This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below

Sound I: Where to start? This can be tricky around a multi talent without dominant traits. With Audiodata’s Avancé the only answer is at the beginning, with the very first track which, upon unpacking, was really only meant to ascertain whether all drivers worked properly. Enter Regina Spektor’s "Poor little rich boy". This short number is neither unnecessarily complex nor opulently orchestrated but in principle showed up just how astonishing a performer the Avancé really was. This Moscow-born NYC-based songstress/songwriter sits vocalizing on the piano which she plays one-handedly, the other hand being busy with percussion. A drum stick works over a stool presumably on a wooden floor, the latter occasionally exposed to a rhythmic foot stomp. Check out this simple video which is fun even on a laptop. But over a grown-up system with elevated ambitions one has to admit that things here aren’t quite as simple as they seemed at first.


For one the stick clatter and foot stomps are tough nuts for various speakers. Whilst captured in general, it’s rarer that the transient dry-hard wood-on-wood noise turns out this shockingly real. Ditto transmission oneness of drum stick to chair through the floor which gets excited to resonate relatively low, never mind that this virtual stage foundation action sounds different than being triggered by a heel kick. Percussive attacks live and die on such complex transients. To transmit their complicated harmonic contents intact tends to be the domain of time-sensitive speakers. To combine these virtues with low-bass impact, speed, contour and instantaneousness eludes many a design to put it mildly. My Ascendo System F handles these discplines at the forefront of what I've heard but Audiodata’s Avancé moved the limits on the percussion of "Poor litte rich boy" forward regardless and noticeably so.

This wasn't so much a function of the initial clack being sharp, poignant, non-blurry and arising from nothing. The Ascendo does that just as well, perhaps even sharper or more present which—more on that in a bit—really refers back to tonal balance. Rather the Audiodata communicated the low-bass floor resonance as so directly hard-wired to its trigger event that the coincident reality seemed unmistakably real. A true wonder. It suggested zero time lapse between drum stick and floor response. I’ve been so used to hearing this song somewhat 'slower'. This never bothered me before. Only by direct contrast now did I notice that; and how the woofers themselves didn’t overshoot to continue past the floor's reaction.

I obviously cannot prove any of this. Every loudspeaker renders a mere interpretation. A separate truth of what's on the record remains inaudible. The moment it's heard it's already been processed. Perhaps the Audiodata hit the brakes too soon and portrayed the song drier than it was mixed? I somehow doubt it though. I’m far more inclined to believe that the electronic servo in the bass finally guaranteed the exact results the mastering engineer had in mind all along.