Edgy, bright highs on Avantgarde Duos

The Duos will reveal any shortcomings upstream. If you have a zippy SS amp or pre, it will be laid bare.

Be sure that the speakers are properly set up (leveled, speaker wire from amp to mid horn, jumpers from mid to tweeter and sub, distance between speakers 83% of distance to your ear measured from top of tweeter cylinder, toed in so that rear outside frame knob just appears to touch inside of front outer frame piece when viewed from listening position), that you're sitting at least 12' away, proper sub polarity (higher level at xover frequency using a test tone - reverse the sub leads to test). I also find that using a low seat (or slouching so that my ear is just below tweeter axis) can tame highs on bright and/or grainy recordings.

The speakers are NOT bright when properly dialed in.

What are your other components?

Wouldn't tell everybody what other components you are using help people formulate a response?

The Duo's sound best if you are sitting further away from them than conventional wisdom dictates(further from them than they from one another), or- If you have the room, just open up the triangle. The horns are spaced apart to the degree that their voices do not combine(no coherence) for a few extra feet. If the high freq. horn is at ear level, and you're too close: That's almost all you're hearing. They also like to be placed closer to the back wall than most systems. Try adjusting them and your listening position accordingly before making any other changes. Further- They will act as a magnifying lense for any and all shortcomings in the system before them. How "hard" is your room? If you don't have carpeting, curtains, soft furnishings, etc. to absorb some of the highs: they can reverberate to an annoying degree also(especially if the room is small).

Thank you for such informative advice. At this point, Art Audio Carissa, ASL Flora and Synergistic Research cabling. Set up seems more exacting with these speakers than with conventional designs.

Yeah, it's a system, not a set of speakers!
go tube gear throughout (as the subs are already using SS amps to drive the woofers).

Chris, why not try your Audio Aero monos on the Avantgarde? Do you happen to know how many hours of break in there are on the Duos?