Revel Owners Thread - Page 90

The only Revels I've heard were the Studio2s in my room. I had a very difficult time choosing between them and the Kef Reference 205/2s. The Studio2 s had the edge in tweeters but the 205/2s had better bass response in my room. The driving factor in my decision was the center, the Voice2 would have been difficult to make work in my room.

I have not heard either the Kef R series or Performa3 but would love to and plan on it. They are both touted to be 80-90% of their next in line (Reference and Ultima) at a fraction of the price.

So what is my point? I love my 205/2s but miss the Studio2s. If I can swing a 2.0 system in the future, Salon2(3) would be at the very top of my list. Revels have my utmost respect and admiration, so good! Now that I suspect the Performa3 center may work well with the Ultima then.....
Edited by jima4a - 1/11/13 at 7:27pm

it was not the room. Without a doubt it's they way they imaged. Everyone tested the speakers and no one said maybe it was like "ughhhh, that sucks." When you would move your head six inches you would simply only hear one channel. It was like someone just simply unplugged the speaker.

They are good speaker sound wise and have a smooth and delicate sound to the mids and the tweeter almost seemed like a little brother to the mids trying to copy its reproduction. This makes for a smooth integrated sound but the tweeter lacked in what a tweeter needs to do IMHO. I think they sound equal to the psb imagine B in the mids except the psb's did not cut out like the 105 did when moving. The 105's however best the psb's for the simple fact that the 105's did not ever get confused on what to do and always remained well postured when the recording asked it to do a lot. Also was not a big fan of the tweeter on the psb. Between the two, i think i like the 105's better because while they didn't recreate instruments the way i wanted them to they never sounded bad. The imagine however would try but it might sound weird, i felt like i could feel the metalic attributes of the titanium and it sounded off to me. The 105's tweeter never irritated me they just didn't impress me.

after looking to see what reference line kef it was i found it is the 207/2. The other reference series speakers are much much smaller and the 207 is like a totally different speaker. IT"S HUGE!!!!!!

they are also $25000 lol

How did you like the DefTechs compared to all the other speakers? I really like the 8060 towers, but would still cross them over withe a bigger stand alone sub.

i heard the mythos st tower. they had a lot of bass and i right away i knew they were not on high enough fidelity for me. Maybe they weren't toed in right. I didn't audition long. Almost immediately said no way. They were hooked up in a dedicated listening room too.

The bass is adjustable via a dial on the back. You should check out the 8060 or even the 8080 if you haven't heard a bipolar sound stage yet, especially with live music. I always liked KEF too and will need to listen their reference line as well.

i think there is a possibility i might like a bipolar design but i'm pretty sure that from what i remember the mids were to congested and not natural to me. Maybe grainy

Perhaps on the old 7000 series I can see that, but I think the mids are great on the new 8000 series. I was rather shocked.

What you are describing sounds to me like one of the tweeters was blown or malfunctioning.

both sounded exactly the same. I've heard quite a few speakers and know there was nothing wrong with them. It's just how they were. The way the speaker was designed was intended to give the center imaging pretty much exactly like the martin logan electrostats. They disperse the mids as far off axis as possible to create a perfect center image. The speaker plays tricks on you and you'd swear there was a center channel. Unfortunately with this type of dispersion and imaging there is a major fault in my book. The only person that gets to enjoy it is the person sitting in the sweet spot

Yes. That's why it's great there are so many diff speaker companies. One size does not fit all. I listened to the F208s and the imaging was outstanding. Pinpoint imaging.

All true audiophiles know there is only one sweet spot in the room to sit. And that's where my chair is.

But speakers with tweeters mounted in a WG should produce a much wider sweet spot. I certainly sit in the center, but I can move quite a bit and still have good imagining.
As for the M105 completely losing one speaker when bthrb3u moved his head still sounds to me that they were not setup properly.
I've never heard any speakers that completely got cancelled out from moving ones head. Just the pulling of the phantom center image to one side.

The M105 being sold @ $1200/pr most certainly is not a high end speaker. The fact the the entire Performa 3 series is using Al tweeters says it all. When you are listening to Ti, Mg, Be tweeters you know you're uptown.
Edited by 4DHD - 1/12/13 at 4:08am

As far as I know Revel never used Titanium tweeters, all the old Performas used Aluminium, the old Ultima also used Al, and they all were really good speakers.

In fact, I heard the Focal Grande Utopias which also use Berylium driven by Parasound JC1 mono's in a treated room and for their price, I dont want to hurt anybodys feelings but they were nothing special. Yeah, of course they sounded good, but if consider that it costs 180.000 $, I think the Ultima2's sounded at least as good, if not better. But to be honest, I listened to the Ultima's for 30 minutes in a not so perfect room 2 years ago, and listened to the Utopia's for 5 hours a few month ago. Anyway, if somebody would have told me, that you can have these Utopia's for 10k, I still dont think I would have junped on the offer right away. The same was true for the Martin Logan Summit, Atlantic Technology 8000, ridicoulusly expensive Gryphon gear/speakers and for some very high priced Swans speakers. I listened to them, and nothing.

But I can clearly remember the first time, I heard even the Concerta, not to mention the Ultima2's... They blew me right away.
Only a few brands produced the same effect: Meridian, and a JBL Synthesis system (I think it was K2's) , and Triad comes to my mind...

So because of this, I don't think that the material of the tweeter, or the price of a speaker alone would guarantee that it is going to be a fantastic speaker, at least not for me.

