Revel F328Be Speaker Review

[sfdoddsy]

Maybe sit up straight- it's better for your posture.

If I weren’t so darn slothful I would.

I’m always mystified by those pics of listening rooms with one upright chair placed in the sweetspot.

So rigid looking.

In both the family lounge and my dedicated audio room I have huge comfy couches to loll and roll around on.

As a consequence, all my speakers (whether commercial or DIY) are chosen to have either the height or dispersion to work how I like to listen.

For WAFness that usually means coaxes in the family area.

For my DIY open baffles which use vertical dispersion-challenged tweeters and mids it means keeping the acoustic centre considerably lower than usual.

 

[audioBliss]

That's not the case with subs either.

The other thing with subs is too much bass. When watching movies I am game for that. But with music it can get too much with some music, and not with others. Hooked up a sub to our living room TV system and had to disconnect it after a few hours since the commercials had the most bass!

Not saying don't use a sub but you are in for a lot of work to get them to work well.

I'm not sure why you can tolerate incorrect bass in movies? The first issue people run into is exactly this that only one subwoofer is used. I'd say start at four and work your way up from there. Most of the time though the biggest issue people have even with four subs is the decay time in the room. Either you need to rebuild your room with bass traps or you can cheat at use Dirac Live Bass Control and it will optimize the crossover splice between all speakers as well as fix IR and FR. Best to rebuild the room and use room correction on top of that though.

The thing to remember about <100Hz reproduction is to not underestimate the cone area needed for low distorsion and even frequency response in the room.

 

[q3cpma]

That's not the case with subs either.

The other thing with subs is too much bass. When watching movies I am game for that. But with music it can get too much with some music, and not with others. Hooked up a sub to our living room TV system and had to disconnect it after a few hours since the commercials had the most bass!

Not saying don't use a sub but you are in for a lot of work to get them to work well.

Which is why the overpriced subs from Genelec make sense, the effort of perfectly integrating subs with a MiniDSP must be heroic. Though I wonder how Dirac LBC fits in the equation.

Anyway, I'm skeptical about this ~55 Hz F6 being as good as a fast falling 30~35 Hz one once room correction is used.

 

[Absolute]

This is simply the F208 with different drivers. Either it's a lazy effort to re-brand a speaker and sell it more expensive or it's a result of exact knowledge on how to create the most likable tuning in double blind listening tests.

Since I'm a cynical bastard I'd put money on the idea that Revel didn't go through a second round of routines to find out if the tuning with different drivers would also win this time around - and simply copied their results for the second go.
I'm not convinced in the slightest that there's much benefit of going beryllium unless there's much better distortion figures.

Am I impressed by this speaker? Not in measurements alone because it looks to me like a simple copy-paste job. The proof lies in the listening, though. Unless there's a blind test between F208 and this baby that favors the expensive version, I don't see the value of the premium it demands.

Oh, thank you so much for your excellent service to all ungrateful bastards like myself, Amir!

 

[JustIntonation]

The bass is about 15 dB down at 30Hz. So not surprising it has low distortion at such a low SPL.
Also not surprising it gets such a low objective score of only 5.5.
What is surprising to me is the raving subjective review. Clearly his speaker has a lacklustre bass response. It shouldn't have considering the very high price tag. Surely one can do better overall at its price point.

 

[restorer-john]

We shouldn’t have to explain again and again in an objectivists audio science forum, why multisub+room Eq is mandatory for proper bass reproduction in rooms.

Mandatory. LOL.

 

[Biblob]

The bass is about 15 dB down at 30Hz. So not surprising it has low distortion at such a low SPL.
Also not surprising it gets such a low objective score of only 5.5.
What is surprising to me is the raving subjective review. Clearly his speaker has a lacklustre bass response. It shouldn't have considering the very high price tag. Surely one can do better overall at its price point.

I must agree that the bass doesn't look very extended on the spinorama.

 

[sfdoddsy]

I know many like it, but I’m still not convinced Amir’s subjective thoughts advance the audio science. Sometimes he contradicts his own measurements, which calls into question the science of said measurements.

If the Klippel/spinoramas/preference ratings are not a stand alone objective examination of a speaker’s performance

Listening to a single speaker a la Harman doesn’t make it more scientific unless you go whole hog with blind tests etc etc.

