Aspects of Avalon

Aspects of Avalon

The speakers from Colorado-based Avalon Acoustics have either featured conventional, rectangular boxes (in the less-expensive NP series, like the Evolution 2.0 I <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/708ava/">reviewed last July</A>) or the unique, multifaceted enclosures that I first saw in 1990's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/703/">Eclipse</A&gt;, which are used in the cost-no-object designs like the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1008ava/">Indra</A&gt;.

A Kiss from Vienna

A Kiss from Vienna

Taking pride of place in distributor Sumiko's suite on the Venetian's 35th floor were the new Vienna Acoustics Kiss loudspeaker ($15,000/pair). Part of the company's Klimt series, the Kiss is ostensibly a stand-mounted design, but the side-pillared, faintly convex stand is part of the design concept. One drive-unit&#151;the flat, radially ribbed unit first seen in the Vienna Musik, covers the entire range of the human voice, 120Hz&#150;2.6kHz, and is married to a tweeter in its center and a port-loaded woofer. The latter features the ribbed, transparent polymer cone material used in Vienna's line, but has a multiple-radius cone profile to maximize stiffness and minimize mass.

Joseph's Pulsar

Joseph's Pulsar

"It's like the Pearl but in a more easily digestible form," explained Jeff Joseph, as he demmed the Long Island's company's new Pulsar speaker for me. The stand-mounted speaker keeps as much as possible of the cost-no-object Pearl's qualities, but uses a new magnesium-cone woofer from SEAS with the same throw as the Pearl's 7" unit.

In All Directions

In All Directions

The omnidirectional MBL speakers, which use a unique pulsating quasi-spherical array of ribbons, make a strong argument for the benefits of this design approach. Featured in their room when I visited was the new 111F ($35,000/pair), which uses the "Radialstrahler" drivers for the treble and upper midrange, with conventional drive-units used for the lower frequencies. A big change from the earlier version I <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/643">reviewed in 2002</A> was the use of side-firing direct radiators for the bass rather than the 111B's coupled-cavity LF enclosure. These are mechanically coupled to eliminate vibrational excitation of the enclosure.

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