Revel M105 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[RichB]

U up?

Not unless I know what I am in for

- Rich

 

[oversky]

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:

Hi, amirm,
If I remember correctly, the Estimated In-Room Response simulates far field condition.
Will it be as flat when using M105 in near field (computer desktop)?

 

[anotherhobby]

Hi, amirm,
If I remember correctly, the Estimated In-Room Response simulates far field condition.
Will it be as flat when using M105 in near field (computer desktop)?

So much changes once speakers go in your room. Your room's size/shape and contents, where you are sitting in the room, where the speakers are in the room, any acoustic treatments, are you mixing with a sub or two, are all things that affect the in room response.

I have a pair of Revel M105s on my computer desk, and what I can tell you is that I think these make excellent near field speakers with their relatively smooth off axis response. I listen for 8+ hours a day, and they never get fatiguing. I'm incredibly happy with them.

 

[617]

Hi, amirm,
If I remember correctly, the Estimated In-Room Response simulates far field condition.
Will it be as flat when using M105 in near field (computer desktop)?

It will be as flat, but it will probably sound a bit brighter. The further out in the room you are, the greater proportion of room reflections you hear, which have less treble, since the speaker radiates treble over a smaller angle, and because rooms tend to absorb high frequencies better than low frequencies. However,

 

[RoA]

105 vs m16's for medium rooms?

 

[Dj7675]

105 vs m16's for medium rooms?

I think it would depend on the volume you want to listen to and the distance you are from the speakers. Another less obvious choice might be the M80XC. You get an 8 inch woofer which would help with less distortion at lower frequencies/play louder. The shelved bass isn't an issue if placing near a wall. It may need a little EQ but otherwise could make a good choice too.

 

[ElNino]

105 vs m16's for medium rooms?

Without a subwoofer, I'd go with the M16. The M105 is a great speaker, but it's already up to almost 3% THD at 100Hz at 86dB @ 1m, so it has its limits in medium size rooms.

 

[oversky]

Misunderstood.
Deleted.

 

[LeffetheAudiophile]

So, i got myself a pair of Revel M105 because they seemed to be so good, and they are, at close range...
Ive got maybe a quite large room, at about 15.4m² ive got a bunch of furniture and i have experimented a tiny bit with installing various kinds of acoustical absorbers and diffusers, all of them just randomly placed in my room thinking it could improve the tonality of my Revels, but no matter what it cant get rid of this awful hissing sound at certain frequencies, especially noticeable when listening to metal.
Ive experimented a lot with these and my Genelec 8030CP's which ive also gotten because of the great review here by my man Amir.
And always both speakers are only very good, detailed and crisp just when they are right next to me on my sofa, but this long range (3,5m) distance between my sofa and Revels and i keep wondering if it's really the distance or if i can fix it with absorbers and diffusers.
If you need any kind of images for this to just give me a hint on what i should do, i can definitely send some, or if i need to get myself a pair of more powerful speakers i could maybe do that too, but these Revels sounds so good on their own and i do not wanna spend more on a pair of even bigger speakers since these are so darn good.

For my speakers ive got a Topping Dx7 Pro dac and the speakers are powered by 2x Hypex NC400 amp monoblocks so i am sure i have the power necessary to drive these beauties.

(Ps. I love your reviews Amir, shows me what to buy and ive been very happy with all the stuff you have (and the community too for that matter) recommended to me)

 

[MediumRare]

So, i got myself a pair of Revel M105 because they seemed to be so good, and they are, at close range...
Ive got maybe a quite large room, at about 15.4m² ive got a bunch of furniture and i have experimented a tiny bit with installing various kinds of acoustical absorbers and diffusers, all of them just randomly placed in my room thinking it could improve the tonality of my Revels, but no matter what it cant get rid of this awful hissing sound at certain frequencies, especially noticeable when listening to metal.
Ive experimented a lot with these and my Genelec 8030CP's which ive also gotten because of the great review here by my man Amir.
And always both speakers are only very good, detailed and crisp just when they are right next to me on my sofa, but this long range (3,5m) distance between my sofa and Revels and i keep wondering if it's really the distance or if i can fix it with absorbers and diffusers.
If you need any kind of images for this to just give me a hint on what i should do, i can definitely send some, or if i need to get myself a pair of more powerful speakers i could maybe do that too, but these Revels sounds so good on their own and i do not wanna spend more on a pair of even bigger speakers since these are so darn good.

