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Kef R3 an Upgrade from Revel F36?

possumtaters

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Hi All,

I am currently using Revel F36 as my mains but, since researching on this site, I have started to now want a pair of Ref R3's. Will the investment offer a much greater return or should I just keep running with what I have? After reading the Revel M16 review, I don't know if it's worth my time or money to make a change. I am very happy with my setup but, like many of us here, we develop this itch to change our gear, or assemble the best system for our budget. I currently have a pair of Kef LS50 Wireless in my basement, moved here when I purchased the F36's.

As a side note, Audio Science Review has ruined every other audio review site or forum for me.

Other Gear:
Outlaw RR2160
Bluesound Node 2 (Optical)
Sonos Port (RCA)
SVS SB-2000 x 1

Speakers are spaced 6.5' apart.
Room dimensions are ~15' x 30' with speakers along the 15' wall.

Speaker History:
Wharfedale Diamond 8.4
Ascend Sierra-1
Ascend Sierra-2 (preferred the Sierra-1 as the 2's highs were shrill)
ATC SCM 11 v2
Kef LS50 Wireless
Revel F36

Thank you and have a good weekend.

Joe
 

Koeitje

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I this case I would audition them at your home. These are both very well designed speakers, so if you consider it an improvement can only be determined by listening.
 

echopraxia

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Without DSP you may find you prefer the Revels, especially since you already know you like their frequency response tuning. The R3 has an almost upward frequency response tilt with slightly recessed mids, which leads to a slightly boring and very slightly harsh sound when compared to other speakers, when I had them.

In retrospect I wish I tried DSP to fix these issues back when I had R3’s, because that’s where the R3 might really shine. But alone or with just a sub, I found them to sound great, but lacking something that’s not lacking on Revel and Ascend.

Also, keep in mind the Revel sound dispersion is wider, and you can’t make that happen in the R3 with DSP. Now that I have some of the widest dispersion speakers out there (Revel Salon2), I know for a fact that wide dispersion is much preferred in larger rooms for relaxed music enjoyment listening — for me, at least.
 

daftcombo

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According to Amir's reviews, Revel F208 would be a better upgrade if you have the $$$$.
 

echopraxia

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Now a comment generally on the audiophile upgrade itch, measurements, and endgame speakers. I hope what I am writing here can help you find your ultimate speakers as I believe I have. Edit: I got maybe carried away with too much detail — here is a summary:

TLDR: I’ve been down your path and I hope my advise and findings helps you. Here is what I find: I think there is a place for both wide and medium (and perhaps even narrow) dispersion, depending on your use case scenario. I find that:
  • For stereo playback in larger rooms, the ultimate speakers are those with the widest dispersion, as long as the CEA2034 spinorama plots are "good enough" -- because in these rooms, the effects of dispersion width are extremely audible, and this becomes the dominating factor in preference (not counting bass response differences, which also matter a lot).
  • For stereo playback in smaller rooms (or perhaps for multichannel playback in any size room), the ultimate speakers are those with the best spinorama plots, as long as the dispersion width is "good enough" -- because in this case, additional dispersion width won’t really benefit the sound as much, and might even make it worse if your room is too acoustically 'hot' (has a tendency to echo mids/highs).
Some background: I used to like B&W speaker until I tried buying Ascend Sierra RAAL Towers which blew them away (as long as the Ascends had a mild bass boost). Until about a week ago, I have been a victim to the audiophile upgrade itch disease :) Until about a week ago, I still hadn’t found a speaker better in every way vs my Ascend Sierra RAAL Towers. I have found them — the Revel Salon2’s — but you may be surprised that their CEA2034 is not clearly better than the KEF R3, which I did own and which lost in blind tests to the Ascends. So why is this? I think I know quite clearly why this is from the measurements, and it’s a hypothesis I and many others are finding more and more evidence for. More on this below.

I bought the KEF R3 back even before ASR measured them because KEFs published measurements (which we now know to be absolutely accurate) indicated it to be one of the best speakers in the world perhaps second only to the Genelecs and Revel F208 from measurements we have now. Yet I and many others have not reported particularly amazing experiences from them.

