I just went for the ELX Ribbons despite living in Europe and decided to switch from a silent reader to a contributor.
Having a special connection to ASR since the Klippel NFS is put into focus for speaker measurements, I did my studies in the home town of Wolfgang Klippel and even attended on lecture he gave at my university. I did not go the audio path rather than radio frequency engineering, but it is interesting to see that everything in the audio signal chain seem to be solved except for the loudspeaker and most similarities apply to what we call „antenna“ in RF, except an antenna typically does not generate any kind of distortion.
What catched me: it is quite obvious that Dave from Ascend knows what he is talking about if he addresses any source of audible distortion from drivers or why he went for a specific choice for cabinet, driver or his interpretation of measurement data. Everything in a very transparent way, just good engineering.
That is why I first wanted to go for the Sierra some years back but I got a very good deal on Revel F228Be 2 hours away. The Revels replaced my Kef Reference 3, because if one general statement can be derived from this website (and studies): Go for wide dispersion. Back than, the review of F328Be and F228Be were top notch. And I absolutely agree: Wide dispersion is recognized immediately, no A/B level matched zero delay comparison needed, it is too obvious. I moved houses and my glossy white F228Be did not fit to rest. I also do not like build quality of Revel, that is why I did not but F328Be on my shortlist.
I put my Revels for sale and looked into Ascilab C8C, Kef Blade 2 (used), Perlisten S5T or Arendal 1528 Tower. Given shipping, import, taxes tariffs (drivers imported from Europe and imported back as towers) and what not, the Ascends are not the clear price winner in this comparison but I pulled the trigger, waiting about 2 months, waiting for restock of the natural finish. I had the Kef LS60 for some days in the meantime as the preference score is one of the highest and I like the look and quality. After side-by-side comparison to the Revels, I decided to return them due to narrow dispersion, they did not catch me in any way, especially that I was forced to use an app. One guy on this forum went for LS60 to Colibri, I understand his motivation.
Now the ELX are here and I enjoyed them for 1 week, not yet room corrected with MiniDSP Dirac.
First thing I noticed was the lower sensitivity to my Revels, but luckily I could add one additional preamplifier in my Audiophonics S400ET by closing a jumper. Enough power now (max volume 70% till now).
My impression is that F228Be is (no surprise) a very good speaker. The ELX do not add anything outer space to my listening experience but I think I get the specialities of the ribbon tweeter and most importantly, the speakers seem to harmonize way better to my room in the bass. My favorite song to test bass is "Marian Hill - Play" as those little shock waves, transients, pulses you name it: This is physical bass to your chest and the ELX seem to reproduce those way clearer than the Revels. I will do measurements coming week to compares both room responses. The bass is interesting as I remember the Revels to dig a little deeper but the ELX seem to have cleaner bass which maybe does not sound „deep“.
