Avalon Eidolon Diamond or Aerial 20T v2.

I have a BAT VK 600SE for amplification and hope to get a BAT VK 51SE (Used) or a BAT 32SE (Used or New). Currently I use a Denon AVP-A1HDCI pre/pro but am working on either the 51 or 32 to put between the Denon and the BAT amp. I have a friend who has a all top of the line BAT setup with Avalon Eidolon Vision speakers, unfortunately he is over thousand miles away so a I can't just go and hear his setup.

My room is first and foremost a dedicated theater room but over the last six months I have been listening to music in there more than watching movies. I would like to try and improve this area and still have it integrate with the room and rest of the system for HT use. I don't think improving upon my two channel setup should hurt my theater setup only improve upon it. The room is fairly well treated and with my current speakers (Aerial LR5's) with the BAT amp pushing them sounds very good with music, but I think it can be improved upon.

My current setup in my opinion is very very good for HT and if that is all I did in that room then I would not even be considering changing anything but two channel listening is a entirely new beast to me. What my setup gives me right now on two channel is a fairly good sound stage right/left and up/down, but no depth. Voices are dead center and certain instruments come in on the right and left but it all seems to me that it is flat from front to back.

My pros and cons with the two speakers are this.

Aerial 20T v2 Pros =

I have a good lead on a fairly new used pair in black.

I have the Aerial center channel CC5. Matches the brand
and the aesthetics.

Build quality and fit and finish.

I'm very happy with the Aerial brand and believe in
them. ( If it ain't broke don't fix it)


Aerial 20T v2 Cons =

I'm a little worried about the ribbon tweeter.

Are they as holographic as the Avalons.

Will they give me the bass that I want in my room. (I'd rather not use
subs on two channel)

Ship in cardboard boxes that are lined with wood inside. Should be in
crates at this price level.


Avalon Diamond Pros =

Everyone I talk to in person says they are the most holographic. Sounds
like the people are in the room with you.

I have to say just a great looking speaker with excellent build quality
and fit and finish.

Seem to hold there value better (Although everything is tougher to sell
in this economy)

Come shipped in wooden crates. This is better for resale if it comes to it.

Avalon Diamond Cons =

They don't come in black, but I can overlook this.

Harder to find them used and price. This is bad for buying but better
if you need to sell them.

Will these give me the kind of bass I want without running subs.

Like I said in my previous post I plan on going to hear the Avalons soon and I hope this will help in my decision.

Well that's good. I think your amps will work fine. I was afraid you were going to say you had some 100 wpc tube amps or something and then there was no point to considering the 20t's.

Here are my comments to your remarks:

"I have a good lead on a fairly new used pair in black." V2 has only been out for about a year or so, so they'll all be fairly new.

Aerial 20T v2 Cons =

"I'm a little worried about the ribbon tweeter." The ribbon tweeter is the best sounding tweeter I have ever heard. On horns and percussion it will give you goose bumps because of how real it sounds. It is directional so if you were standing in the corner you would miss the best of what it does. If you listen while seated it's fine.

"Are they as holographic as the Avalons?" No. But then almost no speaker is. That is what Avalons are all about. Even the inexpensive models do it. But they are very fussy about room placement. They need at least 5 feet from rear of speaker to wall, and that's minimum. Anything less and they are just a decent speaker without the holographic imaging. The 20t's are ported on the bottom and very tolerant to being close to the wall. For me this was the single most influential factor in moving from Eidolons to 20ts.

"Will they give me the bass that I want in my room?" Yes. The 20t's have incredible low bass slam, if properly driven. Subs on 2 channel audio are overkill w/ 20t's. Also the 20t's are more dynamic from top to bottom. If you plan to use them in your home theater set up that may be important to you. If I were creating a home theater and choosing between Avalons and Aerials I don't think I'd have a hard time figuring out which would perform better.

"Ship in cardboard boxes that are lined with wood inside. Should be in
crates at this price level." Because oif their size and weight they ship on a pallet and the packaging for mine seemed very solid and secure. Not sure I'd make that part of the decision process.

Avalon Diamond Pros =

"Everyone I talk to in person says they are the most holographic. Sounds like the people are in the room with you." That is very true if you have the room for them.

"I have to say just a great looking speaker with excellent build quality and fit and finish." They are beautiful. Not as stable as Aerials if you have small kids around.

"Seem to hold there value better (Although everything is tougher to sell in this economy)" The last pair I saw for sale (about 4 months ago) went for 16,500-ish from a dealer w/ warranty. There really haven't been many 20t v2 on the market yet. Too new.

Avalon Diamond Cons =

"Harder to find them used and price. This is bad for buying but better if you need to sell them." There are two for sale right now. They list for $38k so expect to pay more for them than the 20t V2 which list for $32k.

"Will these give me the kind of bass I want without running subs." For music yes unless you are crazy about bass. For home theater- I seriously doubt it.

I don't have a stake in either so I'm not trying to sway you one way of the other. I'm just trying to help. They both do different things well. I suspect in your set up and for your use the Aerials might be the better fit. If you scrap the theater and you have the room you might prefer the Avalons. I could happily live with either (except for my room limitations) so I don't think you can go wrong.

Thanks for the detailed response Mmike84 that is the kind of answers I'm looking for. The one thing you say that intrigues me the most is about placement. My room is just over 14 feet wide and the screen for the projector is about 8.5 feet wide so I can only go about 2.5 feet from the sidewalls. Any further and the left and right speaker start getting in the way of the screen. From the front wall I can go out up to 5-6 feet no problem.

Why are you selling your 20T's Mmike84.

Make sure you listen to the Diamonds and not the standard Eidolon or Visions. The Diamond is a very different speaker and you can see a very different price tag also. The Diamonds have more bass output plus it will go deeper. There Diamond tweeter is the best in the world period but for how much they cost it better be. The Diamonds have a different woofer, tweeter, crossover and cabinet then the Vision.

The Aerial 20T is pretty close to the V2 so you can get away with listening to the 20T and getting a good idea what the V2 will sound like. I had the 20T's and was ready to get them upgraded but I didn't feel the V2 was worth the extra money. If you listened to the Aerial model 9 it sounds nothing like the 20T same is true with Avalon.

I can tell you that the 600Se is not enough power for the 20T. The 20T love to be Bi amp with tons of power. Now if you used 2 600Se it would be closer.

Now the Diamonds like distance behind the speakers more then distance from side walls. The crossovers in the Diamonds is flat out amazing.

I will tell you that they both are very very different speakers.

Mtdking why are you selling your Diamonds and which did you prefer the Avalon's or the Aerial's.