For my speakers ive got a Topping Dx7 Pro dac and the speakers are powered by 2x Hypex NC400 amp monoblocks so i am sure i have the power necessary to drive these beauties.

(Ps. I love your reviews Amir, shows me what to buy and ive been very happy with all the stuff you have (and the community too for that matter) recommended to me)

The hissing sound can’t be coming from the speakers unless something is broken - or it’s something in your room that’s resonating. Can you take some measurements using pink noise, even if just with your cellphone (lots of free Frequency Response apps out there), to see what frequencies/patterns are showing up?

 

[LeffetheAudiophile]

The hissing sound can’t be coming from the speakers unless something is broken - or it’s something in your room that’s resonating. Can you take some measurements using pink noise, even if just with your cellphone (lots of free Frequency Response apps out there), to see what frequencies/patterns are showing up?

The "hissing" sound is only from the resonances and such because i dont hear any of that if i move the speakers right next to me when i sit on my sofa, at full range they sound this "bad" way even at medium range which is even worse than originally.
I could later get some measurements, nothing i can do right now.
Got a pic for how it currently looks, got some huge basstraps in some corners which help a bunch especially for resonances but the tonality of the Revels are still meh at the long range.
If I use my dac to send out double stereo IE the Revels plus those Genelecs it sounds very good overall, but i do want the Revels so sound as good as they can.

 

[MediumRare]

The "hissing" sound is only from the resonances and such because i dont hear any of that if i move the speakers right next to me when i sit on my sofa, at full range they sound this "bad" way even at medium range which is even worse than originally.
I could later get some measurements, nothing i can do right now.
Got a pic for how it currently looks, got some huge basstraps in some corners which help a bunch especially for resonances but the tonality of the Revels are still meh at the long range.
If I use my dac to send out double stereo IE the Revels plus those Genelecs it sounds very good overall, but i do want the Revels so sound as good as they can.

No offense but your room is small, there is a lot of stuff around interfering with the sound, the speakers are too close to the front wall and possibly toed in too much, your bass traps probably aren’t doing good much positive. You could benefit (everyone can) from room correction - try REW. The speakers will sound amazing.

And what’s the idea for the double stereo? There’s no way that can work properly- all the sounds are distorted by time delays and phase cancellation. It’s impossible to have proper stereo imaging and soundstage like that.

 

[LeffetheAudiophile]

No offense but your room is small, there is a lot of stuff around interfering with the sound, the speakers are too close to the front wall and possibly toed in too much, your bass traps probably aren’t doing good much positive. You could benefit (everyone can) from room correction - try REW. The speakers will sound amazing.

And what’s the idea for the double stereo? There’s no way that can work properly- all the sounds are distorted by time delays and phase cancellation. It’s impossible to have proper stereo imaging and soundstage like that.

None taken.
I know the audio is not perfectly synced if it's double stereo, but i like this more than just the revels out, it's like pick your poison and this was the least worst option.
The speakers are too close to the wall? Well i tried moving them like 1m closer to me and the tonality was even worse after that.
Also those big boxes by the wall near the window weirdly enough improves the resonating in my room which i realized quite early after moving here a few months ago.

I'll try REW and check it out.

 

[MediumRare]

None taken.
I know the audio is not perfectly synced if it's double stereo, but i like this more than just the revels out, it's like pick your poison and this was the least worst option.
The speakers are too close to the wall? Well i tried moving them like 1m closer to me and the tonality was even worse after that.
Also those big boxes by the wall near the window weirdly enough improves the resonating in my room which i realized quite early after moving here a few months ago.

I'll try REW and check it out.

