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Revel PerformaBe F226Be Floorstanding Speaker Review

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hardisj

hardisj

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Oh, and defnitely not worth me trying to troubleshoot the DL anomaly because I am done with these speakers. I am creating the YouTube video this weekend and shipping them back after next week. I have already moved on to testing the Klipsch Heresy IV.
 

yourmando

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I use this "official" Harman curve for Dirac from Arcam with my F226Bes. Perhaps you want to check it out and see if there is a difference for you.

Excellent.

I use the Olive/Toole Harman curve (+2db at 20hz, -8 at 20khz), roughly tracking the blue line in @mitchco's post:

There is more to it than just a "house curve". Here are a few industry guidelines:

In 1974, Bruel and Kjaer instruments wrote an application note on, "Relevant loudspeaker tests in studios in
Hi-Fi dealers' demo rooms in the home etc. using 1/3 octave, pink-weighted, random noise
." See Figure 5:
"The optimum curve for HIFI equipment measured in the actual listening room." While the curve is smooth, it
does have a gradual roll-off. Looking at the frequency response plot, the gradual roll-off starts at -0.5 dB at
200 Hz, -3 dB at 2 kHz, and -6 dB down at 20 kHz. Over time, this became known as the B&K "house
curve." For decades, professionals and amateurs alike have used the B&K house curve (or target response)
when equalizing a sound reproduction system for critical listening purposes.

In 1994 (updated in 2015), the ITU produced a "Recommendation ITU-R BS.1116-3 (02/2015) Methods for the
subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems
." On Page 17, section 8.3.4.1 Operational
room response curve shows a tolerance limit of ±3 db SPL and a very similar operational room response
curve as per EBU-Tech 3276 below.

In 1998, the European Broadcast Union produced a Tech note, EBU-Tech 3276, “Listening conditions for the
assessment of sound programme material: monophonic and two–channel stereophonic
." See Figure 2 on
Page 6: "Tolerance limits of the operational room response curve." The curve is flat to 2 kHz and then a
straight line to -6 dB at 20 kHz with a ±3 dB tolerance along the target. As mentioned previously, this Tech
note has other target specifications that we will examine in upcoming sections.

In 2009, Dr. Sean Olive from Harmon wrote a paper on, "The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room
Correction Products
." Presentation download. Through the use of measurements and listening tests, the
preferred response is a straight line, but tilted starting at +2 dB at 20 Hz to -8 dB at 20 kHz. The conclusion
is that flat in-room response is not the preferred target response.

In 2015, Dr. Floyd Toole wrote an AES open access paper on, "The Measurement and Calibration of Sound
Reproducing Systems
." See Figure 14 "Subjectively preferred steady-state room curve targets in a typical
domestic listening room [49], from Olive et al. [48]. The prediction of Fig. 13(a) is superimposed." Note that
the trained listener's preference target curve is similar to the other targets referenced above.

Overlaying the "house curves" or target responses:

View attachment 10874

Coincidence... :) Personally, I favour the Olive/Toole house curve (or really, tilt). I have tried most of those "curves" in many, many rooms, including several recording studio control rooms, with many speakers, including live sound reinforcement systems over a... gulp... 38 year time span. Starting with a 10 band analog eq all the way to state of the art DSP, as can be seen in my sig.

While there are other contributing factors, i.e. physical shape of the room, how live or dead, one can't go too wrong by starting with any one of these house curves. Especially, if one is using modern DSP, each one can be compared in real time and fined tuned to one's personal preference.

Here is my Dirac target curve (in a .txt file):

Code:
NAME
Harman 10dB
DEVICENAME
Unnamed
BREAKPOINTS
20 2
100 1
1000 0
10000 -4
20000 -8
LOWLIMITHZ
10
HIGHLIMITHZ
24000
 

Frank Dernie

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There's also a resonance smack bang in the most sensitive area of the ear at around 4 kHz that makes me uncertain whether or not the Be is actually an upgrade. Could it be responsible for that ringing behavior that tuga demonstrates?
Not the BE tweeter, maybe the ally mid range cone.
 

