avantgarde loudspeakers

Ed, you raise a rather controversial if not intriguing idea, that someone building their own horn system can actually build a higher quality horn. If I recall the approximate cost of Ava tgarde trios was around 60k. Can you tell me where I could find parts/plans for a desing that could improve upons them for a fraction of their cost?

Thanks

AGoon -

Depends on the Fraction. ;-)

For me, the path has led to parts from Bruce Edgar, vintage drivers (RCA, JBL) and modern ones (TAD, fostex tweeters), along with vintage woofers (Altec, EVM) though modern TAD's may work there too (1601C I think...?). I suggest active Xover and multi-amping as the way to go though many also like passive Xover and that is fine too.

The next step up is horns from Sierra-Brooks and maybe more exotic drivers, Field Coils (speakers and drivers), though I have not gotten that far yet, budget or time wise (to find the parts). Many have, however.

Beyond that there is no limit. ALE and Goto spring to mind as the ultimate driver, though you can pay up to $40-60k for one of their bass drivers w/o horn, so that eclipses the AG stuff by a lot, as far as price. but, everything above other than that level (ALE, etc.) is less than the AG's and better sounding to me (and many serious horn afficionados.) Check out some of the wild stuff the Japanese have done in this regard (for many years)... DIY horn systems with Basshorns built into the house, with whole walls of a room being the mouth of the horn...

-Ed

Myraj - But how long did you keep them around - the women that is. I've got to believe that if they became more permanent fixtures, the Red Duos would have been history.

Wstritt,
No....the Avantgarde were the KEEPERS! And the women....well, kept them all at least as friends, and that is as excellent thing, in addition to the good sounds of the Duos!
Happy Listening!

I think it's a little simplistic to say that DIY is a better way to go. For the vast majority of people it is not. You need three things to accomplish DIY successfully: Time (alot of it), knowledge, experience. To think that you just buy some various parts, find a simple DIY diagram, and assemble a SOTA system that can compete with or eclipse many commercial products is silly. If you have the above three criteria met, great, otherwise DIY can be a frustrating and expensive lesson in humility. Then again, it may not. I'm not a gearhead, as you can probably tell. BTW, I would love to have the time to learn to do DIY but have other acitvities that are higher priority (career,family,etc.).