Don’t get me wrong. I love what Amir is doing with the measurements, and I believe said measurements reflect the speaker’s performance.

But as soon as we add subjective thoughts we are back in Stereophile land.

Unless, of course, those subjective impressions directly explicate the measurements.

 

[Maiky76]

Thanks. I am surprised you didn't blow up the forum software with so many graphs!

I was mostly curious how the score would change if we used Harman data. Are you able to compute or approximate it?

Yes can do!

The scores/attributes are in the tittles of the graphs.
- Scan stands for scanned data, "official data" from Harman digitized with all the caveats that this involves.
- Mix: Synthesized Spinorama using the scanned data for LF and the NFS data from 200Hz up.
- No modifier: ASR NFS data

First the comparison NFS vs Scanned data is reproduced here to check that the splicing bit is done correctly and a reference point for the score.

Then the synthesized Spinorama using the LF of the scanned data for LF and the NFS data from 200Hz up.

What is the most surprising is the different in power response.
The Harman data looks more sensible since the ports are on the back but I could be wrong.

PS: You know the saying, a picture is worth a 1000 words...

 

[restorer-john]

I must agree that the bass doesn't look very extended on the spinorama.

I think there are some complexities with the port measurements and the combined plot. @amirm notated the upper port was tested. There are two and they may/are tuned to different frequencies and/or operating from different cavities, I don't know.

I wouldn't go on the combined plot, I would note the subjective comments in this case.

 

[BYRTT]

.....On Harman comparison, yes, I could not match their low-end. This has been a recurring problem. I have begged them multiple times to send me one of their samples so that we can go back and forth until we get to the bottom of this but they have not come through.

As I mentioned, I have a way to optimize the low frequency measurements a bit more. I just dread having to put this monster on the stand and spend the 4+ hours to measure it again.

Pity about the cooperation on same samples but as constructive info traced that Revel year 2019 spinorama for presentation on same ratios side by side and overlaid to ASR, into low end IIRC we saw same tendency for F35/F208 so could it be they synthetic add some pessimistic/conservative floor boundary to their own Klippel anechoic scans at the low end reach as to look bit better on paper graphs compared to competitor brochures, think there is nothing wrong with that method in they 100% can be assured a floor stander will see some kind of ground boundary below its feet and never hang out into real anechoic space..

 

[Frank Dernie]

We shouldn’t have to explain again and again in an objectivists audio science forum, why multisub+room Eq is mandatory for proper bass reproduction in rooms.

It has already been well explained and scientifically documented in chapter 8, pages 230-251, of @Floyd Toole
Sound reproduction : the acoustics and psychoacoustics of loudspeakers and rooms.

I am not saying it’s easy to get it right, but it’s the only way.

Personally I have achieved what is, to me, a good bass balance in my room by choice of speaker and its position to minimise excitation of room modes (the only way possible when I did it).
My room is untidy enough without adding multiple subs big enough to go as deep as my mains so any improvement is for me moot. Getting an even bass in all 8 seats using DSP seems impossible.
DSP is OK if you only have one listening position.

 

[restorer-john]

My room is untidy enough without adding multiple subs big enough to go as deep as my mains so any improvement is for me moot.

My room is untidy too! I justify the ridiculous number of speakers, amplifiers and equipment as "room treatment".

My understanding partner is happy as long as I do the vacuuming around it all.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I know many like it, but I’m still not convinced Amir’s subjective thoughts advance the audio science. Sometimes he contradicts his own measurements, which calls into question the science of said measurements.

If the Klippel/spinoramas/preference ratings are not a stand alone objective examination of a speaker’s performance

Listening to a single speaker a la Harman doesn’t make it more scientific unless you go whole hog with blind tests etc etc.

Don’t get me wrong. I love what Amir is doing with the measurements, and I believe said measurements reflect the speaker’s performance.

But as soon as we add subjective thoughts we are back in Stereophile land.

Unless, of course, those subjective impressions directly explicate the measurements.

I keep hearing that distortion isn't very audible, particularly in the bass.
My experience has been that low distortion speakers have always sounded better to me.
@amirm listening tests seem to show the same.
Personally I am loving the tests and carefully studying the data whilst completely ignoring single number score.

