Avalon vs Kharma

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

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 its 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

Where does the Wilson WP 7 fit in here. I heard the Kharma 3.2 and the upper and mid range is fantastic but there is something missing in the botttom. The WP 7 has a tighter cleaner bass response IMO.

the Wilson is slightly less coherent than the Kharma.....and is not really friendly to middle power range tube amplification (under 150 watts). the Kharma's mid bass is more integrated and articulate. the Wilson is more dynamic and punchy (even more so than the Avalon). the WP7 is fairly tame in the treble (unlike the WP6 which i owned) and doesn't tend toward edgyness like the WP6. the WP7's are much more 'like' the Kharma than the WP6's were.

ultimately the Kharma will challenge your ability to hear the drivers......it will completely disappear like a small monitor.....but you won't get that 1/2 bottom octave with the 3.2's.

neither the Avalon or Wilson can quite pull off the disappearing act. you will be more aware that you are listening to a speaker (for all the right and wrong reasons....you will enjoy the parts of what those speakers can do).....is that important to you? it is ALL important to me that i listening to the event and not speakers. this difference is subtle but significant. i don't mean to infer that the Avalon or Wilson are not coherent.....just coherence is the Kharma's biggest strength and it is amazing to live with and spend extended listening sessions with.

the bigger Kharmas have plenty of bass extention but also disappear unlike any dynamic full range speaker i have heard (especially one that weighs 565 pounds).

I can only compare the Kharma 3.2s to earlier Wilson models - Mike lavigne wrote an absolutely spot-on description of the Kharmas - the coherence is what amazes me; a seamless presentation down to about 35Hz - but I dont miss the reduced bass response as I listen mostly to Classical, female vocals, opera, chamber music mostly and they are the most non-fatiguing, musical, wide-soundstaged speakers I have ever heard with highs and mid-range to die for. I bought the WWPs 12 years ago when bam-wham-bass was more important to me. But now, after all the $$$ laid out and angst over spending dollars for new amps and speakers. this combination of OTL amp-Kharma 3.2s will do it for me for the next decade or two............I didn't buy the midis because I was told that they need to be at least 5 feet from the rear wall and WAF rejected that.