This is a review and detailed measurements of the Revel M105 Bookshelf/stand-mount speaker. A member was interested in it so I decided to buy it through our company. The retail cost is US $750 each for a total of $1,500 for a pair.
NOTE: my company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman and hence the Revel speakers. So please read as much bias as you like into this review.
The Revel M105 fits in the family with solid feel and very nice finish:
Terminals are large and easy to manipulate which I appreciated. I also like that the whole unit comes in cling plastic so keep it protected.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used over 800 measurement point which was sufficient to compute the sound field of the speaker. Measurement axis is the tweeter and no grill was used.
Temperature was 78 degrees. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
As noted, if you take away the one peak around 5000 Hz, measurement is essentially flat on axis. That hump actually goes away for the most part when you look at listening axis (dashed green).
Earl window response in blue is essentially flat with (proper) tilt down:
This means the speaker "illluminates" your room with smooth response as good as the on-axis. When this gets mixed with the direct sound, tonality doesn't change and hence my comment that the M105 is very room friendly.
Put the two together and we get almost textbook perfect in our simulated room:
Horizontal dispersion is wide enough that you don't have to sit there with your head in a vise:
You can experiment with toe-in without tonality changing much.
Here is the same in 3-D:
And vertical:
Impedance is on the low side so best to have good amplification that can handle low impedance loads:
Here are the individual driver responses:
Is our 5000 Hz hump created by the ringing/break up of the woofer as circled?
The Waterfall was exceptionally clean so I lowered the floor to show more:
Distortion and Non-Linearity Measurements
Let's start with our Klippel measurements, compensated to take out room effects:
Wow, this is clean! Yes, we have low frequency distortion as displacement and motor non-linearity are not high fidelity items:
Chop down that low frequency response which is not much anyway but brings boatload of distortion as it does in every other speaker we have tested. And then you should enjoy very low distortion presentation, well below my self-imposed 50 dB threshold.
Let's switch analyzers and look at multitone response:
We see that distortion is decidedly lower than Behringer B2030P which I recently reviewed. Here is the same but at the extremes of SPL:
Once again we see that the distortion generator is the woofer with its larger displacement.
Here is our 100 Hz tone normalized distortion products:
Comparison Against Revel M106
I ran a couple of tests against the M106 but frankly, I could not find a lot of differentiation:
Looks like M105 has a bit more low frequency distortion.
Speaker Power Compression
I refined my speaker linearity test, reducing the output frequency to 80 Hz (from 200 Hz) and measured the speakers that are still sitting around my lab:
Notice that these levels don't mean the speaker is playing clean. The Pioneer for example was super unhappy well before it got to its maximum level. Yes, I am surprised the Revel F35 compressed earlier than bookshelves. I don't have an explanation for that.
Also, how steep the compression was differed from speaker to speaker. The Pioneer for example looses linearity almost from the start. Others do well then fall off a cliff.
Anyway, work in progress...
Speaker Listening Tests
You might think I go into these tests with a Revel speaker thinking it is going to ace the listening test. Maybe that is so but i can tell you that I still get shocked when I start playing and I am immediately impressed by how good the tonality and level of distortion is. Maybe because I test other speakers in between and get acclimated to them. Either way, the sound from the Revel M105 was very good. Track after track in my playlist sounded great.
As good as the sound was, I thought I apply my usual tricks with EQ and see if it could be improved:
As you see, I only have two minor adjustments beside the room correction at 102 Hz. First is one I apply to just about every bookshelf now which is a steep low frequency roll off. At the frequency chosen, it did not at all lower the bass level or change tonality. Yet there is a distinct improvement in detail, air around instruments, etc. I highly recommend that you try this with your speaker.
The second fix was to bring that hump down. By setting the filter to be narrow the tonality again remained the same. Yet there was even more detail and cleaner notes.
Yes, I am almost convinced that distortion is what is being reduced and it is absolutely audible to my ears.
Once there, I could not stop listening. Every track in my reference list sounded beautiful. I am talking guitar strings that melt your audiophile heart:
If tracks like this don't blow you away, you have the wrong speaker:
I have not post any classic tracks because frankly, none have sounded good making me wonder why I curated them. Then last night I played this one on the Revel and realized what an excellent, low distortion speaker it takes to make it sound good:
Ars Antiqua Austria; Graupner - Concerto a 2 Chalumeaux, 2 violis Viola e Cembalo C-Dur GWV 303
(high-res download from Challenge Classics)
Can't find "Vivace" track online but here is another from the same album:
Conclusions
Folks, if you are looking for a bookshelf speaker that is a neutral canvas that doesn't color everything you play and produces sublime fidelity that blows you away, the Revel M105 is your speaker. The sound is clean, balanced, room friendly, and just delightful.
As is, the sound is excellent but apply the little EQ fixes I provided and you are in absolute reference quality level of performance.
