Is The Revel Ultima Salon2 STILL the State Of The Art?

[Lsc]

Can you name some of this "latest technology"? The KEF Blade 2 is often mentioned in these SOTA conversations but it uses a dome tweeter with cone mid-range and woofer. That technology is probably 40-60+ years old.

Maybe some of the confusion derives from using terms like "new technology" (which would seem correct with regards to "SOTA") and simply good engineering. The Blade 2 is exceptional engineering but hard to see how it is much different than the Salon2 which is also exceptional engineering using dome tweeter and cone mid-range and woofers.

I’m not an expert on speaker engineering as I’m an end user who enjoy the usage of speakers vs how it’s made. But obvious things like advancements in cabinet materials such as using aluminum vs MDF.

I don’t think the KEF blade is SOTA so I have no corroborating evidence defending the technology that’s used in the blades. And I already said my salon2 is NOT state of the art…far from it. Magico M7 is SOTA imho so whatever technology and advancements in applied theory that was used to develop those speakers.

If Alon Wolf offered to give me a pair of M7 speakers for my salon2s, I’d make the trade in a heartbeat and these salons are my pride and joy.

 

[kyuu]

But obvious things like advancements in cabinet materials such as using aluminum vs MDF.

In what way is aluminum an obvious advancement over MDF?

 

[Lsc]

I should be more specific regarding my comments on cardioid … while certainly cardioid mids offer improvement vs monopole, for me the real eye opener and game changer has been cardioid bass. And again being specific, I mean cardioid down to ~40Hz (then from there transition to monopole, no benefit to cardioid below 40Hz). There are very few manufacturers doing this, and even fewer folks that have actually heard it. So, until you do, best to hold your judgement … I would also add full range cardioid not just for “specific” situations, it is for all situations. I can’t listen to anything else anymore.

I just tried to achieve cardioid using my 3rd sub (F112) by moving it to the front of the room and pointing it toward the wall. Now I gotta run Tun4 to dial it in but reversing the phase, my bass sounds better.

This hobby has no end . This is my poor man’s version.

 

[MKR]

Sounds like I really don't want to hear it, then. I would hate to be unable to listen to anything outside of one extremely expensive system in a single room in my house anymore.

LOL … I listen to music on my car stereo, on my TV, a little boom box in my garage, etc, and I quite enjoy it, regardless of my prime system. Music is music and always enjoyable for me, I just enjoy it more on a high fidelity system, as do we all, else why are we on ASR? The pursuit of audio perfection I thought.

By the way, if someone offered me a mint pair of Salon 2s for a sub $5k price (reduce the pain of the “paper weight” concern), I would purchase them in a heartbeat, be a superb second system

 

[MKR]

I just tried to achieve cardioid using my 3rd sub (F112) by moving it to the front of the room and pointing it toward the wall. Now I gotta run Tun4 to dial it in but reversing the phase, my bass sounds better.

This hobby has no end . This is my poor man’s version.

Very cool! Always fun to experiment, else it shouldn’t be called a hobby

 

[Lsc]

In what way is aluminum an obvious advancement over MDF?

http://www.bm.rs/Magico%20Alon%20Wolf%20Interview.pdf

Whatever you believe, I’m good with it. I don’t care if your opinion is different than mine. Enjoy your day and your sound system.

 

[MKR]

http://www.bm.rs/Magico%20Alon%20Wolf%20Interview.pdf

Whatever you believe, I’m good with it. I don’t care if your opinion is different than mine. Enjoy your day and your sound system.

I am a big fan of Magico. Yes, crazy expensive, and yes, certainly some marketing silliness. But there is real engineering behind Magico, definitely a rarity in the uber expensive HEA universe.

When I first started my search I was quite smitten with the A5. A great loudspeaker, but ultimately I realized I could do better and for far less money. But that does not mean Magico does not produce decent measuring/sounding gear, it is rather more a value proposition discussion

 

[AudioJester]

Have you had a chance to audition a full range cardioid system?

Agree on DSP benefits in general, but I am not convinced ART is the end all be all solution that it’s made out to be by some. Maybe in certain applications. And full range cardioid would not achieve same results as ART? Do you have measurements to back up that claim?

