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In Praise of Early Unos and Duos

Thanks for all the kind words. No one seems to prefer the standard Avantgarde supports - I'm pleased.

I'd had my Unos for almost 18 years and have always loved them. However, after this long period of ownership, I thought an upgrade may be in order, so after considerable research and home and dealer demos, I went for a nice new pair of well-reviewed Martin Logan Expression 13A electrostatics.

Despite their very different technology, I convinced myself that they SHOULD sound substantially better than my ancient Unos. Installed, bedded in and the optional ARC room correction applied, I listened carefully and my friends listened carefully, but no one thought the MLs sounded better - in fact the contrary, everyone preferred the AGs on blind A-B switching with appropriate power amplifiers - NAD M32 for the AGs and Sanders Magtech for the MLs, but several other amps were available and also tried.

What to do? Big hole in wallet and nothing to show for it. I decided to see what could be done to further improve the Unos and reluctantly to sell the spanking new and very costly MLs.

I'd had in mind using better cables and feet so Cabledyne Reference Silver and Iso Acoustic Gaia IIs were bought.

The scaffolding-removal had long been on my mind, so I further developed the new frame design and I commissioned them from a local engineering works.

I thought that upgrading to Duos would be a worthwhile and not over-costly plan, so a quick look at HiFi Shark (beware - a lot of dodgy ads), pointed me to a pair of excellent Duos just 120 miles away (at a truly bargain price), so I dashed down to buy them. Every inch as good as described and a bit newer than my Unos - with line level as well as speaker level sub input.

A double check of dimensions confirmed that my new frames should suit the Duos and I waited impatiently for them to be made and powder-coat painted in matt black.

Now I'm even happier - I have "new" Avantgarde speakers with a "new" and more attractive look to them, so I'll try to forget their real age and listen to music that's even more lifelike and exciting than the Unos (Stereophile's Speaker of the Year 2000) and far more so than the sadly disappointing (in my room) Martin Logans.

Anyone looking for an effectively brand new pair of ML 13As in stunning piano lack (they're really very good), or a well looked after pair of AG Unos with white horns and silver internal wiring - you know who to contact! Peter



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  • In Praise of Early Unos and Duos - cawson@onetel.com 06/6/1916:17:25 06/6/19 (0)

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