Revel F328Be Speaker Review

[curt d]

My Revel F328Be sound amazing on the low end. Bass punch is tight and dynamic. I position the dual rear ports 12" from the wall and they sit 9' apart in a 28' x 24' room. I use the RME ADI-2 DAC FS "Loudness" feature to dial in the bass just where I want it. It can shake the room. I have several other Tower Speakers but none offer the clarity and power of my F328Be with the RME/Purifi combination. When I hear someone claim lack of mid bass punch with the F328Be - it blows my mind. Something must be different in the speaker placement or electronics. It's pretty clear our experience is totally opposite.

Is it possible your friend did not optimize the AVR for each pair of speakers? In the case of Denon that would mean running a new Audyssey configuration for each speaker change. That's a newbie mistake that can easily offer poor to lackluster playback results. When I moved my F328Be off the AVR and simplified the playback with just the RME ADI-2 DAC FS and Purifi amp it sounded remarkably cleaner to me. The digitization and manipulation of the signal in an AVR is fine for Movies. But, for ultra clean music playback I much prefer the RME/Purifi combination.

It blew our minds as well lol. Speakers were in the same position. He never uses any room correction for 2 channel listening.
I'll find out today how the amp works out for him. It's 300@8 ohm and 600@4 ohm.

 

[curt d]

In my 28' x 24' room, with zero EQ while connected to the RME ADI-2 DAC FS and Purifi amp, REW recorded the measurement below with the microphone placed 11 feet from F328Be at the listening position. Your room may measure differently. In this case, I'm showing strong bass performance all the way down to 22Hz with both rear F328Be ports open. The bass end is fantastic for my needs. Optimal placement of the rear F328Be ports makes a difference. Bass thump is tight and clear.


View attachment 406107

What's smoothing set at? Would like to see that on a tighter 5db scale. I'm going to run REW at his place this weekend.

 

[CJPopovich]

Working on blending and calibration now, but this is a hell of a system for me anyway. This is why I went with the F328's instead of the F226's.

Subs are my own design. 21" LaVoce San214.50's in a unique passive radiator alignment tuned to a touch over 13hz. Don't mind the acoustic panels, they're from before the subs and with different speaker placement, I'll have to move them shortly. The system is beyond dynamic, Revel's have everything below 40hz filtered out, may raise that slightly depending on how calibration goes.

 

[Lsc]

Working on blending and calibration now, but this is a hell of a system for me anyway. This is why I went with the F328's instead of the F226's.

Subs are my own design. 21" LaVoce San214.50's in a unique passive radiator alignment tuned to a touch over 13hz. Don't mind the acoustic panels, they're from before the subs and with different speaker placement, I'll have to move them shortly. The system is beyond dynamic, Revel's have everything below 40hz filtered out, may raise that slightly depending on how calibration goes.


View attachment 441374

Those subs are massive! And I thought I had large subs lol.

The crossover on my JL CR-1 active crossover is set to 70Hz (both low pass and high pass) between my salon2 and JL Gothams. I prefer the little assist that the subs give vs the 40Hz (lowest setting). Just giving some feedback.

 

[CJPopovich]

Gothams are a nice set of subs, I bet they sound awesome! They certainly take up less real estate. I'll likely raise the high pass, just swapped laptops and am waiting to get all the correct connections before doing calibration, just done by ear now which is better than nothing but not in the same ballpark as a calibration.

Yes they are large. Each of the boxes is about 25" tall/deep and 28" wide. With the feet, sliders, and box-box connectors they're 53-1/2" tall. Weight is.... a lot. I didn't weigh them as I knew they'd have to be assembled in place but 3-400lbs. Color is BMW Tanzanite Blue. Cabinets are double wall 18mm baltic birch with about 5lbs of polyfill per assembly. Crown XLS2502 on each of the subs, which sounds like a lot but they're so sensitive I am normally only using a hand full of watts.

At full tilt it is capable of being destructive. That wasn't the goal, it's a side effect of wanting it to be effortless and very low distortion at spirited listening levels, which really just means one needs even more headroom. I wanted a bass system that didn't have practical limits.

