one year later and my experience

[Tarheel_]

about a year ago i went on three trips to my local Revel dealer in Raleigh. Each time i enjoyed the sound of their F30's more and more. So, after demoing other brands I purchased the Revels and here is what i've learned in the last year.

1-since they are big (95lbs) three ways...floor placement and toe-in are key and once i found THE spot... the spikes were installed.

2- amp selection alters the sound more than i imagined. I began with a Denon receiver which sounded good. Next, a solid NAD 218 (225x2). Beast of an amp but did not blend well with the Revels...so after selling the denon and nad i bought a used Rotel amp (120 x 2) and they play together very well (synergy) which proves brute power doesn't always translate into good sound.

3-These speakers reveal flaws in recordings...my former Polks just played them, now these speakers dissect recordings. Still, a nice trade considering most material sounds above average.

4) After a long day/week...when stress is maxed out...to grab a cold beer, sit on the counch and play some tunes through them is real satisfation and justification of the purchase. They continue to give and give.

Does anyone else have a retro look at their speaker purchase and what you learned and gained from it???

[topspeed]

about a year ago i went on three trips to my local Revel dealer in Raleigh. Each time i enjoyed the sound of their F30's more and more. So, after demoing other brands I purchased the Revels and here is what i've learned in the last year.

1-since they are big (95lbs) three ways...floor placement and toe-in are key and once i found THE spot... the spikes were installed.

2- amp selection alters the sound more than i imagined. I began with a Denon receiver which sounded good. Next, a solid NAD 218 (225x2). Beast of an amp but did not blend well with the Revels...so after selling the denon and nad i bought a used Rotel amp (120 x 2) and they play together very well (synergy) which proves brute power doesn't always translate into good sound.

3-These speakers reveal flaws in recordings...my former Polks just played them, now these speakers dissect recordings. Still, a nice trade considering most material sounds above average.

4) After a long day/week...when stress is maxed out...to grab a cold beer, sit on the counch and play some tunes through them is real satisfation and justification of the purchase. They continue to give and give.

Does anyone else have a retro look at their speaker purchase and what you learned and gained from it???

This past weekend I was accorded the rare opportunity where I was left alone with my system for a few hours. No wife. No kids. Nothing. Nada. This is what we call "bliss" for the single folks out there. I've had my B&W CDM 7NT's for little over a year, the purchase of which rekindled my passion for audio reproduction. Over the course of the year, I too changed amps to a PS Audio HCA2 and reveled in improvements wrought. A revealing system is really a double edged sword because as wonderful as it is to hear all of the nuances and details in great music, the system is just as apt to highlight all of the deficiencies in your front end, be it hard or software. Ouch. Thankfully, I've resisted the upgrade bug for the most part.

The other thing that I've learned is I've become more and more cognizant and maybe even succeptible to new ideas. I've gone and listened to more gear in the past 12 months than the previous 12 years just for the hell of it. I'll go to audio salons while traveling on my vacations or business. The interesting thing is that while I've found some great products that have at times made me question my own gear, I've always gone back to it and experienced immense satisfaction. After buying the Von Schweikert's recently, I've really grown to appreciate the different type of sound they put out, so much so I briefly toyed with replacing the B&W's with VSA. However, this past weekend I pulled the VR1's out of the bedroom and hooked them up to my main system just to see what they'd do with better gear in front fo them. It was also an opportunity to play with some ideas such as toeing them in so they intersected about 1' in front of me as some manuals recommend (interesting btw). Recently I've been spending a lot more time and energy with the br system so I kind of forgot about my main rig. The interesting thing was that as much as I loved the VR1's, the difference between the 7NT's and VR1's was startling. I'm not talking about the obvious advantage the 7NT's have in the lower octaves. I'm talking about the sound from top to bottom. The B&W's are simply better. Of course considering they were twice as expensive, they had damn well better be!

The moral to my story I guess is that while there's a lot of great gear out there, if you can't be happy with what you have now, you never will be regardless of what you buy. Like you said Tarheel, grab a cold one, throw on a great disc, crank it up and forget about the world for awhile!

[Jimmy C]

...glad you're enjoying your purchase. Kinda funny - I had a great listening session last night, using the M20s and Rotel separates, and a few beers to boot!

I listened to LPs as well as CDs, female vocals, electric Jazz and some live Greatful Dead. Yup... I was pretty much in heaven! My better half doesn't get home from work 'till about 7:00ish, so I had a lot of "sweet spot" time. Love it...

I'm very happy with my Revels, even if I don't have esoteric ancillaries. I might do a tubed integrated (CAV-50, maybe?) to warm up the mids a bit, but overall, I'm quite happy and haven't heard anything that "blew them away" even at many times the price. Sure, the A.R.C/Martin Logan rig had a HUGE soundstage (too big, actually) and the Classe/Nautilus 800 was nice, but at $25,000 to $50,000 for those rigs... no thanks. I'll stay where I'm at. Not that I could afford it anyway, even if I did see Jesus ;^)

You mentioned poor recordings are revealed for what they are - I agree. I do, however, feel the M20s do a better job of "sounding OK" with bad pressings than my Studio 60s. I think most of my discs are at least decent sounding, whether silver or black. I just read a review of the Merlin VSMs on AA and that was the only negative he spoke of this speaker - bad recordings will be revealed. I'm VERY curious to hear these... I like (relatively) simple desings.

Well, I hope I'm not TOO far off topic, and I'm glad you're enjoying the Revels.