Comment on this system.

I talked to an employee at Avalon who likes this particular combo. he also told me about the new speaker called the "Vision".

The system is good as presented. For what it's worth, the Spectral+Avalon combo used to be quite common and, to my ears, a good one.
It's quite a high resolution system, however, with a particular tonal balance and, as such, should be listened to extensively:
*try some classical and check out the sound of violins, the sound of a soprano
*try out the system with & w/out the pre.
That should give yr friend an idea of longer term comatibility with his/her ears...

Tab,
The Eidolon Vision is a more expensive succesor to the Eildolon, but less expensive than the Diamond. I heard it briefly at CES, but w/unfamiliar electronics, so hard to judge. Cheers,
Spencer