And one more thing I think Revel is a brand, which won't make steps backward. They tested the Performa3 for a huge ammount of time, and I believe they ditched the F308 because it was too good. And because of this, the Performa3 should be much better than the Performa2, although it was a pretty hard to beat speaker. (Though I never heard them personally)

^^^^ I was speaking more of the M105 than the entire line.
As far as tweeters, I've had soft dome, Al, Ti, I've also auditioned Be, ceramic. JBL jumped to Ti tweeters most of 30 years ago, first with the 250Ti. When you think of a pair of speakers retailing for $1200/pr, as I read of the M105, they are not going to use Be but most certainly could have used Ti.
My personal experience is Ti is better than Al. And I had speakers for decades that used the most expensive tweeter JBL ever made, 066 Aluminum. I recently replaced the last pair with 052Ti, big improvement.

Also, the store owner head measuremeents with tape permanent marker on the floor with marks for exactly where the speakers needed to be positioned. Believe me, i know how to set up speakers and he did it right. When i went to the other shop the speakers were all up against a wall and the sales associate had to pull them out and set up each pair we listened to. He was just throwing them where ever and he gave a look like WTF is this guy doing moving these things lol. I've already heard the difference between speakers that are toed in right and ones that aren't. I will never judge a speaker that is not setup properly as i've already done it once and beat myself up for it.

I can see where the phantom center would move by moving my head but all i would hear was the vocals and the rest of frequencies would disappear and the full image would disappear.
To be honest with you the tweeter sounded like a softdome tweeter.
I slept on the 105's and i think they are definitely better than the imagine B's. They never lost composure and all the frequencies blended in together. I don't think they need any special equipment to sound good because or how smooth they were. They seemed a tad dark but i think that was the tweeters fault.
I am not a fan of the imaging for my main listening. i like to have a full size effortless image.
HOWEVER, i have to believe that i would very very much like to have a pair of these in front of my bed for night time listening or around a fire place. They are a smooth relaxed sound that would complement occasions when you want to focus more on lets say a woman, dinner or sleep as they do not surround you with music rather compliment the mood.
Hope that calms everyone down.
I am not out to get revel.

I would like to say that the overall sound was like a thin but lightly dark smooth sound.

not energetic or sweet in any way

For complete sections of the spectrum to disappear something is wrong. I like imaging, full soundstage in both width and depth.
Of coarse, that does depend on everything being right; speakers, setup in the room, amplification, recording.

I believe they ditched the F308 because it was too good. And because of this, the Performa3 should be much better than the Performa2, although it was a pretty hard to beat speaker. (Though I never heard them personally)


Gugu,

I also believe they cancelled the F308 because of a marketing conflict with the Syudio2. I had the F52 Performas for 18 months. I thought they were the livin' end until I switched to Studio2s. Much better. I ordered the full line of Performa3s (except subwoofers) and have not received the F208s or F206s. I did put the M106s next to the Studio2s and was happily surprised at how well they performed with my sub in line. I am excited about getting the F208s.

The Ultima2 series debuted in early 2007, six years ago. My guess is that Revel will upgrade the Ultima2s to Ultima3s using the new driver technology in the Performa3s but keeping the titanium mid/woofers and beryllium tweeter. This could happen relatively soon. They might then think it safe to release the F308.

Dennis

nothing was wrong with them i can guarantee it. You guys go listen to them and you'll see exactly what i'm talking about

bthrb4u, I believe you, you've made me even more curious. I am going to check the Performa3s out. The Speakerlab in Seattle will have some in a couple weeks. Here's a question for the thread. I have a small room 15x8.5x10 (treated) and I've always used 6.5" monitor speakers and I use subwoofers crossed at 80. Right now I have the Focal Electra 1007 Bes which are great but I'm just wanting to try something new. I've admired the R&D that goes into the Revels. I'm thinking the m105s might lack some punch, so I was thinking m106s but then I thought maybe the F206 would work, do you think that's too much speaker for small room? I'm only sitting 7 feet away.

My room is exactly the same size, and I use F12 Concerta Floorstanders, and a Velodyne DigitalDrive 15" sub in it. (Which is suitable for rooms 5 times the area) So in my opinion, an F206 is a perfect choice for you. there is no such thing as too big speaker for a room, you just need proper treatment, and calibration. I know people who have JBL Synthesis system sounding fantastic in a room around this size. I suggest you go for it!

i am interested in hearing the larger towers now too as they have a dedicated midrange driver and i am wondering if that will change the imaging and get rid of the largely focused phantom center image.

there is no depth to the sound at all which i do not like. While listening to Jon McLeery's Stand proud there is a very distinct drum in the back ground. With the 105's the drum just was part of the wall of sound. With the Kef's that was was not there and i felt like Jon was on a microphone right in front of me and the drummer was in the back ground. so much depth and character.
If i ever decide to get a pair of bookshelves for the bedroom i will decide between these and the b&w cm1's.

Were they playing with a sub? The M105 is small. It would definitely be interesting to return to that store and compare the 105 with 106 and a floorstander.

You're making me want to find some of those KEFs to try.

Hmm, that's a strange phenomena, almost sounds like some kind of an out-of-phase problem. Did anyone by chance double-check the cabling or try reversing the polarity on the speakers in case they were wired incorrectly internally? I know it's highly unlikely, but with this being the first production run of these speakers, anything could happen.

Dennis, when you listened to your M106s did you experience anything similar to what bthrb4u reported? Thanks.

NO COMPROMISES. NO COMPARISON.