100 for the highs.

Make sure your preamp has enough current to drive 2 power amps. Some preamps wimp out bad when presented with a less than 50k input impedance load (eg old Pass Aleph) when its already driving a tube power amp.

Great I'll try that and let you know