Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/avantgarde-duo-sd-itron-g3-active-loudspeaker

This review involved a certain amount of fighting with room acoustics, a battle that was mostly—intentionally—self-imposed, since I allowed speaker placement to be dictated by the availability of power cords and interconnects. In this contest between speakers and room, the speakers won. The Duo’s DSP didn’t allow me to neutralize all the things my room was doing wrong, but they did manage to fix most things, including the things that bothered me most. The result was superb. Small jazz combos, where the key elements are percussion, horns, piano, and bass, were spot-on. They were articulate, and their timbres were harmonically dense and complex. The small amount of extra bass I dialed in to achieve a pleasing balance in jazz turned out to be great with classic rock; I flipped when I heard the clarity, definition, and presence of Chris Squire’s distinctive bass guitar riffs in “Roundabout,” on Yessongs (Atlantic SD 3-100 LP). If those riffs weren’t burned into my memory before, they most definitely are now.

Defying even positive expectations—such as my expectation that the Duo SD would sound like a typical horn speaker—is usually a good thing, I’ve found. It means that something interesting is going on. Such was the case here. The Avantgarde Duo SD iTRON G3s are truly excellent speakers. I loved spending time with them and would be perfectly satisfied if they could have remained in my listening room long term. (Unfortunately, they departed months ago.) They did everything well and some things extraordinarily well. What shortcomings I heard are best attributed to the room and placement constraints and not to the Duos themselves.

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