Revel F328Be Speaker Review

[vkvedam]

Brilliant! KEF Blades were superb when I auditioned them

 

[Frank Dernie]

Good for you. But this subjective, not documented, personal experience.

I will have to assume that you haven’t read the book mentioned, especially chapter 8.2.8.

Yes, based on what I learned whilst changing balance by moving microphones whilst making recordings and not documented indeed.
The book I have only goes to chapter 8.2.2

 

[daftcombo]

This looks to be an amazing speaker. Unfortunately its waaaaayyy to big for my living room. Any chance of a F226be review? Finding revel speakers for decent prices in the EU(NL) is quite hard. The markup is significant and there are little to no sales unfortunately.

I'm askiing myself the same question.
What would be the equivalent of the F328Be for a small living-room (17 m²)?

 

[tuga]

Interestingly, the measurements show little ripples in frequency response throughout the midrange and low-to-mid treble, just like Stereophile's measurements of the F228Be. here

They're probably far too small to be audible. But they're puzzling nonetheless. Anybody have any explanations for them?

The ripples shoud be inaudible but will they cause intermodulation distortion or some other negative effect?
Those Deep Ceramic Composite drivers are like little bells ringing. It would be interesting to have a look at the CSD.

 

[Dimifoot]

The book I have only goes to chapter 8.2.2

 

[Frank Dernie]

View attachment 92738

Different book, sorry.
Mine is
Sound Reproduction
Loudspeakers and rooms
2013 edition

 

[Dimifoot]

Different book, sorry.
Mine is
Sound Reproduction
Loudspeakers and rooms
2013 edition

2018 edition. Lots of additions from previous version.

Excellent chapter on effect of multisub+SFM in bass reproduction for more than one seats -chapter 8.2.8.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Suggest dont be so negative look up F3 or F6 low end roll off for floorstanders and instead trust Revel designers know what they are doing based their research on subject so probably deserve a user smile instead of those negative user notes, reason is for example for book shelve category the designer cant know whatever distance to any or the closets boundary will be but actual for floorstanders they absolute know precise the distances to nearest boundary is the floor and can calculate a most reasonable roll off then that would sound pretty realistic right without using subwoofers.

In below visual there is calculated floor boundary gain for woofer most close to the floor then middle woofer then upper woofer and finaly some pressurerization room gain with 50% leakage for a room having longest room dimension of 20 feet, think animation suggest for the clinic anechoic F328Be curve there will be good 30Hz low end reach covered before more room boundary's probably at longer distances and nasty room interference adds their finale signature to acoustics, heights of woofers relative to floor is not precise but a reasonable eye balled estimation..

View attachment 92665

@BYRTT, I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that that what you're doing there is calculating a speaker/floor contribution for each woofer and then adding the sum of those contributions to the combined response for all three.

The problem is, regardless of the number of woofers on the baffle, the floor bounce can't contribute more than a 6dB boost to the summed response.

Yet it appears that your calculations there show the floor bounce (minus theoretical room pressurisation gain) is contributing up to 9dB, which is impossible.

Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're doing, of course?

 

[hardisj]

I wouldn’t stress so much about the low frequency aspect of your measurement, Amir. My measurements of the F226Be were done using ground plane method at 2m and then 4m for sanity check and both resulted in a mild step in response from 200Hz to 100Hz similar to your results here.
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/revel_f226be/

 

[tktran303]

Erin,

What's your interpretation of the apparent high F3, as measured by the NFS, or your ground plane method?

My interpretation is designer(s) have made a conscious design decision to design this for typical use.

I mean, under 100-200Hz the room controls the bass anyway...

 

[BYRTT]

@BYRTT, I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that that what you're doing there is calculating a speaker/floor contribution for each woofer and then adding the sum of those contributions to the combined response for all three.

The problem is, regardless of the number of woofers on the baffle, the floor bounce can't contribute more than a 6dB boost to the summed response.