I now have two of the best speakers in the world, the Genelec 8351B’s and Revel Salon2’s. But purely from the CEA2034 spinorama, the Salon2’s don’t really look as amazing as they sound. From CEA2034, the Genelecs should destroy the Salon2’s, right? The KEF R3’s should too, for that matter. But they don’t. And I’m not trying to push subjectivist nonsense here — many of us have very strong hypotheses for why this is: Only when you look at the detailed horizontal off-axis response does it become clear where the Salon2’s are truly exceptional (other than just bass).

Subjectively, the Salon2’s are unlike any other speaker I’ve heard aside from the Ascend Sierra RAAL Towers: until now, no speaker I’ve owned has been able to beat the Ascend’s soundstage and beautiful airy gentle treble sound. The Salon2’s are the first to do this, but they also manage to do so without the other compromises the (much less expensive) Ascend makes to get there.

The secret is quite simple and really not that surprising: ultra wide dispersion.

The Ascend does it as well or better than anything I know of in its price range, but with some compromises: the extreme off axis response is not as perfectly matched to the on axis response. But this compromise is arguably the right one to make if you look at blind listening tests I did between them and the Revel F206, where the Ascend wins almost every time aside from when the Revel’s more midbass weighted sound signature overpowers this. But even when the Revel F206 wins the description is never “higher fidelity sound” but “fuller more satisfying bass”. In non blind tests I’ve done, boosting the Ascend bass leads it to win most of the time over the F206, but this is also a double edged sword if you want to listen very loudly because the F206 deserves credit here as it will have more bass power headroom.

The Genelecs do sound incredible. So did my Neumanns. I attribute this to their fantastically flat frequency response, low distortion, and consistently smooth off axis response.

But the way in which the Genelecs sound utterly exceptional is very different from the Revel Salon2’s, and I’m pretty convinced that dispersion width explains it.

Trying to correlate what I’m hearing to measurements, there are ways in which the Genelec sounds better than the Salon2’s. But at least for me and the music I listen to, it’s mostly a technical victory where something sounds slightly more accurate/neutral tonality on the Genelec. Most of the time though, this difference is quite subtle and so the only obvious difference is the Salon2’s soundstage and open ”surround” effect from the wide dispersion.

Note that in a smaller room and at close listening distances I think the wide dispersion is no longer and advantage and may even be a negative. In such cases the Genelecs dominate. They are perfect for what I use them for (PC speakers for music while working or for video games).

And the Salon2’s are perfect for what I use them for: reclined music listening across a wide couch in a larger room
 
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Frank Dernie

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I know for a fact that wide dispersion is much preferred in larger rooms for relaxed music enjoyment listening — for me, at least.
For easy listening and a euphonic effect you may well be quite correct.
In my room, at the distance I listen, I found the less directional the less of my listening room acoustics were overlaid on top of the recording venue acoustics in recordings I had made myself.
After enjoying the effect on many recordings I had not made, and multi track recordings (which have no natural acoustic on tem anyway) I added some directional speakers which are much more accurate on my own recordings.
Now I can use either :)
 

maty

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https://speakerdata2034.blogspot.com/2019/03/spinorama-data-revel-home.html

Revel F36

Spin%2B-%2BRevel%2BConcerta2%2BF36.png


https://www.audioholics.com/tower-speaker-reviews/revel-concerta2-f36-tower-speaker-review/page-2

It does not seem logical that you change the F36 for the R3, with the same room. I would try to improve the F36 with PEQ (minimum phase) + rePhase and after with a bit of DIY.
 

echopraxia

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For easy listening and a euphonic effect you may well be quite correct.
In my room, at the distance I listen, I found the less directional the less of my listening room acoustics were overlaid on top of the recording venue acoustics in recordings I had made myself.
After enjoying the effect on many recordings I had not made, and multi track recordings (which have no natural acoustic on tem anyway) I added some directional speakers which are much more accurate on my own recordings.
Now I can use either :)
Yes, there is definitely a place for both. For example for movies, I think a 5.1 or 7.1 setup of Genelecs would probably be perfection.

