Revel M106 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[FlyingFreak]

I got 28" stands. The official ones are 25".

 

[iulianm]

I use the Revel ones on carpet but you need to be very careful not to bump into the speakers as they are top heavy and official stands base area is not that large.

Spoiler: photo

 

[patrickbateman22]

I have 28" but feel they are a little high in my seating area, tweeter is a few inches above my ears

 

[Bren Derlin]

Revel M Stands for M106 speakers - 25”

 

[norman bates]

mine sits on my jbl (28.1" tall)

I angle it down because I'm laying slightly up on my couch..............

 

[ROOSKIE]

Sorry, didn’t realize every neutral speaker sounds exactly the same as each other to begin with.

I’ll cease further posts. Apologies to everyone for the accidental derailment.

It is okay IMHO. Tangents are sorta needed from time to time.
Spice up the old thread a bit.

So, my take is that 'neutral' would be better served as 'neutralish'.
In exactly the same way Mr. Toole says 'flatish' rather than 'flat or most flat'.

Neutral is an wide target in my view and is not always light grey or beige.
Some neutralish speakers I have owned/tried have been really fun to listen to, others a bit joyless and even others that I thought sounded not so great despite it.

In any case there is no pure 'neutral'. Some brought up video reproduction.
Picture this, a 100% color accurate 40" 4k TV vs a 70% color accurate 1080p 120" projection set-up. Which one is more true to the source, more neutral? For nearly every film in my mind the 120" screen is despite the less accurate color and resolution.

I am not excusing poorly performing loudspeakers but there are different forms of neutrality.

Anyway, I just listened to the HECO Celan 3's for the 1st time tonight. About 6 or 7 tracks worth at a pretty lively SPL. I also have the M126be's and the BMR monitors out for doing all three sets tmrw. Should be fun.

 

[JohnnyNG]

All I got so far is that a sub should be bought thinking about where the crossover should be applied at as well as the room they will be in (required SPL). For the M106, crossover should be made around 80-100hz, correct?

I've been experimenting with this a bit. Looking at the plots on page one (and ignoring the stuff really deep), it appears distortion peaks a little below 80Hz - about where you'd expect the excursion maximum given the port tuning of the speaker.

I'd been using an 80Hz L/R crossover (Sublime K231) between pre and amps, 24dB/oct. As I understand it (always iffy), the HP rolloff should be -6dB at 80Hz and help quite a bit with that ~80Hz THD peak. Curious about even further reductions, I switched to a 120Hz @ 24db/oct. module which should be >-12dB at that ~80Hz peak.

A single sub would be fairly localizable crossed that high but I've been using a pair of small nearfield subs (in mono) right beside my armchair to the left and right. This seems to balance any directionality and leaves the "deciding vote" on soundstage placement to the main speakers. On demo tracks I've used forever, bass appears where it's supposed to, so seems to be working ok. Fwiw I have the ports plugged on the Revels.

Dynamic range at about 8.5' far exceeds the upper limits of my tolerance, although to be fair I never really had a volume issue with the M106 even run full range. Such a killer speaker.

 

[norman bates]

so the subs are how many feet closer to you than the m106 ?

 

[JohnnyNG]

so the subs are how many feet closer to you than the m106 ?

Probably about 7.5'. Seems to deal with room issues pretty well this way having them close. Also enhances their dynamic range since they're running lower on an absolute basis.

 

[norman bates]

I have a theory on why it works better.

I'll post tonight with a graph that may help to explain why.
Phase rotation and thusly delay.

 

[Todd74]

It is okay IMHO. Tangents are sorta needed from time to time.
Spice up the old thread a bit.

So, my take is that 'neutral' would be better served as 'neutralish'.
In exactly the same way Mr. Toole says 'flatish' rather than 'flat or most flat'.

Neutral is an wide target in my view and is not always light grey or beige.
Some neutralish speakers I have owned/tried have been really fun to listen to, others a bit joyless and even others that I thought sounded not so great despite it.

