Hi. I listened to some last week in a listening room at bartletts hi-fi.
I too am not going to be setting up appreciation societies for them. When they turn up I will review them after a week or so. and then close that chapter.
How much they 'blow you away' I guess must depend on what you have or have regularly been exposed to.
I loved them. But you have to know what I compare them with. My ex-setup (sold last week):
crappy wharfedale diamond 8.3 floorstanders. an old rotel amp/arcam 7se cdp.
Then, before listening to the AVI's , I had, for a week, a cambride audio amp and kef iq5se floorstanders with the arcam spinner. both setups had good connections, and silver anniversary speaker cable.
The biggest difference was the speakers , what you guys call a 'night and day' difference. then i changed the amp. harder to tell, maybe 10% more exiting and dynamic..... like I say hard to tell. I had this for a week and can still remember how much better the speakers were. But of course they would be. a major stepup in new price and quality and new advances. the price including cables etc would be about £800/£900. I liked them. But wasnt amazed by them. They were just better than my old wharfedales. But they didnt make me sit their thinking, wow, what can i listen to next.
So, armed with the fact that its the speakers im really interested in. and knowing I want a DAC for pc streaming. I tried the AVI.9.1s. Also I have about 90% hearing in one ear and 80% in the other. So I really appreciate crystal clear sound and often prefer headphones over my old hi-fi.
So, anyway, listened to a few tracks on thses AVI's and I was wowed. I suppose the best way for me to descibe how I felt. was that pieces of lyrics/music that generally sound too busy and 'noisy' for me sounded as clear as one of my favourite acoustic type tracks.
My brother chose a Pink Floyd track. and I sat enjoying it, where generally it would be a muddled mess for me.
Another track I chose sounded fantastic. I had recently heard it live the week before and thought the whole concert was so noisy and muddled with a constant booming rumbling bass that I had to lip read the words. But the albulm on my ipod was much better. But on these speakers i could easily pick out all the instruments, the weird percussion stuff i saw going on , on stage. the sax, 2 keyboards, lead and bass guitars. BUT could also easily hear and enjoy the vocals. So for me at least, it was better than the live performance the previous week.
I then tried Rod Stewerts Tom Trauberts blues. and can honestly say Ive never heard such depth in the voice. Imagine each word sung as a straight flat line. but pitched higher or lower. well now i imagine that the line has ups and downs in it as well. does that make sense?
well im sure many of you guys, have setups that give you that. BUT I clearly didnt. its a different world alltogether for me. As to wether or not they are better than 5k or 10k systems. I imagine that a lot of that is how well youve balanced your systems for your own tastes. clearly mine was terrible. I will say that my friend mark has about 2.5Ks worth. mostly selected from what hi-fi winners (not auditioned) and the AVI's were night and day to his setup as well. Im going to invite him over when they turn up just for a listen LOL.
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