Revel M106 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[tuga]

I have a bias towards towers, but it’s hard to justify the price increase for the F208, especially if you plan on subs.

Not if you listen at loud levels or farfield, unless your sub can cross at 300Hz...

 

[LDKTA]

By far one of my favorite bookkshelf sized loudspeakers to date -- along with the M126Be's.

 

[tuga]

I would like Amir to include in his listening impressions what amount toe-in he uses.

Doesn't Amir only listen to a single speaker?

 

[pierre]

I would like Amir to include in his listening impressions what amount toe-in he uses.


I don't believe the Klippel can show rotated the measurements.

The issue with simulating this with the given data is that it will not 100% reflect the vertical performance, as you can't predict diagonally (whereas the Klippel measures a magnitude of points all around and likely could show the actual performance).

it would be very nice to get more data from the Klippel. I would love to have impulse responses, all measurements and not only the 72 ... if storage/bandwidth is an issue I can provide it.

 

[tuga]

Thanks Amir! Looks like a standout speaker.

Revel M106 ASR vs Harman Spin comparison, corrected the ER curves from the NFS for the Harman-style computation. Omitted the on-axis for graph intelligibility:

View attachment 70865Good agreement up to about 4-5kHz, after which Harman shows about 2dB more energy. I think this has happened with a few of the Revels, I wonder what's up with that, especially after the super-old infinity showed basically perfect agreement.

Edit: And here's the M106 vs the IL10 (Listening Window in white)

View attachment 70867

You can see the relative lack of energy in the upper mids in the IL10, but idk if enough to explain Amir's different impressions.

The Infinity looks a lot "brighter" tonal wise, I don't think that the off-axis BBC-dip would be audible in mono unless the speaker was close to a side wall and/or perhaps not pointing straight at the listener.

 

[Jukebox]

I wonder what the Beryllium version of this one gets you. Twice the price but they appear to be very similar.

Was wondering the same. You get better HF extension, better crossover and more solid drivers. But for an actual sound perception benefit to pay double the money remain to be seen/tested.

 

[Tangband]

Interesting loudspeaker !
A question from a technical point of view. Is there a possibility that the performance would be even better if the sides of the baffle would have been rounded of a bit ? Like they did with the former loudspeaker revel m20

 

[Tangband]

That SB acoustics tweeter is really cool. It is the one I plan to use in a DIY active set-up (someday)
A Selection of the DIY community hails it as one of the best tweeters essentially ever. (of course not all agree)
Amir you might want to have a close look at it. It is has an interesting design.

I had the baby M105 for awhile. It had a very, very smooth tweeter. Unfortunately I no longer have it. I purchased it to be used as a reference 5.25 inch driver based speaker. I liked everything about the speaker except that I liked the JBL 530 more & it therefore became my 5.25" driver reference.
The one thing about the REVEL M105 was a less detailed bass compared with the 530. I wonder if that has anything to do with the distortion characteristic? The 530 also seemed to have more depth. (maybe) It was deff more articulate in the bass.

Jbl 530 is a very good sounding loudspeaker in the right room.

 

[carlob]

I've got the M106 for surrounds, maybe overkill

 

[tecnogadget]

I've got the M106 for surrounds, maybe overkill

Yeahh that’s a total overkill and it’s a great thing. You must be enjoying incredible reference multichannel

 

[Bear123]

Not if you listen at loud levels or farfield, unless your sub can cross at 300Hz...

This is a great post that helps to illustrate why a pair of low sensitivity bookshelf speakers don't have the slightest prayer of coming anywhere near reference level capability. At 9 db below reference(96 dB), distortion is already skyrocketing. We will lose another 6-8 dB for normal listening distance, and another 3-6 dB *easily* for room eq. Also shows why towers are so much better, even with subs, in so many situations.

 

[MZKM]

Also, I’d like to point out that these are 7-8 years old.

This is a great post that helps to illustrate why a pair of low sensitivity bookshelf speakers don't have the slightest prayer of coming anywhere near reference level capability. At 9 db below reference(96 dB), distortion is already skyrocketing. We will lose another 6-8 dB for normal listening distance, and another 3-6 dB *easily* for room eq. Also shows why towers are so much better, even with subs, in so many situations.

That distortion isn’t really audible, the average person needs the THD to be around 20% at 100Hz. That’s with content playing, with test tones it would be lower, here is threshold for individual harmonics .

 

[Bear123]

Also, I’d like to point out that these are 7-8 years old.