You are completely free to have whatever preferences you want. However, you have very nice equipment but you are not getting any of the benefits they offer. Your sound is badly distorted and muddled so you cannot possibly get proper audio (as defined by the philosophy of this community). Please consider stripping down to what I suggested, read here about proper speaker placement, and try REW to balance the room after that. There is absolutely nothing meh about those speakers.

 

[LeffetheAudiophile]

You are completely free to have whatever preferences you want. However, you have very nice equipment but you are not getting any of the benefits they offer. Your sound is badly distorted and muddled so you cannot possibly get proper audio (as defined by the philosophy of this community). Please consider stripping down to what I suggested, read here about proper speaker placement, and try REW to balance the room after that. There is absolutely nothing meh about those speakers.

Yeah i know, the speakers and everything sound freaking phenomenal when the room conditions are correct, ive never heard such amazing sound before, but i am a total noob at these kinda things, ive followed ASR for about 2 years now and i cannot understand nor grasp most of the things i read, im reading on audio almost everyday whenever i can but i again cannot grasp most of it, i just know what to buy but other than that it's just at a very surface level what to do about acoustics, impedance, power and what not.
I'm currently trying out REW and i'm kinda getting some info out of it.

 

[LeffetheAudiophile]

Looked like this on REW, i assume this is bad? I cannot make heads or tails out of anything of this btw.

 

[LeffetheAudiophile]

You are completely free to have whatever preferences you want. However, you have very nice equipment but you are not getting any of the benefits they offer. Your sound is badly distorted and muddled so you cannot possibly get proper audio (as defined by the philosophy of this community). Please consider stripping down to what I suggested, read here about proper speaker placement, and try REW to balance the room after that. There is absolutely nothing meh about those speakers.

What i remember from the review of the revels is that were supposed to be "room friendly" but apparently not in this case, this room is terrible and i cannot on my own figure this out, maybe just hire a firm that can take a look and fix all of this.

 

[anotherhobby]

What i remember from the review of the revels is that were supposed to be "room friendly" but apparently not in this case, this room is terrible and i cannot on my own figure this out, maybe just hire a firm that can take a look and fix all of this.

I think room friendly is referring mostly to the quality of having a smooth off axis response. This generally means they will respond well to DSP and room correction. It doesn't mean you can just stick them in any room and get a good response. I am assuming you have not tried EQ yet? I use a miniDSP with Dirac, and I've also had good results with just using a UMIK-1 with REW and setting DSP filters (parametric EQ) on my Mac.

With EQ I think they sound fantastic in my rom. Without EQ I would say that I can tell they should sound fantastic, but my room modes tend to dominate the sound. Below is a graph comparing the uncorrected room response with the Dirac corrected one. I have dual 8" subs paired with them, so don't think I am somehow flat to 20 Hz with these.

I highly recommend sinking a bunch of time into learning how to apply EQ and trying to correct for your room.

 

[LeffetheAudiophile]

I think room friendly is referring mostly to the quality of having a smooth off axis response. This generally means they will respond well to DSP and room correction. It doesn't mean you can just stick them in any room and get a good response. I am assuming you have not tried EQ yet? I use a miniDSP with Dirac, and I've also had good results with just using a UMIK-1 with REW and setting DSP filters (parametric EQ) on my Mac.

With EQ I think they sound fantastic in my rom. Without EQ I would say that I can tell they should sound fantastic, but my room modes tend to dominate the sound. Below is a graph comparing the uncorrected room response with the Dirac corrected one. I have dual 8" subs paired with them, so don't think I am somehow flat to 20 Hz with these.

I highly recommend sinking a bunch of time into learning how to apply EQ and trying to correct for your room.

View attachment 186847

Im using Roon eq and im just using the 4800khz dip he recommended in the review, might do some equalizing experimenting, could maybe improve some.

 

[Chromatischism]

What i remember from the review of the revels is that were supposed to be "room friendly" but apparently not in this case, this room is terrible and i cannot on my own figure this out, maybe just hire a firm that can take a look and fix all of this.

Put absorption on the wall behind the couch to reduce the back and forth echo.