Напольная акустика — Avantgarde Acoustic DUO GT

The DUO GT is a floorstanding horn loudspeaker made by Avantgarde Acoustic in Germany and released in parallel with the DUO SD, renewing the DUO range that the company has built for many years. The name stands for Grande Twin, pointing to the pair of bass drivers in its lower section. Launch pricing was EUR 42,280 per pair before VAT. Visually the design follows the classic DUO layout, with the large midrange horn on top of the bass cabinet and the small tweeter horn set above it.

Key specs that matter

Avantgarde quotes 107 dB efficiency and a nominal impedance of 18 ohm for the horn section, and the upper range extends to 28,000 Hz. The 670 mm spherical midrange horn works down to 170 Hz, below which the powered bass section takes over. Each speaker stands 173 cm tall and weighs 108.5 kg. A passive NatureCap crossover option costs EUR 2,190 per pair, and the Itron amplifier option adds EUR 11,480 per pair.

Engineering and use context

The treble is handled by the XT3 reference super tweeter taken from the TRIO series, loaded by a 200 mm horn that is 176 mm long and driven by an annular diaphragm with a duplex suspension. Midrange comes from an XM2 driver on the large spherical horn. The bass unit carries two 12 inch XB12 drivers designed for the TRIO G3, whose voice coil was enlarged from 100 mm to 153 mm to raise power factor and power handling, and whose cones are made from a blend of carbon fibre with long-fibre paper. A G3-1000 bass amplifier rated at 1000 W drives them, controlled by processor-based active filters with the G3 user interface. The modular and upgradeable G3 crossover uses the third generation of PolarisationPlus circuitry and NatureCap super-capacitor technology. The speaker sits on CNC-milled feet with die-cast aluminium vibration damping. Two versions exist - a passive one where the horns are driven from an outside amplifier and the bass section keeps its own 1 kW amplifier, and a fully active one with a digital crossover and iTRON amplification for every section.

Pairing

Because the bass is powered internally, an external amplifier in the passive version only has to drive the horns, and with such high efficiency a few watts are enough. Single-ended triode designs and other valve amplifiers of modest output are therefore sensible partners, and such a high load draws little current from their output stages, which is kinder to small output transformers than a typical 4 ohm speaker. Speaker cable only has to carry the signal for the midrange and treble horns, while owners who prefer a complete system can order the fully active configuration and connect a preamplifier directly.

Alternatives

The Avantgarde DUO SD shares the same midrange and treble horns but uses a single bass driver in a lower, lighter cabinet.