That distortion isn’t really audible, the average person needs the THD to be around 20% at 100Hz. That’s with content playing, with test tones it would be lower, here is threshold for individual harmonics .

I don't disagree, but again, 9 dB below reference at 1m without any eq. This equates to 15-17 dB below reference with the 96 dB distortion sweep shown. With 3-6 dB of eq added below 3 dB, which will be nearly guaranteed, distortion will be much higher than the graph above, and we are still 15 dB or more below reference level.

Again, I think a lot of this is perspective. For example, my previous setup consisted of Hsu HB1 MK2 L/R with HC2 center. channel, powered by Yamaha RXV-375 AVR. By -10 MV, it was painfully loud and would run you out of the room. Upgrading the AVR to Denon X3300 seemed to raise the loudest comfortable listening level by a few dB, likely due to a fair bit more power.

After the Hsu, I ran a pair of 94 dB 8 ohm horn loaded compression driver speakers. At -5 MV, listening levels were quite comfortable even for my wife who is more sensitive to loudness. I now have 91 dB towers and its enough capability for things to sound good up to my loudest listening levels. But I have no doubt that when things start to sound too loud, it is in part due to lack of clean output capability, whether it be distortion from the speakers, compression, clipping, or some combination of all three. I would never have thought so had I not experienced first hand how much more tolerable things are with more capable equipment.

That's one of the reasons I'm not totally ruling out the option of a good 3/5/7 channel amp like the Monoprice Monolith, just to get a few more dB of clean output capability for those very spirited listening sessions.

 

[Tangband]

This is a great post that helps to illustrate why a pair of low sensitivity bookshelf speakers don't have the slightest prayer of coming anywhere near reference level capability. At 9 db below reference(96 dB), distortion is already skyrocketing. We will lose another 6-8 dB for normal listening distance, and another 3-6 dB *easily* for room eq. Also shows why towers are so much better, even with subs, in so many situations.

Dont forget that you have the room gain that is, in many cases, about 10 dB ” for free” i the bass register with two loudspeakers being placed in a room.
Room gain is usually 6dB/okt with dropping frequency. The point where the gainstarts depends on the size of the room. The smaller the room, the higher the starting point of the 6dB/okt curve.

 

[Bear123]

Dont forget that you have the room gain that is, in many cases, about 10 dB ” for free” i the bass register with two loudspeakers being placed in a room.
Room gain is usually 6dB/okt with dropping frequency. The point where the gainstarts depends on the size of the room. The smaller the room, the higher the starting point of the 6dB/okt curve.

My towers get a huge boost when running full range in room with flat extension into the mid 20 Hz range. I'm not sure how much room gain they get where it matters though, i.e above where they cross to subs. The 80-300 Hz region is demanding and I assume room gain isn't helping much throughout this entire region.

If I were in an apartment and didn't want to use subs for that reason, room gain down low would certainly be quite beneficial.

 

[lashto]

Also, I’d like to point out that these are 7-8 years old.

That distortion isn’t really audible, the average person needs the THD to be around 20% at 100Hz. That’s with content playing, with test tones it would be lower, here is threshold for individual harmonics .

That harmonics table looks very interesting, thank you.
Do you have a link to the whole paper/study ?

 

[Koeitje]

Good to see my speakers don't suck .

But I have to say they weren't as solid as I expected. I mean they are still pretty "dead", but I had DIY monitors that were only just a tad bigger but weight in at 17kg, instead of the 9kg or whatever the M106's are. These monitors were heavier than my SVS SB2000 sub while being about the same physical size, so maybe my reference is a bit off...

@amirm is there any chance you can measure them with the ports plugged?

 

[youngho]

What I find interesting, is that besides the KEF R3 losing bass output at ~120Hz and the difference of directivity, it is better in most every way by looking at all the graphs, yet even with the room mode correction, the listening impression was not as enthusiastic:

Hi MZKM, I wonder if this ties into what I referenced in the IL10 discussion regarding bumps being more audible than dips, as well as wider more than narrow. The NBD and SM would not seem to take that into account, the R3 has extremely broad deviations in the PIR compared with the M106. Would it be possible for you to list the individual components of the preference score for the R3, M106, and/or others?

Young-Ho

 

[Laserjock]

I've got the M106 for surrounds, maybe overkill

I’m about to spring for F206 for surrounds...

 

[_Bass]

Sensitivity: 86dB
Frequency Response: +/-2.7dB 80Hz-20kHz

@MZKM I like that you now post the fr response +/-. This is very helpful. It is probably additional work to do these for the old reviews but please continue posting that info for all the future reviews. We really appreciate those