But for subjective euphonics, who knows. It would be interesting to test, but unfortunately there's no way I'm gonna be able to do a blind test of a setup of a 5.2 Salon2 surround setup vs a 5.2 Genelecs 8351B surround setup... all budgets have their limits :)

I know some people over on AVSForum Revel thread actually do have wonderfully overkill 5.2 setups consisting of all Salon2's and bridged Benchmark AHB2's! They seem to love them (I would hope so, for the ~$50k that would cost). And I believe Dr. Toole's personal setup is a full surround setup consisting of the entire Revel Ultima2 lineup, which while not proof of anything is still an interesting data point.

But yes, I do actually think the ~60 degrees of dispersion is probably ideal for a 5.1+ setup. If you just plot those cones on a map of a 5 channel layout in a room, it becomes clear why that might be. And when I did listen to home theater on my Genelecs in my larger room (with non-tonally matched Ascend rears and no center channel), I found them extremely enjoyable and really appreciated the pinpoint imaging and clarity of voices. I think with a center channel and matching Genelec rears, the setup would be very nearly perfection for home theater or any audio designed for 5.1 or more channels.

However, for stereo, I am not sure virtual surround quite matches wide dispersion stereo speakers when automatically upmixing music recorded and mastered for stereo -- as the vast majority of most music is. Perhaps this is just an unfortunate reality, but it seems unlikely the de-facto standard of stereo for music will change any time soon (consider how much the average consumer drags their feet to even consider upgrading their stereo speakers or TV soundbar, where if this happens at all it is usually an afterthought) -- let alone installing speakers all around in a room.

Home theater is a different matter of course, and there's much more multi-channel innovation happening there. Hopefully some of that can trickle down and become prevalent in music at some point. But I wouldn't hold my breath. 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. Even the ridiculously overpriced options usually lack measurements and sometimes even lack good specs. As a result, right now I am moving away from surround and optimizing for a great 2.2 channel system via the miniDSP SHD. I really wish there was something as good as the miniDSP SHD (or even like the miniDSP SHD Studio with purely digital outputs) that was capable of decoding multichannel home theater audio content.
 
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Frank Dernie

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Yes, there is definitely a place for both. For example for movies, I think a 5.1 or 7.1 setup of Genelecs would probably be perfection.

But for subjective euphonics, who knows. It would be interesting to test, but unfortunately there's no way I'm gonna be able to do a blind test of a setup of a 5.2 Salon2 surround setup vs a 5.2 Genelecs 8351B surround setup... all budgets have their limits :)

I know some people over on AVSForum Revel thread actually do have wonderfully overkill 5.2 setups consisting of all Salon2's and bridged Benchmark AHB2's! They seem to love them (I would hope so, for the ~$50k that would cost). And I believe Dr. Toole's personal setup is a full surround setup consisting of the entire Revel Ultima2 lineup, which while not proof of anything is still an interesting data point.

But yes, I do actually think the ~60 degrees of dispersion is probably ideal for a 5.1+ setup. If you just plot those cones on a map of a 5 channel layout in a room, it becomes clear why that might be. And when I did listen to home theater on my Genelecs in my larger room (with non-tonally matched Ascend rears and no center channel), I found them extremely enjoyable and really appreciated the pinpoint imaging and clarity of voices. I think with a center channel and matching Genelec rears, the setup would be very nearly perfection for home theater or any audio designed for 5.1 or more channels.

However, for stereo, I am not sure virtual surround quite matches wide dispersion stereo speakers when automatically upmixing music recorded and mastered for stereo -- as the vast majority of most music is. Perhaps this is just an unfortunate reality, but it seems unlikely the de-facto standard of stereo for music will change any time soon (consider how much the average consumer drags their feet to even consider upgrading their stereo speakers or TV soundbar, where if this happens at all it is usually an afterthought) -- let alone installing speakers all around in a room.