Regardless, my system will be DSP active, full range cardioid, variable directivity, AND ART as the polishing touch. That might be considered SOTA

Yeah, look on the ART thread here, AVS forums etc. Loads of measurements, and a lot are from non-dedicated audio rooms, in fact many from shared open spaces. Your right though, there is no one perfect solution, often requires combination of approaches. However, people are showing dramatic improvements simply by adding ART. More than I have seen switching to a cardioid speaker in room - not a lot of examples of this though.

Yes, your approach could be considered sota in theory. For whatever reason both you and AJ have chosen not to share measurements though....
Iam envious though!

 

[FrantzM]

I just tried to achieve cardioid using my 3rd sub (F112) by moving it to the front of the room and pointing it toward the wall. Now I gotta run Tun4 to dial it in but reversing the phase, my bass sounds better.

This hobby has no end . This is my poor man’s version.

Not completely sure you achieved cardioid that way... What you may have achieved, is a reduction in SBIR by locating the driver closer to a boundary ...

 

[FrantzM]

Back in the days, during the 70's there was a race toward increasingly unusual loudspeaker drivers technology, Planar, Electrostatic, even ionic tweeters. plasma drivers... THere was even a subwoofer whose driver was, yes, a computer hard disk motor... this one was by the ever inventive Tom Danley , now of Danley Sound Labs...
Meanwhile the 1922 Kellog-Rice (Yeah, your basic electrodynamic drivers with some variations of material, from paper to metal and even diamond coated material) lives on and figures in the great majority of .. yes, SOTA, speakers.... A bit over 100 years old today in 2025 ...

SOTA is not about material, rather in performance ... How the design acquits itself of the tasks at hand...
Seems by many accounts, the Revel Salon 2 is SOTA, even today ... So are the Kef Blades and the Genelec 8361 and 8331. Same with the Neuman KH 420, or the KH 150 or 120 or ... A long list of basic electro dynamic drivers loudspeakers... Perhaps we could drop in the Beolab 90 , again Kellog-Rice drivers or some of the better Magico, at least by spinorama and credible measurements .. those, again use Kellog-Rice drivers ...
It seems that very few loudspeakers featuring esoteric drivers make the SOTA list.. if indeed there is any ... ... Trying to find one based on measurements ...

 

[RexrothPigeon]

i will be another one who is not fixated on cardioid bass. In the sense that you can get near perfect bass with other strategies like multiple subs and dsp etc.

I thought we were talking about a sota speaker, not a speaker that can be sota if you add (multiple) subs?

ymmv of course, but cardoid bass was a complete game changer for me. I was skeptical, even, but hot damn it sounds great.

 

[MattHooper]

Could the Dunlavy SC-IV been considered the SOTA in its time? If not, what other speakers were measuring better?

Dunlavy Audio Laboratories SC-IV loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Sidebar 3: Measurements Fig.1 shows the SC-IV's impedance magnitude and phase, measured with the MLSSA system but plotted with the Audio Precision software for consistency with other reviews published in Stereophile. The former stays between 4 and 6 ohms from 37Hz to 2150Hz, with minimum values...

www.stereophile.com

 

[MKR]

Yeah, look on the ART thread here, AVS forums etc. Loads of measurements, and a lot are from non-dedicated audio rooms, in fact many from shared open spaces. Your right though, there is no one perfect solution, often requires combination of approaches. However, people are showing dramatic improvements simply by adding ART. More than I have seen switching to a cardioid speaker in room - not a lot of examples of this though.

Yes, your approach could be considered sota in theory. For whatever reason both you and AJ have chosen not to share measurements though....
Iam envious though!

Well, since this is Audio Science Review, for your reading pleasure … (and note not only the mains in my system full range cardioid, but center tower and L/R rear towers also cardioid … full MCH cardioid system)

https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/conferences/?elib=17270

https://www.ioa.org.uk/system/files...le_low_frequency_cardioids_in_small_rooms.pdf

 

[traind]

I am enjoying this thread. A few observations:

State of the art, to me, has to do with the art of sound reproduction, not materials. Given that predisposition I find it hard to exclude older speaker designs only due to their age. I feel this is magnified when all the speaker designers I have heard seem to say every speaker is a set of design trade offs; the enormously priced speakers obviously having fewer tradeoffs but I would guess still having some. So the Salon 2s are likely still at least competitive... if you have the right room for them.

