I had the pleasure of auditioning the 225's at home for a full three weeks and close to 75+ hours.
My current system:
Auralic G1 Streamer
Okto Research Stereo 8 DAC (used as preamp to feed 225's directly)
Musical Fidelity M6 500i (500w integrated) ($7k when introduced)
B&W 804 D3 (they measure flat to 27hz in-room)
13x18x8.5 (ground up) treated listening room
First thing - communication and service from AVA is outstanding. Second, the quality of the product was higher than expected. They are very solid. Nice metal feet with rubber ring bottoms. Solid. They look great on the rack and sit easily side by side on my standard rack. The speaker taps are close together so banana plugs are best.
Before I start, it can be hard to separate nuance from hyperbole. When level matched, the gap between the MF and AVA was slight, but I am confident that I could blind A/B them with most content after spending so much time with both.
When I first turned them on, it was clear to me that the 225's played in the "top shelf" league. I did not have one in my room, but I had just listened to a Burmester 032 at a dealer and the AVA Immediately reminded me of that ($25k) integrated. Without dissecting the sound, the word that kept coming to mind was "Beautiful." This was especially evident when listening to piano, acoustic or vocal. They play things down the middle without drawing attention to any portion of the presentation by bumping up the high, or being overly warm, etc. The soundstage was big and deep but not artificially exaggerated. They are easy to turn up loud because they simply will not offend your ear with any harshness. My speakers are 89db and can dip to 3ohms at the bottom (ported design). If you know the d3 sound, they lean to the bright side especially with average amplification. The B&W feed on power and most amps simply do not do them justice. I have demoed them with Anthem, Classe, Hegel and McIntosh in the 250w+ range and they simply did not impress they way they do with my MF amp. Chalk it up to taste or synergy. This was not the case with the AVA's - they sounded great! Also, I could not get the amps to run anything more than slightly warm even when driven to the point where I was beginning to worry about my speakers.
In contrast to the MF amp (with > double the power): The MF was ever so slightly less refined on the mid and top. Whereas I defined the AVA's as Beautiful, the single word that comes to mind with the MF is Impactful. You simply can't passively listen to the MF. The slightly sharper top end of the MF made the soundstage sound just the slightest bit wider but maybe less deep. The biggest contrast was in the bass. The MF's have an iron grip on the woofers so there is absolutely zero overhang below 50hz. If I did not have the MF on hand, I would have attributed the slightly looser bass of the AVA to room nodes. That is not to say that the AVA's were lacking in their ability to generate bass or even control. In fact, they sounded slightly fuller in the low end to a small degree. I'm not sure if that was because the bass was slightly softer or if they were actually pushing more current. Hard to say.
All said - the MFs strengths played best if your are into EDM or focus heavily on percussion attack. The MF simply has limitless dynamics and an iron fist on the low end. If I had to guess, the AVA would appeal to more people - especially if you seldom venture to true rock concert levels or have (very) power hungry speakers. The more velvet touch of he AVA was best with many songs. With more efficient speakers or ones with less control issues in the lowest octave than the B&W's, the AVA would be the easy choice for many. Plenty of power. Grace. Huge Value. Look great on the rack. Don't take up much space. Great service. Made in USA.
Much respect. Most of the audio world should be embarrassed for what they are asking, by contrast.
