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Kef R3 an Upgrade from Revel F36?

VintageFlanker

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Have you experimented with EQ by chance?
I did not have the time to remesure R3s with EQ. I ended up my listening tests with this profile on my ADI-2 DAC.

IMG_20200601_193525.jpg


Anyway, I didn't manage to like the R3 whatever the tricks I've tried.
 

echopraxia

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No, I wasn’t talking about the KEF R3. I was talking about the Genelec 8351B vs Revel Salon2, and speaker preference in general.

I mentioned my Genelec vs Revel as an example, because if you look at the spins of those speakers and you believe that’s all that matters towards preference, then the Genelec should dominate. But in larger rooms I find it does not — the Revel Salon2 wins there. That’s what I meant when I said:

Yeah maybe it is something else, I don't know. Wide horizontal directivity does seem to explain a lot, though, in my experience. Beyond that, I don't really know what else it would be.
 

CDMC

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My two cents, your love the Revel F36, which are great speakers, move up the line if you want to upgrade, F208.

Looking at your system as a whole, your best bang for the buck upgrade may be adding a second SB2000. Your room is pretty large and a second will give you cleaner output at high levels and smooth out the response which gives tighter bass. You are at a really high value point with your system with great value for the dollar. Upgrading will improve the sound, but in smaller increments. You may want to think hard about being happy where you are.
 
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VintageFlanker

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No, I wasn’t talking about the KEF R3. I was talking about the Genelec 8351B vs Revel Salon2, and speaker preference in general.
Sorry, you were responding to @fredoamigo, who clearly was talking about R3s.;)
My two cents, your love the Revel F36, which are great speakers, move up the line if you want to upgrade, F208.
I would second this... But Am I missing something, or F208 costs 2,5X more than R3?! I would love to have such a flexible budget!:p
 

echopraxia

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Sorry, you were responding to @fredoamigo, who clearly was talking about R3s.
That’s not what I read, so it’s not to clearly so. I saw a statement being made generally about preference scores (hence the statistics). My response uses examples to continue the general point, in any case.
 

echopraxia

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I would second this... But Am I missing something, or F208 costs 2,5X more than R3?! I would love to have such a flexible budget!
Yeah a F208 would be a big leap up. I think the suggestion was just because the OP already has towers and so the F208 is a clear upgrade in that sense.

You can get a pair of F206’s close to the price of an R3 though, here in the US at least. Might cost a little bit more than a new R3 to get a new F206, but discounted they’d come closer than you might think. Edit: I suppose kind of like how we here envy the prices you can get for Focal in France :)
 
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richard12511

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Yeah a F208 would be a big leap up. I think the suggestion was just because the OP already has towers and so the F208 is a clear upgrade in that sense.

You can get a pair of F206’s close to the price of an R3 though, here in the US at least. Might cost a little bit more than a new R3 to get a new F206, but discounted they’d come closer than you might think.

The spins on the F206 (imo) don't look as good as the F208 or R3. One of the refreshing examples where the bigger (and more expensive) speaker actually measures better than the smaller speaker in the same line.
 

Eetu

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Hi, @possumtaters You didn't mention if you have the possibility to EQ/use room correction or have you integrated the sub by ear? If latter I would get an UMIK-1, do some in-room measurements, room correction below ~400Hz and perhaps some light EQ based on the F36 spins. This would scratch that itch of trying 'something new' and be very useful with the new speakers too, if/when you decide to upgrade.
 

Sancus

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Most TV/movies available for streaming online don't even have surround playback, much of the time.

Speaking of surround, it is quite sad that it seems virtually impossible to find any surround audio processor / AVR with good DSP, that has either (1) DAC outputs that do not perform abysmally, or (2) digital outputs for all channels so we can use provably good DACs.

I actually find that a lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime stuff is in 5.1 or better. In fact, pretty much all the Netflix shows I've watched in the past month are 5.1 or Atmos. The main exception being older shows/films or anime, which basically never has surround with the exception of a couple of particular Netflix-sponsored productions like Levius. Though sometimes shows "have 5.1" but the surround channels are barely used. That is particularly annoying since it ruins upmixing.

I think we're all waiting on the JBL SDP-55 review since it has #2 ;) Hopefully the software on it reaches stable status and it doesn't have any major problems...but I'm not holding my breath.
 

Frank Dernie

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Speaking of surround, it is quite sad that it seems virtually, impossible to find any surround audio processor / AVR with good DSP, that has either (1) DAC outputs that do not perform abysmally, or (2) digital outputs for all channels so we can use provably good DACs
This is true in a basic sense but when you start from first principles, what you can and can not perceive, and the very limited performance, in terms of distortion, of the loudspeakers they will be used with, it ceases to be a real limitation.
Yes it would be nice fo have something with nearer SOTA 24/192 bit performance but since I have never seen a single convincing bit of information supporting the fact that 16/44 doesn't encompass all the audible part of real world recordings the shortcomings are theoretical but I am 99.9% sure not audible.
 

Bear123

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My two cents, your love the Revel F36, which are great speakers, move up the line if you want to upgrade, F208.