Zedly

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Great review! One question, though. What is causing the peaks and valleys in the 300-900 Hz region? Those frequencies seem too high to be room modes.

In-room_responses.png
 
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hardisj

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Great review! One question, though. What is causing the peaks and valleys in the 300-900 Hz region? Those frequencies seem too high to be room modes.

In-room_responses.png

My guess is:
Home Theater: There is a wall lined with 2-inch wedge foam, but with cut outs where my 15-inch midbass and huge horn/compression drivers play through. IOW, it's a really weird "front wall" to speakers.
Living Room: the MLP is a couch which is positioned right against the living room wall.
 

Juhazi

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What is "DL" you are talking about hardisj and yourmando?
 
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hardisj

hardisj

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What is "DL" you are talking about hardisj and yourmando?

Dirac Live.


Honestly, I spent 5 minutes listening and then punted on it. I'm not sure if it's the speaker or the room or the target curve. I just did the same thing I always do with DL, I didn't like the results so I disconnected it and went back to no room correction. This really isn't even an important topic for me, to be honest.
 

richard12511

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Well, you know the place, it's all about nitpicking. Personally, if that peak had been H2, I would have said "perfect as far as traditional speaker design goes", but this probably goes over the masking limits of simple tones if H3 is symmetrical (as in 900 Hz and 8.1 kHz harmonic products being similar in level).
By the way, I found them in France for: F328Be 18000€, F228Be 11000€ and F226Be 9000€. A pair of KH420 is 7400€ and 8351B 7000€, to give an idea.

My parents are coming in to stay with me this weekend, and I hope to setup a blind test between the Revel M105 and the Genelec 8030c. Both of those speakers measure "close enough to perfect", as well, yet they definitely do sound different. So, put me in the camp that says we haven't reached perfection yet. The tiny little measurement improvements the 8030c shows over the M105 are audible(at least I think so).

I'm pretty sure I'll prefer the 8030c at this point, and I'm fairly confident I'll be able to pick it out without peeking, but who knows. Will be interesting to hear the thoughts of people who have never heard either.
 

ElNino

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My parents are coming in to stay with me this weekend, and I hope to setup a blind test between the Revel M105 and the Genelec 8030c. Both of those speakers measure "close enough to perfect", as well, yet they definitely do sound different. So, put me in the camp that says we haven't reached perfection yet. The tiny little measurement improvements the 8030c shows over the M105 are audible(at least I think so).

If you get a chance to do this, I'd definitely be interested in the results! I have a pair of M105 and have been thinking about picking up a pair of 8030c as well; my dealer's supposed to get stock again tomorrow.
 

Chromatischism

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Excellent.

I use the Olive/Toole Harman curve (+2db at 20hz, -8 at 20khz), roughly tracking the blue line in @mitchco's post:



Here is my Dirac target curve (in a .txt file):

Code:
NAME
Harman 10dB
DEVICENAME
Unnamed
BREAKPOINTS
20 2
100 1
1000 0
10000 -4
20000 -8
LOWLIMITHZ
10
HIGHLIMITHZ
24000
Nice. Us bass-heads seem to prefer another tilt from 20-100 Hz of about 5-10 dB. There's a greater variation for preference, room, and equipment there it seems. Combining that with Olive/Toole you'd then see 100-1000 Hz dropping by about 2 dB, then 1000-20000 Hz sees another 4-8 dB depending on room size and some accommodation for hearing loss.
 
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q3cpma

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My parents are coming in to stay with me this weekend, and I hope to setup a blind test between the Revel M105 and the Genelec 8030c. Both of those speakers measure "close enough to perfect", as well, yet they definitely do sound different. So, put me in the camp that says we haven't reached perfection yet. The tiny little measurement improvements the 8030c shows over the M105 are audible(at least I think so).