Yet it appears that your calculations there show the floor bounce (minus theoretical room pressurisation gain) is contributing up to 9dB, which is impossible.

Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're doing, of course?

Thanks good catch there and no you didnt misunderstand so will edit mistake EDITED.

 

[VinceS]

Erin has one.
And yes it’s very good. the review (or the speaker; you decide)

@hardisj

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/revel_f226be/

YouTube version:

Thanks so much for this @tktran303 ! This is great. I must have missed this topic when searching the forums. Going to dive into this after work.

 

[beagleman]

That's not the case with subs either.

The other thing with subs is too much bass. When watching movies I am game for that. But with music it can get too much with some music, and not with others. Hooked up a sub to our living room TV system and had to disconnect it after a few hours since the commercials had the most bass!

Not saying don't use a sub but you are in for a lot of work to get them to work well.

That is not an issue with the sub, but an issue with the TV station. Commonly done thing, some stations have a huge bass boost, and it is just easily heard with a sub that goes really deep.

On my small speakers, it makes it sound better bass wise, but when using my sub it sound like exactly what it is, a bass boost from the station of about 6db between 32-50 hz.

 

[hardisj]

Erin has one.
And yes it’s very good. the review (or the speaker; you decide)

@hardisj

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/revel_f226be/

YouTube version:

Here is a link to the discussion on this forum if you guys would rather go there.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...oorstanding-speaker-review.16702/#post-539752

 

[Rick Sykora]

I think there are some complexities with the port measurements and the combined plot. @amirm notated the upper port was tested. There are two and they may/are tuned to different frequencies and/or operating from different cavities, I don't know.

I wouldn't go on the combined plot, I would note the subjective comments in this case.

Appears to be a single cavity...

While adding another woofer does increase the f3, the benefit is better power handling, more output and lower distortion. When you need to produce a speaker to energize a bigger room, the additional output is important. Subjectively, when I have built speakers with 2 woofers, I found I like the bass better even if I might be sacrificing a few hertz of low end.

 

[hardisj]

@amirm congrats on the 100th speaker review! That's an incredible body of work you have completed in less than a year.

Thanks for this speaker review. While the F328Be looks to have a itty bit more sensitivity, my knee-jerk reaction tells me the F226Be is the better "value" as it appears that even with the F328Be one would still want a subwoofer which IMHO kind of defeats the purpose of stepping up to the triple 8's from the dual 6's. And IME, the dual 6's provide plenty of output volume (~105dB @ 12-14 feet in my listening tests, without a crossover). The benefit I am seeing is simply the lowered distortion below 100Hz. But, again, a subwoofer renders that moot. So, if I were the one plopping the money down, I'd have a lot more struggle over the decision of F226BE vs F328Be than I thought I would have had prior to seeing these results.

I'll try to do some more comparison, but I expect @BYRTT will save us all some time and use our datasets to provide some comparison gifs.

 

[hardisj]

Subjectively, when I have built speakers with 2 woofers, I found I like the bass better even if I might be sacrificing a few hertz of low end.

Probably due to the increased sensitivity. With two woofers, you no longer have to take the baffle step loss you do with a single woofer. Net sensitivity gain of 3dB+. IME, that was a major "pro" of the F226Be I tested.

 

[wwenze]

So, the family is like 226, 228, and then 328? I guess the tweeter and the midrange are the same so the difference is all in the amount of wub wub.

The 226 would have the benefit of being shorter.

Since this is a tall speaker, you may want to tilt it down a bit if you are sitting too close to it.

 

[hardisj]

So, the family is like 226, 228, and then 328? I guess the tweeter and the midrange are the same so the difference is all in the amount of wub wub.

AFAIK, yes, that is the only physical difference.

 

[Rick Sykora]

So, the family is like 226, 228, and then 328? I guess the tweeter and the midrange are the same so the difference is all in the amount of wub wub.

The 226 would have the benefit of being shorter.

Lol, at >100 lbs, would be moving back (or buying something shorter) rather than tilting forward.