The Salon 2's cost $22k in 2007, that translates to $35k today. Many people have offered up speakers for consideration in this thread that are priced significantly lower than $35k. It seems to me that you can now get closer to SOTA for less money, significantly less, than a few decades ago. If correct, that is progress!

I know you can make an argument against it, but SOTA at price is no object doesn't impact me as much as SOTA or perhaps near SOTA at prices regular folks can aspire to. It takes more engineering prowess to make something almost as great as the crazily priced SOTA but sell it for 15 to 50% of the cost. That is inspirational.

I like the LS60s but I heard them in a larger room and they just did not sound nearly as impressive as the Blade One Metas. Perhaps with subwoofers the gap would change a lot or speaker placement.

Audioholics compared the Revel 328be with the Perlisten S7T and the Perlisten was the clear favorite. Gene owns both. I also read an article talking to people at Revel and one said he thought the 328be narrowly edged out the Salon 2 but the second person at Revel disagreed. Both thought they were close in most parameters.

Personal preferences seem to come into play in this thread. Active vs Passive. Cardioid (which I have yet to experience), dipoles or omnidirectionals like Matt loves. I can't say I really know my preferences clearly but I do know the Blade Metas and Perlisten S7Ts have sounded better than several more expensive speakers I have listened to. Also, higher end electrostats have had the most impressive voice reproduction and imaging I have heard, particularly with acoustic music. But that brings me back to design tradeoffs...

 

[AudioJester]

I thought we were talking about a sota speaker, not a speaker that can be sota if you add (multiple) subs?

ymmv of course, but cardoid bass was a complete game changer for me. I was skeptical, even, but hot damn it sounds great.

For those of us with multichannel "sota" setups, subs are part of the equation. Luminaries on here advocate multichannel as sota - even using the Salon2 we started off discussing..

ART is a next step /evolution in dsp, much like cardioid for speakers. Also you dont need multiple subs - ART works quite well for 2 channel as well. If you have the opportunity to try would be great to here how it works with your cardioid speakers!

 

[RexrothPigeon]

ART is a next step /evolution in dsp, much like cardioid for speakers. Also you dont need multiple subs - ART works quite well for 2 channel as well. If you have the opportunity to try would be great to here how it works with your cardioid speakers!

We're straying a bit far from the thread's focus (what's the sota loudspeaker?)

I wonder how ART would play with my dutch & dutch 8Cs, never thought about it tbh. I used REW on its own to set them up.

 

[Rotiv]

Could the Dunlavy SC-IV been considered the SOTA in its time? If not, what other speakers were measuring better?

Dunlavy Audio Laboratories SC-IV loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Sidebar 3: Measurements Fig.1 shows the SC-IV's impedance magnitude and phase, measured with the MLSSA system but plotted with the Audio Precision software for consistency with other reviews published in Stereophile. The former stays between 4 and 6 ohms from 37Hz to 2150Hz, with minimum values...

www.stereophile.com

Maybe this one

B&W Matrix 801 Series 2 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Note, however, the very even spacing of the contour lines in these graphs, which correlates with the superbly stable and well-defined stereo imaging. Also note the overall well-controlled manner in which the tweeter gets more directional above 8kHz. In conjunction with the slight lack of...

www.stereophile.com

 

[traind]

We're straying a bit far from the thread's focus (what's the sota loudspeaker?)

I wonder how ART would play with my dutch & dutch 8Cs, never thought about it tbh. I used REW on its own to set them up.

Can you share your impressions of the 8cs vs other speakers you've had? How do you find the roomeq? Do you use the Bacch plugin?

I read that D&D were considering other plugins, including room correction. I wonder if that is ART?

 

[Purité Audio]

They already have EQ built in and REW integration, which I would strongly recommend over ‘auto’ correction.
Keith

 

[Lsc]

Not completely sure you achieved cardioid that way... What you may have achieved, is a reduction in SBIR by locating the driver closer to a boundary ...

Very good as that was the goal. While my salon2 is not SOTA the bass in my system using these 3 subs feels more SOTA even though these subs are not spring chickens either.

I