New Revel Performa4 / Arcam Radia speaker line-up -- with Anechoic EQ

[Imakeller]

I'm convinced that the Ultima line is discontinued. It's the Be line I'm most interested in

Hope springs eternal for Ultima3 with me. I’m not sure if PerformaBe will coexist with Performa4 or not. From a performance perspective, Be tweeters deserve to live on, but I’ve heard there are supply challenges with Be.

 

[Rex Anderson]

We were hoping for something else from Mark Glazer before he retired. There is no sign of anything else coming from Revel right now. Here are the spins we have. Ony one we don't have yet is the center channel with AEQ, they were still working on it and will get it to us when it's done.

 

[Beave]

Thanks for sharing here, Rex.

I'll repeat my question (befuddlement?) from AVS: What's up with the giant hump in the midbass for the M145? It's even still there after EQ.

 

[Rex Anderson]

Thanks for sharing here, Rex.

I'll repeat my question (befuddlement?) from AVS: What's up with the giant hump in the midbass for the M145? It's even still there after EQ.

I don't know - I didn't design them. Mark is retired so we may never get an answer.

 

[Rex Anderson]

Thanks for sharing here, Rex.

I'll repeat my question (befuddlement?) from AVS: What's up with the giant hump in the midbass for the M145? It's even still there after EQ.

M16 had a similar bump.

 

[amper42]

What's going on with low Bass in 345/346 spin and that 16K bump?

 

[Beave]

M16 had a similar bump.

True, it had a similar hump there. Probably not as big as that of the M145 though.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Personally, I want a speaker that's measured by ASR without knobs or counter measures that can alter the sound. Either it measures well or it doesn't. No fudge factor or extra gear required for "Optimal" use.

If proper EQ is not included in the crossover, I automatically take it off my list of candidates to consider.

Personally I don't care.
Directivity needs to be optimized in the design, frequency response can then be manually tweaked using the Klippel/anechoic data.
Sometimes it is just not possible to fully eq the speaker with passive components or if it can be done it would just require a lot of passive parts.
Look at the directivity of the M146, it is excellent. It can now be adjusted very accurately for anechoic flatness, personal tastes or other needs.
I like participating in the tweaking though so to each their own.

 

[John Schuermann]

RE: the mid bass bump on the M145 - I would guess it's the typical mid-bass bump you see in a lot of smaller bookshelf speakers to "fill out the bottom" and give a sense of more bass than the speaker is actually capable of. As mentioned, we saw this in the M16 as well.

As far as the bump at 16K, who knows? It's inaudible, anyhow. We saw a similar bump in the JBL HDI series speakers, and according to the engineers at Harman, was completely inaudible in their double blind testing on that design. As Dr. Olive has pointed out, there is so much more energy below 15 khz - really, below 10 khz - that what's above is masked.

 

[Beave]

That midbass hump is about the biggest I've ever seen from hundreds of Klippel measurements. It's quite a bit bigger than that in the M16, which was already a bit more than most other speakers measured here. And, again, it's completely different from the predecessor M105, which had no hump at all.

 

[John Schuermann]

 

[John Schuermann]

Sadly I don't have Mark's current email. If I do get ahold of him I will ask.

 

[Beave]

Sadly I don't have Mark's current email. If I do get ahold of him I will ask.

I would guess he designed it that way because he was told to do so by somebody.

 

[John Schuermann]

I would guess he designed it that way because he was told to do so by somebody.

I can't imagine that's true. Mark's boss - if he even really had one - would have been An Nguyen, and An is one of the best there is. And An's designs don't have a similar bump.

With Revel they do the blind test thing and often they will compare different protypes and ultimately go with what's preferred in the listening sessions.

 

[Beave]

But it makes no sense for one model in the lineup to have such a large hump while none of the other models in the new lineup - or in the previous lineup - had such a hump.

 

[NTK]

The hump is well below the Schroeder frequency and is in the modal region. Frequency response in the modal region is dominated by room modes. Any effects from the hump are totally overwhelmed by the room, and therefore hump or not isn't important in real life.

 

[Beave]

The hump is well below the Schroeder frequency and is in the modal region. Frequency response in the modal region is dominated by room modes. Any effects from the hump are totally overwhelmed by the room, and therefore hump or not isn't important in real life.

While it's certainly true that the room significantly alters the response in that region, the native response of the speaker still matters there. The M145 and the M146, placed in the same spot in a room, will not sound the same in the bass. The speaker with the large hump will still be audibly different than a speaker with no hump there. How can they both be "right" or "neutral?"

 

[Buckchester]

While it's certainly true that the room significantly alters the response in that region, the native response of the speaker still matters there. The M145 and the M146, placed in the same spot in a room, will not sound the same in the bass. The speaker with the large hump will still be audibly different than a speaker with no hump there. How can they both be "right" or "neutral?"

Whatever the real reason is, I just don’t think it’s that big a deal. Many will EQ this range anyways. Those that don’t, probably don’t have subs, so the added bass would probably be preferred by most.

 

[Beave]

We debate things that aren't a big deal on here every day!

I notice that even after their own EQ, that hump remains on that one model but isn't there on any of the other models.

 

[MarkS]

Disappointing measurements on both bookshelves, the AsciLab C6B has better measurements at a fraction of the price.