Revel M105 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[ROOSKIE]

Do any of the measurements give an indication of how they sound at low levels? A few press reviewers comment on this, but it is rare, and here the talk is about how loud they can get--something I don't care that much about.

I don't listen loud very often, and most of the time cannot turn them up even if I wanted to [kids, neighbors, wife, thin walls]. I have noted that large efficient speakers tend to sound better at low levels, while inefficient bookshelves tend to have to be turned up before they start to sound complete.

p.s., I also had a bout of tinnitus that fortunately faded away, but my ear doctor warned against high db sound levels.

Yes, they all do except for the high volume (96db) distortion test.
These speakers sound excellent at lower levels. As always you will have to accommodate for the way the human ear hears at lower volumes by boosting up the bass a bit. Otherwise I don't imagine you can find a better speaker.
When I owned them I found them to be extremely good at lower volumes. Enough that if that is what you need your next step is to try them out which is the only possible way to actually find out if they work for you.

 

[digicidal]

Revels are populating the higher ratings with subwoofer. Interesting.

So you're saying that they weren't paying Toole and Olive to do all that research for nothing? It's almost like they designed the speaker response around it.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Crossing at 250 is a disaster.

Naw man,
seems like when I bring this up from time to time someone says this.
There are literally dozens of excellent multi thousand dollar speakers that cross to the woofer in this zone. (hundreds actually, some Revel examples = F206, F208, Salon Studio and many more)

Using stereo subs to essentially create a 3 way system crossed at 250ish hrz is not odd and helps contend with room boundary nulls and affects. The whole reason the typical crossover is lower is due to people who usually use a single sub-woofer and the fact that they may want to hide that sub.

Take a M105, plop it on top of you sub or next to it, in fact if you can time align, you should be able to really optimize these and have more leeway for exact placements. Five bucks says it sounds fantastic.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

I hope one day Amir gets a chance to measure large Quad or Soundlab electrostats. These should show what low thd in lower registers is all about.

 

[BYRTT]

Animated model prediction for Amir's used filters for M105, as i understand band 1 is told be a room correction specific for position he test bookshelf sized speakers, looks good on paper ..

 

[BobPM]

Yes, they all do except for the high volume (96db) distortion test.
These speakers sound excellent at lower levels. As always you will have to accommodate for the way the human ear hears at lower volumes by boosting up the bass a bit. Otherwise I don't imagine you can find a better speaker.
When I owned them I found them to be extremely good at lower volumes. Enough that if that is what you need your next step is to try them out which is the only possible way to actually find out if they work for you.

With all due respect, this does not sound right. Large speakers seem to maintain their presence at low volumes as well as high, while these bookshelves, as you say, need some type of loudness adjustment. My old Yamaha had a great loudness function, but my new Freya+ has no frequency adjustments. Second, I don't think these measurements are in fact across the board. Are they run at a constant db level? It does not appear that frequency response measurements are taken at low levels that are increased in any manner. Moreover, my understanding of speaker parameters is that they are not completely linear so that the crossover is in fact only accurate at a designed output level, and the speaker response varies slightly at different volumes.

 

[Jmitch3]

Can you post your standard waterfall graph? Lowering the floor doesnt help me when im used to seeing a different graph

 

[pozz]

I hope one day Amir gets a chance to measure large Quad or Soundlab electrostats. These should show what low thd in lower registers is all about.

This would be very interesting.

 

[tuga]

Which sound fantastic apparently. What is your point exactly?

Depends on one's goals and expectations...

 

[TimVG]

Depends on one's goals and expectations...

Being your cheerful self as usual today!
Subjectively, from informal testing, these can play cleaner at higher volumes than my Genelec 8030C and much more so than my KH80s.
I wouldn't know which exact measurement would correlate with that. Using them as surrounds these days in favor of the larger F206 up front.

 

[tuga]

Being your cheerful self as usual today!
Subjectively, from informal testing, these can play cleaner at higher volumes than my Genelec 8030C and much more so than my KH80s.
I wouldn't know which exact measurement would correlate with that. Using them as surrounds these days in favor of the larger F206 up front.

I'm sure thei're fine for surrounds, or possibly desktop speakers.

 

[TimVG]

I'm sure thei're fine for surrounds, or possibly desktop speakers.

I used them as mains crossed at ~100Hz to subs (which also served as stands) in our previous home.. worked fine! They need a bit of distance for the tweeter and mid to blend well. Wouldn't use them at much less than 1m.

 

[Soniclife]

With all due respect, this does not sound right. Large speakers seem to maintain their presence at low volumes as well as high, while these bookshelves, as you say, need some type of loudness adjustment.

I've not noticed that correlation, but I have found some speakers sounds better at low volumes that others, but I'm in the dark as to why. The first thing I'd like to know is had any blind tests confirmed that speaker preference changes with volume going down, you could naively think some small speakers would gain on the big ones as volume is lowered. You could speculate that dispersion width might affect this, big speakers can have narrower dispersion than small ones (baffle width being key), and narrow dispersion interacts less with the room, it could be that.

 

[MZKM]

Do any of the measurements give an indication of how they sound at low levels?

Any speaker that sounds neutral at reference levels will sound midrange forward at low levels, thats how our hearing works. This is why an automatic loudness compensation is very nice to have (Audyssey has it, Buchardt’s active speakers have it too).

 

[NoAudiophile]

I've not noticed that correlation, but I have found some speakers sounds better at low volumes that others, but I'm in the dark as to why.

A certain level of sound needs to be reached for the modal effects of the room to stabilize - fancy way of saying room gain ain't there at low volumes.

 

[tuga]

I've not noticed that correlation, but I have found some speakers sounds better at low volumes that others, but I'm in the dark as to why. The first thing I'd like to know is had any blind tests confirmed that speaker preference changes with volume going down, you could naively think some small speakers would gain on the big ones as volume is lowered. You could speculate that dispersion width might affect this, big speakers can have narrower dispersion than small ones (baffle width being key), and narrow dispersion interacts less with the room, it could be that.

My hypothesis is tonal balance Vs loudness contour and possibly resolution at low levels.

 

[amirm]

@amirm: would it be possible to give the numbers for total Multi-Tone Distortion (MTD)?

No, there is no dedicated "meter" to translate that into a single number. We can only do that for dual tones.

 

[amirm]

This is great. Is it possible to run it with a simulated 80hz high pass, e.g. a default sub crossover, I'm interested in how the midrange changes when no longer asked to do as much low down. I'm hoping it cleans up a lot, it's my impression from trying such things.

With AP, I can easily import an excel or text file for the EQ (frequency, gain). So if someone wants to give me one I can try it.

 

[amirm]

Did you try putting the filter a bit higher (35 Hz or 40 Hz for instance) and/or with a steeper slope?

I don't remember if i tried it with these speakers or another one I tested recently. At higher frequencies it will take out some of the bass. Using the one I have here, there is no bass impact and just improvement in distortion.

As for slope, 36 dB is the highest available in Roon and that is what I used.

 

[dc655321]

No, there is no dedicated "meter" to translate that into a single number. We can only do that for dual tones.

SFDR?