Does Avalon speakers have a house sound?

They absolutely have a house sound, I've listened to easily 75 setups over the last 20 years. The sound is detailed (above average to very detailed depending on model), open, very focused, spacious. The negative for many, including me, is that they are typically lean (this is not room-related, or system-related, it is positively a trait) and can strike many folks as fatiguing. They fatigue me in a way that live chamber, symphonic, jazz, blues do not. This is why I don't use them.

Beautifully built.

The outside is often stunning, inside you cannot see a thing. I met a person who owned the Diamonds. He opened the inside to look at there crossovers. He said; I was surprised about the simple parts they use. It was difficult for him to put it back in place. What I said earlier; a violin sounds a lot different in real compared to the way it sounds with Avalon speakers.

Hi Bo, I think used Avalon owners all over the world would be interested in the serial number of that pair might be :)
Scary cos there is no way you can access the crossovers without major hacking (literally). Scary.
I do agree with you that violins are the Avalons' trouble spot. More so with the models using the Acuton ceramic mid than the old Ascents and Eclipses.
But heck they sound good overall with a host of other material. The lean and fatiguing sound can be minimized with triodes triodes and triodes everywhere... Cables with chokes in the mystery network boxes help a bit too but at the expense of resolution.

It was one of the most unique persons I met in audio. He stripped even a pair of Nautilus 802 speakers and made an external filterbox for it. The results were stunning. A friend of mine had the Avalon Eclipse improved version. He also plays with the Platinum PL-200 of Monitor Audio now. It blow away the Avalon speakers in every aspect. This speaker also has a deep and wide stage same as the Avalon's. But instruments and voices are within this square so much more palpable. Like in real. A friend of mine also plays with Avalon and has many parts the same as I have. Compared to the Pl-200 it is less touchable. Timing of the Pl-200 is superior to all the Avalon speakers I heard.

Extracting the crossover of a JBL or B&W or better yet Focal Utopia is completely different from trying to take out anything from an Avalon. I wonder how much sawing he did to take out the crossover and how much glueing and sanding to put it back. I figure he has since sold the Diamonds, and wonder if the new owner knows there's been something done to them.