Who has heard the new Avalon's?

Thanks Shubertmanic for your accessment on the new Avalon.
I have the BAT VK 200 SS and BAT 30 tube preamp which should work well with the Ascendant. I realize spectral is proably in another league butI will get to listen to them in my setup. Thanks so far with all the replies.

Drubin: Both the Radian and the Eclipse are sealed designs; there is a port on the bottom of the Ascendant. Avalon speakers are not bright at all, so it might sound like the highs are rolled off or muted, but if you meter it out with a sound meter and test tones, they are generally very flat up to at least 16kHz. Truly the only problem with Avalon, and this is with all dynamic speakers is the tranparency issues compared to an electrostatic or planar. They cannot compete with the Maggies or my Acoustats. I personally have the Radians with an all Spectral/MIT setup. As well as the Acoustats with an all ARC/Nirvana setup. Both sets of,speakers just do different things to the music, not better, just different.

Very "boxless" neutral sound for the money, but could use a subwoofer for bass reinforcement. They were at the Pikes Peak Audiofest and would be phenomenal in ANY surround sound system...To me, the McIntosh XRT28's stood out as the best speakers at the show for the money...not cheap at 20k but a bargain. The absolute best at the show regardless of price I thought were the JM Lab Utopia's...they made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, so lifelike.

I must tell you that as good as the newer Avalons are there has been a change in company policy in the last few years that makes me suspicious of the newer ported enclosures.Originally Avalon touted a sealed enclosure with a "Q" of point five as the "only means of obtaining accurate bass"response.They supplied an extensive manual with loads of documentation to support this claim.Also the "classic" and unfortuneately discontinued ASCENT mark 2 was built to a standard that is not seen in the newer designs (as good as I'm sure they are).The ASCENT had a 55lb external crossover and a thicker front panel.It was considerably more massive(weight) than the newer EIdolon or Diamond models.More importantly it was a very easy load to drive and all of this along with a stunning transparency make this speaker'even today S.O.T.A.I've been told by 2 industry insiders that it was the best product Avalon has ever made.The point being that these companies are in business to sell product in order to make money.It does not mean that they are not good products,but, an experienced audio consumer should know enough to be able to tell the difference between true high end crafted products and those designed to enhance a corporate bottom line.Any comments would be welcome.

The Classic and the Ascent (and the Radian and Monitor, I think) were the original designs of Avalon's founder, Charles Hansen, now of Ayre. Every model since then has been designed by someone else and so it is reasonable that the design objectives may have changed. Consumers wanted more bass, hence the ported designs.