I ran the Mezzos from the full Wadax Reference digital front-end, via the CH Precision L10, along with the GPA Monaco/P10 for vinyl replay. But I also scaled down to the L1/P1, with and without the X1 power supply, along with the Wadax Studio Player. The 1 series ain’t the 10 Series and the Mezzos will certainly tell you that, but not with the same almost casual brutality that the Trios deliver that message. You can use the Trios with the L1, but once you’ve heard what the L10 does, there’s no going back. That performance imperative isn’t nearly as emphatic with the Mezzo. Yes, the L10 still shows its clear superiority, but the L1/Mezzo combination presents a more than comfortable fit – both performance and price wise. In part that’s down to the more constrained low frequency depth and transparency available from the speaker, which gives the L1 somewhere to hide. The Trio’s superior bottom end and the midrange detail, dimensionality, presence and textural intimacy that go with it, feed on the L10’s lower noise floor. The L1 isn’t in the same league – but nor is the Mezzo, making them happy bedfellows. But the real takeaway here is just how important a genuinely quiet pre-amp is to realising the Mezzo’s full potential. Adding noise at the front of the system is the surest way to undermine this speaker’s musical performance.
In the spirit of adventure I also tried driving the speakers directly from the variable output of the Studio Player. It works, but that’s as much as I’m prepared to offer. (Re-)inserting the L1 came as such a relief, instilling such range, authority and scale to proceedings, along with a sense of musical drive and purpose that anything less than a quality line-stage is going to be a compromise too far for these speakers. Given their bandwidth, that should come as no surprise – but you just know that some tight-wad is going to try it or digital evangelist hail it as the second coming… Be happy that the iTron stomps on any conventional amplifier anywhere even close to its price and sink the funds you’ve recovered/saved into the line-stage these speakers really do demand. Your ears will thank you for it while prolonged listening pleasure will be your just reward.
I started out this review with the proposition that, “On paper, this is the Trio you can actually accommodate (and afford), the Duo without the bass integration challenges (but still with bass).” It’s a description that largely holds good. But it’s also a description that short-changes the Mezzo in one important regard: This is a speaker system that can also grow, not just from passive to active, but one that begs for and will reward the addition of separate subs, if and when the opportunity arises. In part that’s about how deep the speakers go, but it’s also about how much air they really move at low frequencies. Although Avantgarde specify the subs’ extension as 18Hz, they don’t specify level limits on that number, or how it’s arrived at. The Mezzos go deep, but they don’t do it with the rib-rattling weight or move as much air as the Space Horns, or other genuinely wide-band subs, like the PureLows (at least not if you keep the bottom-end in proportion with the rest of the range).