Is this the sweet spot in Avantgarde’s G3 range?
By Roy Gregory
Regular readers will be familiar with both the brightly coloured trumpets of the Avantgarde speakers and this listener’s enthusiasm for their musical qualities. There’s barely a model in the revised range that hasn’t crossed the Gy8 threshold – and none has disappointed. But the last (or perhaps latest?) model to arrive is in many ways the most interesting and arguably the most relevant. As much as I love the Trio G3 – a speaker that is not just one of the stars of, but also surely the biggest bargain in, high-end circles right now – few people have the coin to buy it, the system to exploit it or the space to accommodate it. At the other end of the range, the Uno and Duo models are mightily impressive and again offer astonishing dynamics, headroom and bandwidth at their respective prices, but there’s no escaping the challenge of mating their horn-loaded mid and treble with a conventional ported box woofer. All of which helps explain why the mezzo’s belated arrival has been so eagerly anticipated.
The Avantgarde speakers represent a semi-skeletal, almost modular approach to construction: A horn-loaded tweeter and midrange unit are adapted to and mated with a bass end that’s dictated by the size and price of the final design. In the Uno, that adds up to a 500mm midrange horn, growing to 670mm in the Duo GT and then paired 570mm mid and 950mm mid-bass drivers in the Trio. Each model also offers hybrid drive (a passive input for the horns mated to active bass) or fully active, with the horn drivers mated to the company’s ground-breaking iTron current-drive amplification. The active package not only represents astonishing value, it delivers transparency, dynamic response and musical clarity and articulation that sets entirely new standards – especially at its price. These amplifiers will compete with conventional amps irrespective of type or price. If you prefer an alternative amplifier it’s almost certainly the result of an additive or masking affect. If you really don’t like what you hear, it’s equally certain that the issues are related to system quality or set up. The Avantgarde speakers are not perfect and ultimately, you might opt for something different, but at their respective price points, it’s a challenge to find anything that’s going to get you closer to the original musical event – assuming of course, that that is your goal.
Combine that set of building blocks with their inherent musical potential and it’s not hard to see why the Mezzo could and should be the stand-out performer. Take the proven mid and treble drivers/horns from the Duo GT and combine them with a horn-loaded, active bass cabinet. The end result is a genuinely full-range speaker that offers horn loading across its full bandwidth, in a footprint and at a price that’s way closer to the Duo than the Trio. That price runs out at €89,700 or $132,800 (both plus local sales tax) for the fully active iTron version. The hybrid model costs less and delivers less, but at €72,400/$108,600 it possibly forms a useful stepping stone on the way to fully active operation. Looking at the price differential, you need to ask yourself what sort of serious power amp you can buy for €17,300? Bear in mind too, that price represents not two channels but four channels of amplification, plus a pair of active crossovers. Like I said, the value offered by the iTron option really is off the charts…
