Revel F228Be Review (Speaker)

[Looneybomber]

To F228Be owners, are your mid drivers in a sealed enclosure, separate from the woofers?

To verify, does your mid move (a few mm) when playing bass heavy songs?
If you seal the port and push on your woofers, does your mid move?

 

[thewas]

To F228Be owners, are your mid drivers in a sealed enclosure, separate from the woofers?

To verify, does your mid move (a few mm) when playing bass heavy songs?
If you seal the port and push on your woofers, does your mid move?

In any non-crappy 3-way such is the case so for 100% on any 3-way Revel and decently engineered brands.

 

[mj30250]

To F228Be owners, are your mid drivers in a sealed enclosure, separate from the woofers?

To verify, does your mid move (a few mm) when playing bass heavy songs?
If you seal the port and push on your woofers, does your mid move?

Not the greatest picture, but it certainly appears to be sealed (as it should be). This is the F328Be but the smaller models should be essentially the same, they all share an identical midrange driver.

 

[Looneybomber]

In any non-crappy 3-way such is the case so for 100% on any 3-way Revel and decently engineered brands.

I said basically the same thing to my sig other when I found out my mid chamber is not sealed from the woofers…on BOTH of my new F228s.

The odds of getting two defective speakers from the factory were so small, I couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe Revel would design a speaker that way. I had to create a post inquiring about it as a sanity check.

Edit: Yesterday, after getting them unboxed and discovering the flaw, I was in disbelief. “I spent how much and got two broken speakers? I’m not that unlucky, maybe Revel didn’t design them right.” Now that I got sleep, I am out of that denial stage of grief and on to acceptance. Ha.

 

[mj30250]

I said basically the same thing to my sig other when I found out my mid chamber is not sealed from the woofers…on BOTH of my new F228s.

The odds of getting two defective speakers from the factory were so small, I couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe Revel would design a speaker that way. I had to create a post inquiring about it as a sanity check.

Edit: Yesterday, after getting them unboxed and discovering the flaw, I was in disbelief. “I spent how much and got two broken speakers? I’m not that unlucky, maybe Revel didn’t design them right.” Now that I got sleep, I am out of that denial stage of grief and on to acceptance. Ha.

Are these brand new speakers? Have you removed the drivers to determine if there are cracks in the chamber or if the adhesive separated? Perhaps that would be possible if the cabinets were subject to rapid and extreme swings in temperature and/or abused in shipping.

 

[thewas]

I said basically the same thing to my sig other when I found out my mid chamber is not sealed from the woofers…on BOTH of my new F228s.

The odds of getting two defective speakers from the factory were so small, I couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe Revel would design a speaker that way. I had to create a post inquiring about it as a sanity check.

Edit: Yesterday, after getting them unboxed and discovering the flaw, I was in disbelief. “I spent how much and got two broken speakers? I’m not that unlucky, maybe Revel didn’t design them right.” Now that I got sleep, I am out of that denial stage of grief and on to acceptance. Ha.

Can you make a photo how and where the seal is broken?

 

[Looneybomber]

I put on the BladeRunner 2049 CD - Track 7 "Her Eyes Were Green". Cranked up the F228Be. The 8" woofers were strongly vibrating. No visual excursion in the Midrange driver. I'm not seeing an impact on midrange driver even when the woofers are going crazy. What song were you using for testing?

Hope this helps.
It’s recorded at 24fps and the sinewave is 30hz, hence why the drivers look like they’re playing such low frequencies. The drivers are indeed playing at 30hz.

 

[Looneybomber]

Are these brand new speakers?

Yes, factory sealed.

 

[mj30250]

Hope this helps.
It’s recorded at 24fps and the sinewave is 30hz, hence why the drivers look like they’re playing such low frequencies. The drivers are indeed playing at 30hz.

That doesn't look right. I ran the same sinewave on some 3-ways and while the midrange was mildly vibrating (as were other things in the area), you certainly couldn't see any excursion. If it were me I'd carefully pop out a driver and check for internal damage to the chamber, just make sure that wouldn't ding your warranty.

 

[Looneybomber]

I played your video on my F228Be. The woofers were not shaking like yours. I also played a 34Hz test tone from the BMR CD and it doesn't make the 8" 228Be drivers move like your image. I did not take off the binding post jumpers. Do you get the same result with the jumpers properly installed and the banana plugs attached to the top binding posts?