Now please excuse me as I go to listen to it some more.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
The Pink Panthers are demanding a summer vacation. I keep telling them there is a pandemic but they don't care. So I thought I reserve and entire island some place to be safe from the virus. There are a number available but naturally cost a lot of money. So please donate generously using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
NOTE: my company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman and hence the Revel speakers. So please read as much bias as you like into this review.
The Revel M105 fits in the family with solid feel and very nice finish:
Terminals are large and easy to manipulate which I appreciated. I also like that the whole unit comes in cling plastic so keep it protected.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used over 800 measurement point which was sufficient to compute the sound field of the speaker. Measurement axis is the tweeter and no grill was used.
Temperature was 78 degrees. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
As noted, if you take away the one peak around 5000 Hz, measurement is essentially flat on axis. That hump actually goes away for the most part when you look at listening axis (dashed green).
Earl window response in blue is essentially flat with (proper) tilt down:
This means the speaker "illluminates" your room with smooth response as good as the on-axis. When this gets mixed with the direct sound, tonality doesn't change and hence my comment that the M105 is very room friendly.
Put the two together and we get almost textbook perfect in our simulated room:
Horizontal dispersion is wide enough that you don't have to sit there with your head in a vise:
You can experiment with toe-in without tonality changing much.
Here is the same in 3-D:
And vertical:
Impedance is on the low side so best to have good amplification that can handle low impedance loads:
Here are the individual driver responses:
Is our 5000 Hz hump created by the ringing/break up of the woofer as circled?
The Waterfall was exceptionally clean so I lowered the floor to show more:
Distortion and Non-Linearity Measurements
Let's start with our Klippel measurements, compensated to take out room effects:
Wow, this is clean! Yes, we have low frequency distortion as displacement and motor non-linearity are not high fidelity items:
Chop down that low frequency response which is not much anyway but brings boatload of distortion as it does in every other speaker we have tested. And then you should enjoy very low distortion presentation, well below my self-imposed 50 dB threshold.
Let's switch analyzers and look at multitone response:
We see that distortion is decidedly lower than Behringer B2030P which I recently reviewed. Here is the same but at the extremes of SPL:
Once again we see that the distortion generator is the woofer with its larger displacement.
Here is our 100 Hz tone normalized distortion products:
Comparison Against Revel M106
I ran a couple of tests against the M106 but frankly, I could not find a lot of differentiation:
Looks like M105 has a bit more low frequency distortion.
Speaker Power Compression
I refined my speaker linearity test, reducing the output frequency to 80 Hz (from 200 Hz) and measured the speakers that are still sitting around my lab:
Notice that these levels don't mean the speaker is playing clean. The Pioneer for example was super unhappy well before it got to its maximum level. Yes, I am surprised the Revel F35 compressed earlier than bookshelves. I don't have an explanation for that.
Also, how steep the compression was differed from speaker to speaker. The Pioneer for example looses linearity almost from the start. Others do well then fall off a cliff.
Anyway, work in progress...
Speaker Listening Tests
You might think I go into these tests with a Revel speaker thinking it is going to ace the listening test. Maybe that is so but i can tell you that I still get shocked when I start playing and I am immediately impressed by how good the tonality and level of distortion is. Maybe because I test other speakers in between and get acclimated to them. Either way, the sound from the Revel M105 was very good. Track after track in my playlist sounded great.
As good as the sound was, I thought I apply my usual tricks with EQ and see if it could be improved:
As you see, I only have two minor adjustments beside the room correction at 102 Hz. First is one I apply to just about every bookshelf now which is a steep low frequency roll off. At the frequency chosen, it did not at all lower the bass level or change tonality. Yet there is a distinct improvement in detail, air around instruments, etc. I highly recommend that you try this with your speaker.
The second fix was to bring that hump down. By setting the filter to be narrow the tonality again remained the same. Yet there was even more detail and cleaner notes.
Yes, I am almost convinced that distortion is what is being reduced and it is absolutely audible to my ears.
Once there, I could not stop listening. Every track in my reference list sounded beautiful. I am talking guitar strings that melt your audiophile heart:
If tracks like this don't blow you away, you have the wrong speaker:
I have not post any classic tracks because frankly, none have sounded good making me wonder why I curated them. Then last night I played this one on the Revel and realized what an excellent, low distortion speaker it takes to make it sound good:
Ars Antiqua Austria; Graupner - Concerto a 2 Chalumeaux, 2 violis Viola e Cembalo C-Dur GWV 303
(high-res download from Challenge Classics)
Can't find "Vivace" track online but here is another from the same album:
Conclusions
Folks, if you are looking for a bookshelf speaker that is a neutral canvas that doesn't color everything you play and produces sublime fidelity that blows you away, the Revel M105 is your speaker. The sound is clean, balanced, room friendly, and just delightful.
As is, the sound is excellent but apply the little EQ fixes I provided and you are in absolute reference quality level of performance.
Now please excuse me as I go to listen to it some more.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
The Pink Panthers are demanding a summer vacation. I keep telling them there is a pandemic but they don't care. So I thought I reserve and entire island some place to be safe from the virus. There are a number available but naturally cost a lot of money. So please donate generously using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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