Should I be looking at something smaller than the F208's and let room gain do the rest of the job? Remember, I want to ditch the sub.
The F206s would probably do fine in a room that size.
Should I be looking at something smaller than the F208's and let room gain do the rest of the job? Remember, I want to ditch the sub.
No recommendations other than to listen to some MTMs with similar sized drivers if you're thinking of getting the Imagines or something similar. Any MTM speaker with 5" + midwoofers is going to have narrow vertical directivity and a dip in the power response at Fc. This may or not be a bad thing - the narrow vertical response may be preferable - but it's an important issue which EQ can't help.
If you DO like the MTM, look at Salk sound, they make some MTMs with Seas magnesium drivers at reasonable cost. If smaller USA fabricators interest you, also see Selah Audio. The guy running Selah is very active on forums and is a very competent designer.
The Revels, on the other hand, do nothing wrong from a design perspective, use super high quality drivers. Siegfried Linkwitz said disparagingly that the Revel designs were basically the apex of box speakers, which is an impressive endorsement if a backhanded one. I'd personally like to see a little more waveguide loading on the tweeter, but Revel knows what they're doing and I would expect this to be a very neutral design.
I'd also be looking at KEF r11 if coax is your thing, or maybe used Vandersteen 5s, although they are a whole other kettle of fish. The KEFs do look nice. I heard the big Paradigm speakers - not the new Personas, but the old signatures? If you want a more compact tower with a lot of impact look into Paradigm. Much higher quality for the money than PSB in my opinion.
So, you're looking for a -3dB point of 30Hz or lower?New R11's are $5k, but they don't go low enough.
I'd thought room gain would work for the KEF's, including smaller models. How important is high SPL for you?Should I be looking at something smaller than the F208's and let room gain do the rest of the job?
Can't argue with that. Do the LS50s go loud enough for you? More than?
@Ron Texas The F206 and possibly F208 may not have enough low end for your requirements based on spins and predicted in-room response:
View attachment 34607
From: http://www.aes-media.org/sections/pnw/pnwrecaps/2014/solive_sep14/seattle_aes_sep18_2014 _headphone_talk.pdf
all models' frequency response looks quite similar in chart.
we know it isn't the case in real world....
I'm considering getting a pair of passive speakers which have enough bass (flat to below 30hz) to not need a sub, extreme bass heads excepted. The Revel F208 looks interesting. Any other ideas?
Maybe you can have a look at Kef R series. Kef admitted to follow closely Toole's research and spinorama-like charts for R series can be found in their white paper.
Kef R11 costs $5500 and R7 is $4000.
I'm considering getting a pair of passive speakers which have enough bass (flat to below 30hz) to not need a sub, extreme bass heads excepted. The Revel F208 looks interesting. Any other ideas?
Good call and the logical upgrade to the LS50s. The Revel Performa3 are, as always, a good option too.
If you want something in the Revel form factor, a tad cheaper, made in Europe (if this factors into your pride of ownership), built and finished as well as the Performa3, well-engineered from the measurements out there (and in my experience sound great) - consider something from Canton. I don't think they ever gained huge popularity in the US, but there is a distributor. The following two are current models that are on sale (most others are EOL closeouts):
Canton Vento 896.2 Cherry gloss (cherry is an upcharge; this has dual 8s, a 7" midrange and a waveguide dome) - 3k/pr
http://instagr.am/p/BRnsZkjjU9v/
Here's their cherry gloss from a more candid photo off their Instagram.
Canton A45 Black (commemorative speaker for their 45th anniversary with triple 7s, a 7" midrange and a waveguide dome, trickle-downs the cone material from their flagship line - 3.4k/pr with free shipping. Basic 0-15-30 degree off-axis here. Very very good control through the midrange I reckon. Would take some minor EQ well if needed.
They look very nicely made to me.
FR looks very steady and that little disturbance around tweeter XO at 3000Hz can be easilly fixed as it seems to have the same shape in all 3 graphs.
If the dispersion match holds up past 30 degrees, I think the 3kHz dip can be filled in and then the treble shelved to taste. As an overall package, I do think they are genuine alternatives to Performa3s (though I suspect Revel has the edge in compression and distortion due to the Klippel work and SB Acoustics drivers). I would love to see spinorama graphs of the Cantons.
I would actually be tempted to EQ the response like this:
View attachment 34648
They have a new line of DSP active speakers that seem flatter (different model above, just for illustration's sake and outside the scope of this thread). Apparently uses a TI chipamp (but no details of the DSP itself). The A45 floorstander we were talking about also has a DSP variant so I wouldn't be surprised if they did some EQ to flatten it. Top octave ripples seem a property of the waveguide since I've seen it in all their speakers. Then again Revel's waveguide has some ripples like these as well, which prompted them to shift toward using the listening window average on spinoramas.
I really like what they are doing with DSP actives because they are much more domestically-friendly than eg. Neumann or Genelec - much higher WAF and variety in form factors (eg. floorstanders in various sizes). Their Vento and anniversary lines are very good - be it passive or active.
I remember first encountering the Vento series at a show. The 5.5-inch standmount was selling for just a tad below LS50 money. I thought it was a fabulous deal (and this was after dealer markup where I was - its much cheaper on the website I linked and in Europe) considering one gets solid high-gloss cabinets, made in Germany and very good but not SOTA performance.
From the classifieds I've seen, depreciation's a bitch though - too little name recognition outside of Europe.