 

[Robbo99999]

Working on blending and calibration now, but this is a hell of a system for me anyway. This is why I went with the F328's instead of the F226's.

Subs are my own design. 21" LaVoce San214.50's in a unique passive radiator alignment tuned to a touch over 13hz. Don't mind the acoustic panels, they're from before the subs and with different speaker placement, I'll have to move them shortly. The system is beyond dynamic, Revel's have everything below 40hz filtered out, may raise that slightly depending on how calibration goes.


View attachment 441374

Ha, that seems like madness, but in a good way! For sub positioning isn't it supposed to be optimal to have one on each wall or something rather than having them altogether at the front?

 

[CJPopovich]

Ha, that seems like madness, but in a good way! For sub positioning isn't it supposed to be optimal to have one on each wall or something rather than having them altogether at the front?

Thanks!

Depends on goals, there are some advantages of arranging them to present a strong planar front wave, particularly in the areas of tactile response. Due to the size of the room (open concept, dining room behind the listening position separated only by a 1/2 wall), and the width of the row of subs, front placement allows for good blending/smoothness; the placement works well in this case.

You are correct though, traditionally speaking scattering them through the room is a better way for most people to get the smoothest response at the listening position(s), and would normally be where I would start when picking subwoofer locations.

 

[Oddball]

Now that is some power. Be careful not to take down the whole block around you .

I certainly don't have subs nowhere near yours, but have 4 of them and relatively large space with lots of placing options. It took me literally months to try 20 or so different positioning options. Ultimately ended up with 2 up front and 2 back nearfield to MLP. Quasi double bass array. But every room is different.

Hope you will enjoy the amazing system.

 

[Lsc]

Ha, that seems like madness, but in a good way! For sub positioning isn't it supposed to be optimal to have one on each wall or something rather than having them altogether at the front?

What you are saying is true in my case. I never felt that my subs were in their best position but due to aesthetics and placement limitations I couldn’t really deviate. What I did to improve my situation was I got a 3rd sub, F112 which is on the back right wall (180 degrees phase) and blended it with the right sub. This really helped pull everything together and got the result I needed.

 

[Todd68]

Gothams are a nice set of subs, I bet they sound awesome! They certainly take up less real estate. I'll likely raise the high pass, just swapped laptops and am waiting to get all the correct connections before doing calibration, just done by ear now which is better than nothing but not in the same ballpark as a calibration.

Yes they are large. Each of the boxes is about 25" tall/deep and 28" wide. With the feet, sliders, and box-box connectors they're 53-1/2" tall. Weight is.... a lot. I didn't weigh them as I knew they'd have to be assembled in place but 3-400lbs. Color is BMW Tanzanite Blue. Cabinets are double wall 18mm baltic birch with about 5lbs of polyfill per assembly. Crown XLS2502 on each of the subs, which sounds like a lot but they're so sensitive I am normally only using a hand full of watts.

At full tilt it is capable of being destructive. That wasn't the goal, it's a side effect of wanting it to be effortless and very low distortion at spirited listening levels, which really just means one needs even more headroom. I wanted a bass system that didn't have practical limits.

Now that’s a serious setup. I bet drum and bass heavy music sounds incredible, but be careful not to crack walls!

 

[Oddball]

It remains unclear if Arendal 1723 2V sub had anything to do with cracking my window, but it happened suspiciously 2 days after I placed one of them in the corner by the window.

Most people think it is not possible to crack a window with even bigger subs, but the guy who replaced it said could potentially happen from vibrations if the window was already not properly sealed at the spot where crack originated (age, bad installation, etc).

Hopefully not too much off-topic .

 

[Laserjock]

It remains unclear if Arendal 1723 2V sub had anything to do with cracking my window, but it happened suspiciously 2 days after I placed one of them in the corner by the window.

Most people think it is not possible to crack a window with even bigger subs, but the guy who replaced it said could potentially happen from vibrations if the window was already not properly sealed at the spot where crack originated (age, bad installation, etc).

Hopefully not too much off-topic .

View attachment 441880

Looks like about 33Hz break…