Looking at your system as a whole, your best bang for the buck upgrade may be adding a second SB2000. Your room is pretty large and a second will give you cleaner output at high levels and smooth out the response which gives tighter bass. You are at a really high value point with your system with great value for the dollar. Upgrading will improve the sound, but in smaller increments. You may want to think hard about being happy where you are.
I agree with this 100%. Adding a 2nd sub, placed properly with good eq(either manually with miniDSP HD or Audysey XT32/Sub Eq HT), will provide the greatest improvement in sound quality and at the lowest cost. I also agree with what some others have mentioned that a solid upgrade path, if desired once getting subs situated, would be F208. I'm thinking $3500 or so from a dealer, minus what you recoup from the F36.
 

preload

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I was talking about the Genelec 8351B vs Revel Salon2, and speaker preference in general.

I mentioned my Genelec vs Revel as an example, because if you look at the spins of those speakers and you believe that’s all that matters towards preference, then the Genelec should dominate. But in larger rooms I find it does not — the Revel Salon2 wins there.

So what's the answer? Does spin analysis reliably predict that listeners will prefer the 8351B over the Salon2? or vice-versa? Has anyone heard both extensively (or directly compared)?
 

echopraxia

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Has anyone heard both extensively (or directly compared)?
I'm not aware of anyone else other than me, who owns both. I'm sure someone somewhere does, but if so I suppose they don't post here.

At some point, I plan to perform a blind listening test more igorously controlled than any other I've done. I'll probably try to mirror Harman's own test procedure as much as possible for at least part of the test (e.g. same test tracks, same questionnaire design, etc.) Of course I expect that no matter what the results, there will be many online who refuse to accept the results, and will prefer to instead blame it on some misc. aspect of the test procedure -- but that's unavoidable.

So what's the answer? Does spin analysis reliably predict that listeners will prefer the 8351B over the Salon2? or vice-versa? Has anyone heard both extensively (or directly compared)?
The short answer is: No, the spin analysis does not capture everything that I'm hearing. But I'm not saying it's magical and not in the measurements at all: I believe more detailed measurements do capture this, and it would be relatively easy to improve CEA2034 to include the missing factors that matter here (e.g. a representation of horizontal and vertical beam width, presented independently and not just averaged together into a single directivity index).

Genelec 8341 spin (I'm not sure if we have spins of the 8351B, but by what measurements we do have, they appear to perform even better):

1595795626976.png


Revel Salon2 spin:
1595795583183.png

By most 'traditional' interpretation of these spins, it seems that with subwoofers involved, the Genelec's should dominate the subjective preference over the Salon2's. But they do not. To be clear, the Genelecs are incredible speakers, and do indeed audibly beat the Salon2's in some aspects IMO. But, the Salon2's create an experience in a large listening room that is much more pleasant subjectively for a lot of (though perhaps not all) music. The experience the Salon2's create in a medium/large is not matched by the Genelecs. Despite the Genelec's superiority of on-axis frequency response, the Salon2's create a sound that is often more pleasant and enjoyable.

It's hard to exactly corellate what I'm hearing to measurements, but I believe I can: I believe it is mostly due to the horizontal dispersion width. You can test this very easily by sitting back at a distance from both speakers, and waving your hands back and forth in front of both ears (or have someone walk in front of you) to hear how much of what you're hearing is coming from direct sound. On the Genelec's, you can hear very audible changes in SPL when you do vs don't block direct sound with your hands. On the Salon2's it's much less, and the sound changes far less when direct sound is blocked.

It is also audible if you turn your head 90 degrees to the left/right vs facing forward. On more directional speakers, the sound suffers when turning your head. On less directional speakers like the Salon2's, the sound remains almost the same. This creates a far more "real" sound, at least to my subjective experience/impression. Whereas narrower dispersion sounds much more like you're listening to point source speakers emitting sounds (to the point that it's obvious the sound is coming from speakers), wider dispersion (to me) sounds like you're listening to a room filled with sound where the speakers disappear.

Another test you can do is stand directly between your two speakers if they're spaced far apart, and play some music in mono. On the Salon2's, more so than any other speaker, it sounds like the sound is coming from a good distance directly in front of me. There is absolutely no perception that the sound is coming from two speakers, one to my left and one to my right. There is an almost spooky good illusion that there are sounds coming from directly in front of you, far behind the from the front wall of the room. This is the way I can most easily demonstrate to listeners the difference between these speakers, but it applies when you're sitting back as well (not just when you're artificially far off-axis): this impression that there is 3D sound filling throughout the room, not just two speakers emitting sound at you.

I should add a disclaimer though that if you do lock your head in the sweet spot and listen to music recorded/produced to involve a lot of the spatial sounds into the recording, the Genelecs can sound better. Here, under more carefully controlled listening conditions (i.e. not turning your head angle too far off axis), the superior perfection of the Genelec's on-axis frequency response becomes audible.

It's too bad we don't have Klippel measurements of the Salon2's, but here are some off axis horizontal measurements from Stereophile that shows how exceptional they are at casting the sound out extremely broadly in the horizontal plane:

1595796359106.png
 
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