Thanks for your input.... Before I actually got these I might have believed that I would do mostly the same and run them crossed over most of the time, but as it turns out I find myself running them far more full range without the sub. Not with movies or gaming, obviously. Lots of modern music benefits from having the sub too, but I've been doing A LOT of listening to older blues and jazz since I got these and enjoying more 'live performance' style recordings vs studio albums. A testament, perhaps, to how good they sound to me at least in part.
When I do cross them over it sounds like it's robbing a ton of fullness from the overall sound even if my sub is superior at reproducing those lower frequencies. I never would have believed it. I know Audyssey has a reputation for getting the sub level wrong and I adjust it with a manual spl meter measurement that corrects by about 2db, but it's still short imo. Running the F35 crossed over to 60hz seems to help, but the general wisdom is apparently the roll off at 80hz is supposed to be the technically better choice. I'm not sure about that personally. It seems to sound better for me crossed over lower. There are instances where it helps to cut off those lower frequencies and let the sub handle it if it just gets too heavy or 'muddy' (not sure that's the right term) in the low end.
A part of my enjoyment of them is that they do perform pretty well full range on their own. The bass is heavy and it is much tighter after they broke in for a few weeks (or I got much more accustomed to how they sound). I question if external amplification might exhibit tighter control over the bass too, but I'm not that worried about it. I can run my Denon receiver in Audyssey 'Flat' with no boost if needed to help tame that low end vs what I've seen here recommended with the 'Reference' setting for music to boost the low end. In that sense they certainly don't need any further 'boost.'
The biggest factor for me in my setup is that I feel like I just barely have enough room to run floorstanding speakers. I knew that before I purchased them. I knew the F35 would probably be the best fit for what space that I do have. I still wish I had more room to move them around. I think the imaging and soundstage would benefit greatly if I had more room to play with. It is perfectly acceptable as it is, but I think it could be better with these guys if I had more room to work with. I also think that would help to flatten out that low end and tighten it up. They would be far more ideal if I had the room for that, but since I don't it makes me question if the M16 wouldn't have suited my space better even considering how much I enjoy runnning the F35 full range as it is.
I might mention that when I get the feeling that I'm missing a little 'holographic soundstage' from my old Ascend 170s I can always upmix just about anything with DTS Neural X (or Dolby Atmos) and employ the full home theater speaker array with 4 in-ceiling RSL C34 speakers. It blows my mind just about every time I listen to 2 channel upmixed. It might not be very 'audiophile' to upmix 2 channel, but for my limited space it creates a bubble of sound that I wouldn't believe possible. How it's able to real-time interpret the sound-field and redirect just those sounds to the speakers that replay them in such a way that goes beyond what the original 2 channel mix attempted to do is amazing to me. Even if DTS Neural X gets the front soundstage wrong and puts almost everything in the center channel it gets the rest of the routing so right it's worth it for me. Dolby just doesn't measure up with the ceiling channels imo, but I digress.
Bimbleton asking about these for his Denon 3600 (?) setup reminds me of my research into this. Specifically, with how picky most of the other options are about how you power them. Either they are super picky about exactly what external amp makes them sound the best or they possibly simply can't handle home theater levels of power. It just reminds me of going through what he's going through now and how all of the factors come together to narrow the field of options. I, personally, didn't want to be bothered with having to do additional research into what external amp I had to buy to go along with a new set of speakers after I just bought the new receiver last Christmas already. The 'simple' answer of a 'Hegel' being the best option was certainly not in my budget and I was already saturated with researching at that point anyway.
Even after I had these and I was enjoying them I started looking into external amplification and focused on a Parasound as a possible option within a reasonable budget. Then I realized that I'm running everything off of one probably 20amp outlet. My TV, Xbox One X, Sony 4k player, Denon 4500, external sub - all of it. I can't believe it doesn't already trip the circut breaker as it is. Much less if I tried to add a really high current amp. I would have to drop a dedicated outlet in the least to probably even run a high current external amp. That's just too much fuss for me personally. I dug into it further and starting finding the power 'regenerator' options from PS Audio. What a rabbit hole that becomes.
Maybe a nice little class D amp would work without dropping a new outlet, but I'm not all that interested in spending more on it at this point. I had a cop move in next door and that has already put a huge damper on the enjoyment of what I have. To put it mildly.
Ok, enough of a rant on this from me. I've decided to just enjoy what I have and stop debating it. I can tinker with my setup if I feel the need for a change. Tweak crossover settings. Toe in/Toe out. Adjust Audyssey frequency correction points. Just search for nice recordings on Amazon Music, Tidal, etc. to playback. There's plenty to occupy time with besides being concerned with what next thing I have to buy to make it better.
The Revels check off a lot of boxes when you start to narrow the field of choices for certain applications. Home theater/music use, etc. Budget for amplification or if you are just trying to keep it simple regardless of budget. There are compromises, but they're a nice fit for me personally.
Bimbleton, as long as you have sufficient space the Revel F35 can image well. The imaging (as I understand the term) is how the sounds become placed in space beyond the speakers. The speakers 'disappear' and the instruments or vocals will be placed in space as they were recorded, etc. So, if you can get these away from the wall enough you will get that. If not, it might create a struggle. That's why bookshelf speakers (like the M16) tend to be the choice for smaller spaces. They tend to 'disappear' much easier with the compromise of not as much of a fuller sound/scale. They also can produce a very wide soundstage without the need to have room to separate them as much (I believe is the general principle). The F35 do make a nice compromise for a smaller space in that regard, but you might be giving up a little bit in terms of soundstage width and bass response if you don't have the room for perfect placement.
Check out this video. This guy does a pretty good job of summarizing his technique for finding the best speaker placement for optimal 'soundstage' and imaging with any speaker. I don't know if he's the best technical expert on Youtube about speakers, but he's got the best beginner's guide for speaker placement that I've seen pop up.
Loudspeaker Optimization Techniques for Soundstage!
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