paying tribute to Gauss greatness by bringing a notable name back to the wider world with an active full-range, two-way reference monitor mixing vintage nearfield old-school snap and new-school-boosted bandwidth and frequency response decades after the much-missed Gauss Speaker Company’s closure.
Gauss greatness comes courtesy of the long-gone Gauss Speaker Company, a well-respected — albeit short-lived — division of Cetex Gauss based out of Sun Valley, California that rose to prominence in the early-Seventies with a high-powered line of loudspeakers that found their way into PA systems, studio monitors, and instrument amplifiers — even guitar giant Fender® offered Gauss speakers as a high-end upgrade for select amplifiers! Although Gauss was well known amongst the very best brands for the extreme engineering, high-quality manufacturing, and tons of power applied to its products, the close of the Eighties sadly sped up the company’s closure as the rapid rise of digital equipment put paid to its tape duplication equipment business. But Gauss remains an ageless classic and Avantone Pro is honored to bring the notable name back to the wider world with its Gauss 7 active (Bi-Amped Class D) full-range, two-way reference monitor acting as the perfect start to doing just that.
The custom, patented-design GAU-AMT tweeter lies at the heart of Gauss 7 by providing the upmost detail — down to the most subtle of waveforms — to deliver incredible stereo imaging while maintaining a small vertical throw. This reduces unwanted acoustic reflections in a room, helping to minimize phase issues in an acoustic environment. Technically, the impressive transient response of the GAU-AMT tweeter comes courtesy of its 65mm PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) film-folded membrane, the result of which is far beyond what can be achieved in typical dome tweeter designs. Duly chosen as it is the lowest resonant frequency film, PET film also hosts the lowest crossover point — and all while still providing exceptional high-range frequency extension. The tweeter’s coil is aluminum-etched PET film, folded. Furthermore, the assembly is mounted in its own enclosure to prevent backwave pressure from the woofer.
Woofer-wise, Gauss 7’s is inspired by Avantone Pro’s AV10-MLF ‘white cone’ construction, yet was still engineered from the ground up. Ultimately, the woofer cone itself is a pressed design, fabricated from the same proprietary blend of wood pulp and glass fiber found in the company’s CLA-10 series’ AV10-MLF woofer, with majorly increased materials to provide the hard snap and fast transient response of the CLA-10 series but benefitting from majorly increased low end — no need to hear tighter voicing here, in other words, since providing Gauss 7 with a wide bandwidth for fantastic midrange performance and a low-end reference reaching right down to 30Hz is the order of the day. Digging deeper, the woofer’s motor structure is made of low-carbon 1008 steel, so enables the highest amount of magnetic flux density between the pole pipe and the top plate. Put it this way: with a surround made from a Japanese uni-directional SBR (Styrene-Butadiene Rubber), rest assured that the power and excursion of the woofer is optimized.
On the face of it, then, the high-end frequency response — reaching up to 22kHz — makes for an exceptional reference monitor perfectly primed for handling a wide range of sound and musical materials. Moreover, ‘air frequencies’ are not just audible, but supremely smooth. Saying that, this not only provides for an exceptional-sounding reference monitor, but one that is built to listen to for hours on end. And a rear- firing bass port gives Gauss 7 a controlled yet punchy low end with a tight response — without exhibiting the typical ‘over-hyped’ low end found in other monitors in its price range.
Rounding out its impressive specification — edited highlights of which include a 7” (178mm) Ferrite Motor GAU-7MLF low-frequency driver, 2.5” (65mm) GAU-AMT high-frequency driver, 120W low-frequency amplifier power, 60W high-frequency amplifier power, 103dB (Peak) SPL (Sound Pressure Level), and 0.5% THL (Total Harmonic Distortion) delivered from a beautifully executed enclosure measuring 381mm H x 235mm W x 212mm D (15” H x 9.25” W x 8.35” D) and weighing in at 8.2kg (18 lbs), balanced XLR and 1⁄4” TRS inputs make connecting Gauss 7 a breeze. But it takes a little more than that to create a studio-strength reference monitor — hence its back panel providing powerful, yet easy- to-use controls for fine-tuning the system to work well within whatever room it is installed, such as a three-position Acoustic Placement switch (allowing anyone to optimize Gauss 7 to boundary spaces within that room), an adjacent three-position High Trim switch (helping to refine additional room issues), and last, but by no means least, a Gain control (for proper system calibration).
Clearly, Avantone Pro has done itself proud by bringing a much-missed notable name back to the wider world with its inspired Gauss 7 active full-range, two-way reference monitor. It is, indeed, an honorable thing to do!
Gauss 7 will be shipping globally in early June 2021, available at Avantone Pro’s US Dealers (http://www.avantonepro.com/us-dealers.php) with a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) of $799.00 USD per pair. (European SSP — Suggested Selling Price — is €799.00 EUR, excluding VAT, with worldwide Distributors listed by country here