I'm pretty sure I'll prefer the 8030c at this point, and I'm fairly confident I'll be able to pick it out without peeking, but who knows. Will be interesting to hear the thoughts of people who have never heard either.
Certainly an interesting comparison.
 

richard12511

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Great review! One question, though. What is causing the peaks and valleys in the 300-900 Hz region? Those frequencies seem too high to be room modes.

In-room_responses.png

I have to disagree that 300-900Hz is too high to be due to the room. The room heavily affects the sound well above the Schroeder frequency(usually to about 1kHz in my experience).
 

whazzup

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Well, that's always true. To some, the difference the Beryllium tweeter provides may be enough to warrant the extra cost. To some, they might look at a much lesser speaker and not even be able to justify the cost of the F206 itself.

Personally speaking, I've swapped out Be dome tweeters for silk dome tweeters and - every time - have been very glad I did. In fact, I run these Scanspeak Be tweeters in my car. :)
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...or-d3004/6040-00-beryllium-dome-tweeter-each/

Sorry to sidetrack, but can you point to any measurements that supports the reputation that Be tweeters have? And subjective impressions of how different they sound compared to silk ones in your car? What about when compared to raal tweeters, any audible differences?
 
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hardisj

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Sorry to sidetrack, but can you point to any measurements that supports the reputation that Be tweeters have? And subjective impressions of how different they sound compared to silk ones in your car? What about when compared to raal tweeters, any audible differences?

I can't think of any objective data points that explicitly state 'this is why Beryllium tweeters sound this way', other than the manufacturer's data which might help. For example, you can look at Scanspeak's data sheets on these tweeters:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...luminator-d3004/6020-00-tweeter-textile-dome/
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...or-d3004/6040-00-beryllium-dome-tweeter-each/

For one thing, though, the additional sensitivity is a plus.


Most of the stuff I see relating performance to sound quality is stuff like "it's lighter, so it's better with dynamics"... which I couldn't possibly verify. I mean, sure, I guess it makes sense. But then again, if something is playing the same tone but faster, is it still playing the same tone?

But if you're asking me to quantify and characterize Be dome tweeters with absolute proof then I am not your guy. At least not at this point in time. Not unless I had two of the same tweeter with only dome material differences and compared them side by side to do some analysis.
 

whazzup

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I can't think of any objective data points that explicitly state 'this is why Beryllium tweeters sound this way', other than the manufacturer's data which might help. For example, you can look at Scanspeak's data sheets on these tweeters:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...luminator-d3004/6020-00-tweeter-textile-dome/
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...or-d3004/6040-00-beryllium-dome-tweeter-each/

For one thing, though, the additional sensitivity is a plus.


Most of the stuff I see relating performance to sound quality is stuff like "it's lighter, so it's better with dynamics"... which I couldn't possibly verify. I mean, sure, I guess it makes sense. But then again, if something is playing the same tone but faster, is it still playing the same tone?

But if you're asking me to quantify and characterize Be dome tweeters with absolute proof then I am not your guy. At least not at this point in time. Not unless I had two of the same tweeter with only dome material differences and compared them side by side to do some analysis.

No worries, just curious is all. That will be lovely if you can do a deeper dive.
You did say that you preferred be tweeters in your car? There was an audible superiority over the silk tweeters? How so?
 

yourmando

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Nice. Us bass-heads seem to prefer another tilt from 20-100 Hz of about 5-10 dB. There's a greater variation for preference, room, and equipment there it seems. Combining that with Olive/Toole you'd then see 100-1000 Hz dropping by about 2 dB, then 1000-20000 Hz sees another 4-8 dB depending on room size and some accommodation for hearing loss.
I'm a bass-head but sadly haven't even tried that extra boost due to living in a city condo (though pretty well isolated with no one above or below me and rooms in between nearest neighbor--but still).