This is the first speaker data so far on ASR I have seen showing this may be suitable for my room. Sadly a brand without a local dealer here.

 

[Dimifoot]

Personally I have achieved what is, to me, a good bass balance in my room

Good for you. But this subjective, not documented, personal experience.

DSP is OK if you only have one listening position

I will have to assume that you haven’t read the book mentioned, especially chapter 8.2.8.

 

[ttimer]

Either you need to rebuild your room with bass traps or you can cheat at use Dirac Live Bass Control and it will optimize the crossover splice between all speakers as well as fix IR and FR. Best to rebuild the room and use room correction on top of that though.

I feel that once you reach the point of "building the room" and using more than 4 subs, the kind of speakers discussed in this forum don't matter much anymore. Then we are probably talking about soffit mounting main monitors and questions of architecture and material science.[/QUOTE]

 

[tktran303]

This speaker has multiple devices pressuring the room with bass.

3 x 8” woofers
And 2 ports.

That’s 5 output devices, altogether.
For a stereo pair that’s 10 output devices, separated in space horizontally and vertically.

that’s approximately the displacement capability than a pair of 10 - 12" sealed box subwoofers.

I bet if one took an in-room frequency response, from multiple positions, Dirac Live style, this speaker would be quite very smooth and very linear down to C1 (33Hz).

The main problem we’re not agreeing on his- how loud and how low you need to go, for “good bass reproduction”
which is totally subjective, and depends on program material. Which is totally listener -dependant.

The car audio folks have had multiple subs on their cars since the 90s.

They will tell you that you MUST have frequencies down to 10Hz and cleanly hit 120dB to get the full experience...

 

[ctrl]

As I mentioned, I have a way to optimize the low frequency measurements a bit more. I just dread having to put this monster on the stand and spend the 4+ hours to measure it again.

If we take the technical specification from the Revel website as a basis and assume that the information given is close to reality, @amirm's near-field measurements of the BR port and a low-frequency driver can be used to calculate the approximate low-frequency response.

Since we unfortunately lack the absolute phase frequency responses, we calculate as an approximation with the minimum phase for BR port and woofer.
For the BR-port the minimum phase is inverted.

Then the near field measurements of BR port and woofer are summed. I corrected the sound pressure of the BR-port so that the frequency response at -10dB is about 24Hz according to the specification. Then the baffle-step correction is performed and the approximation for the low frequency range of the F328Be is finished.

In the diagram below @amirm's NFS measurement is shown in purple and Harman's in light green. In green and blue you can see Amir's nearfield measurements of BR port and woofer chassis.
In red you can see the calculated approximation for the low frequency range of the F328Be (calculated as described above).

Down to 60Hz the agreement between NFS measurement (purple) and calculated low frequency response (red) is very good. Harman's measurement deviates already clearly.

At even lower frequencies there are strong deviations and I think the calculated measurements of the NFS are a little off - not only 1dB, but loosely about >10dB@25Hz.

But of course, the more I overestimated the BR-Port sound pressure, the more my approximation approaches the NFS measurement.
On the other hand it is very likely that the NFS measurement in the 20-30Hz range has problems to calculate the sound pressure "correctly".

What is also clear is that the -3dB@35Hz in the technical specification even after Harman's own measurements are not true.
The -3dB point is extremely high at about 70Hz and should result in a rather slim low bass performance when the speaker is placed freely.

This behavior in the low bass range could also explain the unusually low harmonic distortion in the low bass range.
In order to achieve 96dB sound pressure, as in Amir's distortion measurement, the three woofers only need to displace very little due to the fast low frequency decay.

 

[VinceS]

This looks to be an amazing speaker. Unfortunately its waaaaayyy to big for my living room. Any chance of a F226be review? Finding revel speakers for decent prices in the EU(NL) is quite hard. The markup is significant and there are little to no sales unfortunately.

 

[tktran303]

This looks to be an amazing speaker. Unfortunately its waaaaayyy to big for my living room. Any chance of a F226be review? Finding revel speakers for decent prices in the EU(NL) is quite hard. The markup is significant and there are little to no sales unfortunately.

Erin has one.
And yes it’s very good. the review (or the speaker; you decide)

@hardisj

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/revel_f226be/

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