In any case there is no pure 'neutral'. Some brought up video reproduction.
Picture this, a 100% color accurate 40" 4k TV vs a 70% color accurate 1080p 120" projection set-up. Which one is more true to the source, more neutral? For nearly every film in my mind the 120" screen is despite the less accurate color and resolution.

I am not excusing poorly performing loudspeakers but there are different forms of neutrality.

Anyway, I just listened to the HECO Celan 3's for the 1st time tonight. About 6 or 7 tracks worth at a pretty lively SPL. I also have the M126be's and the BMR monitors out for doing all three sets tmrw. Should be fun.

Thanks Rooskie, I appreciate the post brother.

How are you enjoying the Celans?
I listened to their Belladonnas for 45 minutes or so at Audio Advice in Raleigh. Those speakers are pretty nuts to say the least. The level of power and attack was astonishing! I had to check the 15” ported sub in the room to make sure it wasn’t on and cranked up. Pretty big whoaaaa moment.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Thanks Rooskie, I appreciate the post brother.

How are you enjoying the Celans?
I listened to their Belladonnas for 45 minutes or so at Audio Advice in Raleigh. Those speakers are pretty nuts to say the least. The level of power and attack was astonishing! I had to check the 15” ported sub in the room to make sure it wasn’t on and cranked up. Pretty big whoaaaa moment.

So far the subjective experience has been fantastic. Need to listen more but I have been listening to the Lintons as I fixed an issue in them and am trying to figure out if it helped 'em.
The Celan 3's deserve a thread here at ASR if there isn't one and while I can't do it on this set, I think a Klipple test would be very cool.

They are on the lively side of neutral and tons of fun with just excellent bass from 50hrz up with zero bloat of tuning gimmicks involved.
I don't get the feeling they have tipped up trebble, I think that waveguide just works to spread the high frequency field out from that big dome and they come across more like my Revel M126be's or the JBL 4309's up top ==Vibrant, not bright.

These are much bigger cabinets vs the M126be's and they do have more slam and bass from 50-80hrz so a better 2.0 situation. I will try both in the same session with the subs soon.

For now I put a 42L2(or a 45L4) high pass on them as the bass output below isn't worth the trade off in clarity and sheer output ability above it. Gonna pop the woofers out and have a look at them and get the small signal T/S params just for fun.

I will listen more and get some outdoor measurements at some point, right now it is still quite cold here.

 

[MRavioli]

Can anybody say if the M106 is an upgrade to the JBL HDI 1600? (use is for both music and movies, good high SPL performance desirable)
Thanks

 

[Beave]

Can anybody say if the M106 is an upgrade to the JBL HDI 1600? (use is for both music and movies, good high SPL performance desirable)
Thanks

Based entirely on their measurements (and not a side by side comparison), I would say it's a lateral move and that they would sound much more alike than not. Their measurements are quite similar overall.

 

[Todd74]

Can anybody say if the M106 is an upgrade to the JBL HDI 1600? (use is for both music and movies, good high SPL performance desirable)
Thanks

I listened to them side by side at Audio Advice and thought the HDI’s sounded a little darker/veiled by comparison. Guess it depends what your ears are after.

 

[MRavioli]

Thanks both - the kind of responses I was expecting to be honest!

 

[Todd74]

Thanks both - the kind of responses I was expecting to be honest!

I would go with the Revels for dual purpose, as HDI would suck some of the life out of the HT experience for me. The sound profile felt more chill than toe-tapping. Personally I would go in the other direction and demo the Revels against something a touch more forward & lively and keep the winner.

 

[Dalprad]

It can play a lot louder and even cleaner.

How does this speaker perform at lower (apartment) volumes? I currently have Dali Oberon 1's which are much smaller but sound pretty darn good at low levels.

 

[Rosenbloom]

Hi all, Just curious. Where are M106 made? I think probably not made in the USA. Am I right?
Cheers

 

[Laserjock]

Hi all, Just curious. Where are M106 made? I think probably not made in the USA. Am I right?
Cheers

Indonesia