If you play my video, you may not get much bass depending upon how well my phone records bass. You’d want to play your own test tones. I just used YouTube.

I emailed the video to Revel. Per their email,
“We reviewed the Youtube video that you sent and we can confirm that the movement or vibration of the midrange driver of your Revel F228Be is normal.”

That’s shocking since, at a minimum, it’ll introduce intermodulated distortion including Doppler induced distortion. At worst, it’ll damage the mid.

 

[mj30250]

If you play my video, you may not get much bass depending upon how well my phone records bass. You’d want to play your own test tones. I just used YouTube.

I emailed the video to Revel. Per their email,
“We reviewed the Youtube video that you sent and we can confirm that the movement or vibration of the midrange driver of your Revel F228Be is normal.”

That’s shocking since, at a minimum, it’ll introduce intermodulated distortion including Doppler induced distortion. At worst, it’ll damage the mid.

That seems odd. They understand that you are simply playing a 30Hz sinewave?

I suppose there's a chance that the speakers are functioning as designed, especially if both are behaving exactly the same. I'd start to slowly crank up the volume with familiar material and listen for any anomalies. If this was a flaw in the design (and not a defect/damage) then I would expect we'd have seen a slew of PerformaBe owners complaining of failed mid-ranges over the past several years. I'm still very curious to see what's going on inside the cabinet. I certainly heard nothing wrong with the F226Bes when I had them, even when driving them very hard.

 

[ahofer]

Hope this helps.
It’s recorded at 24fps and the sinewave is 30hz, hence why the drivers look like they’re playing such low frequencies. The drivers are indeed playing at 30hz.

Have you taken measurements?

 

[Looneybomber]

Can you make a photo how and where the seal is broken?

Here you can see one of the walls of the mid chamber is not glued or sealed. That is an Amazon gift card that freely moves in the gap. I have a quarter for reference but it also moves freely. Two quarters may fit, the gap is so large.

Not bad for $11k/pair MSRP.

 

[mj30250]

Yikes, that's pretty bad. It looks like an attempt to glue the top plank was made, but either the adhesive separated or it was never mounted flush to begin with. That's probably DIY repairable, but with speakers like these I'd demand replacements.

 

[thewas]

Here you can see one of the walls of the mid chamber is not glued or sealed. That is an Amazon gift card that freely moves in the gap. I have a quarter for reference but it also moves freely. Two quarters may fit, the gap is so large.

Not bad for $11k/pair MSRP.
View attachment 421353

Thanks for sharing, that would be absolutely unacceptable for any $1000 loudspeakers, not to talk about some that cost more than ten times as much.

 

[Beave]

If you play my video, you may not get much bass depending upon how well my phone records bass. You’d want to play your own test tones. I just used YouTube.

I emailed the video to Revel. Per their email,
“We reviewed the Youtube video that you sent and we can confirm that the movement or vibration of the midrange driver of your Revel F228Be is normal.”

That’s shocking since, at a minimum, it’ll introduce intermodulated distortion including Doppler induced distortion. At worst, it’ll damage the mid.

That's a ridiculous response. Sadly, it's not terribly surprising. The "we" who reviewed your video probably don't know squat about speakers.

 

[kyuu]

Who did you order the speakers from? The dealer is often a better bet for service than attempting to get through Revel's front-line customer service to someone who actually knows and/or can do anything.

 

[Looneybomber]

After sending the pic to Revel, I got this response,

“The engineering team checked the video and the movement of the midrange was indeed unusual.”

When I spoke with the dealer this morning, he said the pair they had in the store did the same thing. I’ll be working with the dealer more on this.

 

[kyuu]

Yep, CS drone didn't know what they were looking at. Figures.

 

[scotchrocks]

After sending the pic to Revel, I got this response,

“The engineering team checked the video and the movement of the midrange was indeed unusual.”

When I spoke with the dealer this morning, he said the pair they had in the store did the same thing. I’ll be working with the dealer more on this.

I also tested a 30 Hz tone on my F228Be in direct mode, and even with both terminals connected, I didn't see/feel the midrange moving very much at high levels, certainly nowhere near that amount. The 8 inch woofers were moving a lot though, like in your sample video. Hopefully, your dealer and Revel can get you sorted.