Avalon Eidolon Diamond vs Revel Salon 2

I sold Avalon for about 6 years. I listend a lot to them. The things I personal do not like is that classical music sound a lot different in real. ( in my opinion) Even with tubes I still do not like the sound. The thing I dislike most is that instruments and voices are less sharp focussed and touchable as in real. It can give a wide and deep stage, but within the stage you never get a touchable 3d image I would want. Instruments are often too big in proportion with Avalon speakers.

Hi Bo1972,

Do you attribute your assessment fully on the Avalons?

Yesss, including there own spikes. Every brand has his own properties/talents. This is how I work, I think and work in tools. First I Always want to know the properties/ talents of a tool. ( speaker, amp, source, cable etc) Also at shows and at other distributers it never convinced me. The sound and individual focus I never found good enough. Because within the wide and deep stage the focus is not that sharp. In real it is smaller and superior in how touchable a voice or instrument sounds. I never liked the sound of classical music played on Avalon speakers either. Sound of a violin in real is so much more emotional and warm. As it is a lot more direct and touchable.

Sorry, just cannot disagree more with Bo1972's assessment of the image specificity and timbral accuracy of the Avalon Acoustic Eidolon, Eidolon Diamond or Isis speakers.

This ability in the Eidolon, for listening to classical music, is what drew me to these speakers, and keeps me with them. The same with the timbral accuracy in reproducing acoustic classical instruments. My primary listening is classical (both large scale orchestral and small ensemble chamber) and acoustic jazz.

I've lived with the Eidolon for over 10 years, with tube electronics (Atma-Sphere amps and Aesthetix phono), and I have been hard pressed to find another speaker as tonally accurate or as specific in its soundstaging and imaging.
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My experiences with Avalon's...Ascent, Eidelon, Diamonds and Transcendent, are much more in line with Rushton. The set-up has been crucial. Subsequent to owning the Diamonds I heard a pair at an audio shop. Due to, what I believe was inadequate amplification and insufficient break-in, the Diamonds were outperformed by a pair of Arcus sharing the same electronics and space. The demo left me uninvolved, whereas, had I not already owned them, they would not have been up for consideration. I have heard these speakers offer a variety of audio characteristics from detail and pin-point imaging to a muddled, overly soft presentation; an anemic bass to a deep growling bottom end; huge exaggerated imaging to realistic venue depiction.
Experiences, such as these, have emphasized the need for less judgement of any individual audio product, especially at shows. Fine-tuning through ancillary equipment, tweaks and room placement often eke out more of any components potential.