Avalon vs Kharma

I agree wtih Trcnetmsncom, skip the Opus. Those downward firing woofers just muddy up the bass, IMHO. I was not impressed with the sound of them when I was doing my speaker search. Stick with the Eidolons.

(By the way, if you have the big bucks available, you might want to consider the Eidolon Diamonds. I hear that they are even better than the regular Eidolons. So much so, that while I have seen plenty of Eidolons on Audiogon, I have never, not once, seen a pair of the Diamond Eidolons on Audiogon. That, to me, says a lot!)

Guys, Ain't got no big bucks, man. The diamond is most definitely out of the question unless my 1(900)FengShui start picking up. Maybe bringing Krispy Creme to China? William Hung Fan club?

I was hoping to repo an used Eidolon, Opus Ceramique or new Ascendant or a used Kharma. Guys, don't mention price cause my girlfriend look at my threads.

I don't need big base so I was hoping the two way Ascendent or Kharma would be more transparent & coherent? Any thoughts. The Eton drivers are good but may not be as good as Accuton ceramics.

Thanks

One thing is that I heard that the Avalons are very sensitive to speaker placement...all speakers are to some extent and the Kharmas benefit too but the Avalons are apparently doubly so.

I haven't heard Kharmas but I've auditioned the massive Avalon Sentinel with Rowland amps and the Lumenwhite Whiteflame speakers with Ayre electronics at the respective dealers. Both these speakers use Accuton drivers. To me, the Lumenwhites were better balanced, cleaner, faster, superbly transparent and very musical. If you are in HK, it might be worth your while to pay a visit to the Lumenwhite dealer located at the Entertainment building in Central for a different perspective. Good luck.

Hello,

I just wanted to address what has been my experience regarding placement of Avalon speakers in general. I have found that Avalon speakers are relatively easy to set-up to get a good sound. (really good!) The integral grille helps in a big way with speaker-room interaction. I sware one Eidolon images well. Becauce of this most people stop there and don't explore it any further. Therefore they miss getting the speaker to perform to it's full potential and don't realize just how much performance is there to be had. The Eidolon setup well in a good room with quality componets in front of it should totally disappear and image to no end.

Setting up a speaker is a balancing act between tonal balance (especially in the bass) and soundstage width, depth, and focus. The better the speaker is suited for the room the less amount of trade-offs will have to be made.

All the best!

Tom