Home theater is a different matter of course, and there's much more multi-channel innovation happening there. Hopefully some of that can trickle down and become prevalent in music at some point. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Most TV/movies available for streaming online don't even have surround playback, much of the time.
I don't own many proper surround sound recordings which one would hope to have good hall ambience information, my 5.1 system is mainly just used for films.
I haven't checked the dispersion of many speakers but Genelec only recommend their biggest speakers to me for mid field at my listening distance.
I can now choose between narrow dispersion speakers, which add less of my own room to my simply miked recordings, or normal ones which bounce the sound around the room more, depending on what I feel like.
 

echopraxia

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I don't own many proper surround sound recordings which one would hope to have good hall ambience information, my 5.1 system is mainly just used for films.
I haven't checked the dispersion of many speakers but Genelec only recommend their biggest speakers to me for mid field at my listening distance.
I can now choose between narrow dispersion speakers, which add less of my own room to my simply miked recordings, or normal ones which bounce the sound around the room more, depending on what I feel like.
It depends what you mean by 'their biggest speakers'... even my Genelec 8351B are practically overkill for my largest listening room. They can push 106db without subwoofers on bass heavy content, and surely can easily do 113db with subs (as they are officially spec'ed to 113db). Personally, I would never need more than that, and I'm not sure why anyone would unless you're actively seeking out hearing damage unless you're trying to fill a massive 100+ person theater or concert venue with sound, which is obviously an entirely different class of SPL needs.
 

Frank Dernie

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It depends what you mean by 'their biggest speakers'... even my Genelec 8351B are practically overkill for my largest listening room. They can push 106db without subwoofers on bass heavy content, and surely can easily do 113db with subs (as they are officially spec'ed to 113db). Personally, I would never need more than that, and I'm not sure why anyone would unless you're actively seeking out hearing damage unless you're trying to fill a massive 100+ person theater or concert venue with sound, which is obviously an entirely different class of SPL needs.
It isn't loudness it is dispersion.
All the others have too wide a dispersion for accuracy at my listening distance.

Edit.
It comes from this document.
I want to be within what they call the critical distance where direct sound dominates.
I am around 5m from my speakers which means the 1236A, though if I moved a bit closer the 1234 would be OK and less than half the weight.
 
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Absolute

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Wow, this was interesting;


Spin - JBL M2 (full spin).png

Spin%2B-%2BRevel%2BConcerta2%2BF36.png


But no, changing the F36 for Kef R3 doesn't intuitively make sense. The same problems with recessed sound from 1-2 khz and perhaps even more forward top combined with less dispersion makes it a tough sell for me personally.
 

VintageFlanker

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I have started to now want a pair of Ref R3's

Yet I and many others have not reported particularly amazing experiences from them.
Reporting for duty!:cool:

I have zero experience with Revel F36s (which I guess to be excellent speakers), but as some know, I have been far from amazed by R3s.

Still, it may be up to many factors: my personal tastes, positioning, my own room etc etc. That's why I won't be able to either recommend or dissuade getting the R3s. To the question: Do R3s are able to replace floorstandings, regarding sound power/bass output? I'd say yes.

Measurements aside, I widely advocate for auditioning the R3s at home. See if they fit to your expectations.
 
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fredoamigo

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the hp preference table is based on the S Olive methodology with, if I remember correctly? a reliability rate of 86%. which is already exceptional. But there is still 14% uncertainty and I think that the R3s can be in the 14% range ?
Today it is easy to eliminate the bad speakers with a success rate of 100%, the problem which persists is to differentiate the very good, the excellent and the exceptional.
and I don't think it's just an issue of directivity...
 

echopraxia

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and I don't think it's just an issue of directivity...
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.
 

Absolute

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Well, unless the frequency response is accounted for it's just wild guesses. It's strange that this hasn't been explored yet.
 

VintageFlanker

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Yes but arbitrarily drawing an arrow doesn't mean much
@amirm is not the kind of guy who arbitrarily draw an arrow...
I have the same elevated (still, very straight) elevated post-2,5Khz in my own near-field, in-room measurements:

KEF R3 - AVG line.jpg


BTW, the dashed line is the reference SPL of the all captures averaged: 89dB...
 

aarons915

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@amirm is not the kind of guy who arbitrarily draw an arrow...
I have the same elevated (still, very straight) elevated post-2,5Khz in my own near-field, in-room measurements:

View attachment 72683

BTW, the dashed line is the reference SPL of the all captures averaged: 89dB...

Well if there is an ideal in-room response then all graphs should have the same arrow with the same slope, but you can check a few reviews and they are all different, based off of the speaker itself and are subjective. You can also confirm that the region from 1-2k is what is recessed based on the listening window and ER curves. Have you experimented with EQ by chance?
 
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