The existing and past "standard" Avantgarde systems (Uno, Duo, Trio) have always featured a self-powered bass enclosure that started off with only speaker level input from the power amp, but more recently (from about 2005) accepted either speaker level or line level input. AG has always advocated the speaker level input. This is affected by the main power amp that provides the input that goes virtually unhindered to the mid and top, but is further amplified by the built-in SS amp for the bass. Since most tube amps offer less than perfect bass, the audible result of the bass is significantly influenced by this main amp. If line level is chosen, the bass signal bypasses the main amp as it will normally come directly from the preamp.
The new Trio (and presumably soon the Uno and Duo) is fully active so needs only a streamer or other digital input – or analogue via its ADC. The built-in electronics include electronic crossover, DSP for room correction (presumably / hopefully bass only), DAC and power amps for each driver. In their active Zero speaker AG use Class A for the mid and top but Class D for the bass. The new Trio uses AG's “iTron” amplification. It’ll be interesting to see how this sounds compared with tube amps or existing SS amps into conventional passive crossovers used in the existing Trio, Duo and Uno.
Presumably users will still be able to influence the sound from their G3 Series AGs by their chosen preamp – tube or ss. We’ll have less flexibility but if the iTron system with the other new electronics work as expected, we’ll end up with even better sound than the G2 Series speakers. Kii and Dutch & Dutch have started a European revolution in speaker design that AG seems keen to develop too. Exciting times!
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