Considering buying a country house far away from neighbors, where I'd have a truly brutal bass setup :)
 

Ericglo

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While I agree there are some areas that aren't "perfect" about how this speaker measures, to me this naturally leads to "how perfect is perfect?" or "what does perfect sound like?".

Having had the opportunity to listen to these in two different rooms, I was quite impressed with them. I should be, at $7k/pair. Sure. But that doesn't take away from the fact that I was.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't find any real faults with this speaker. Very neutral speaker that is very pleasing at both low and high volume. Yea, if they would extend lower than the measured 50Hz (approximate) that would be cool. But that's nonsensical of a speaker this size. And, as we see in other HARMAN spins of the larger PerformaBe, that would result in other issues. So it's a game of trade offs.

This speaker is extremely linear on and off-axis, has great dispersion both horizontally and vertically and had no problem exceeding 100dB at 4 meters in my living room and home theater. Objectively and subjectively, this, IMHO, is a top-flight speaker.

Frankly, I was so impressed by this speaker's subjective performance, I can't help but wonder what would "better" sound like and how would that also measure? Are we to the point of picking nits that don't really matter or are small enough in scale that would ultimately be a 'wash' as there is surely some slight user preference as well? For me to be able to answer this question will take not only more time but more opportunities. Opportunities to measure and audition other speakers of high-regard. Opportunities that I have tried to attain by reaching out to different manufacturers to see if they would be willing to loan me test samples (Kef, Vandersteen, to name a couple), who haven't replied. On the bright side, D&D will be sending me a pair of the DD8C to review but the state of everything these days is causing delays.


As I have said before, every person's performance threshold is different. It is easily seen in video where some people are more than content with 720p and others aren't satisfied with 4k. I have been in demos that sounded great, but others have thought the demo had all sorts of problems. Some times I hear the little issues but they may not bother me. For others, it is a big deal.

Of course, I could be deaf.:) I was in a speaker demo a couple of years ago that I thought had pretty good sound. Kris Deering heard an issue with the speakers that I could not detect for the life of me.
 

Ericglo

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I'm terrible at comparing speakers months apart. I really only rely on my remembrance of the impression I had. I do remember really enjoying the Selahs but I prefer the Revels. Maybe it's the vertical dispersion. Maybe it's the overly compensated baffle step of the Selahs (in their raw form; can be fixed by Rick or by a shelf filter). The Revels can certainly play louder without ever bottoming out the woofers even without a crossover whereas the Selah showed its mechanical excursion limits closer to the 100dB (if I recall correctly). I hate when the speaker gives up before I do... but I can't really fault a bookshelf speaker. But that doesn't mean I can't be happy with a tower speaker that doesn't exhibit this problem. The Revel also has 5dB sensitivity over the Selah. But... the Revels are also >2x the cost (depending on finish of the Selah).

Personally, I prefer tower speakers. Not little bitty skinny ones. But something along the lines of these Revels (or their bigger brother) from an aesthetics POV. Acoustically, aside from everything else the towers may best bookshelves in, the one issue that remains is the room; the benefit of a large tower with large woofers begins to wane depending on how your room is and your feelings about multiple-arrayed subwoofers to help distribute the modal issues.

All that said, IMHO, it's really comparing apples and oranges. I'd prefer the Revel for the above reasons but the Selah Purezza is a fantastic bookshelf speaker with incredible midrange detail that is in the same ballpark of the Revel F226Be and the best distortion figures in its size class, I believe.


Up to this point, I believe you considered the Selah Purezzas your top speaker that you have reviewed. As you have said, it is apples to oranges. One is a bookshelf at half the price of the tower speaker. A better comparison in the Selah line up would be one of his towers like the Ceramica, which has two 6.5' woofers and a 4" midrange. It would also give a comparison between a ribbon and Be tweeter.

Rick did mention that he was planning on working with the new Purifi 4" driver. Maybe he has an ultimate Purifi tower in mind with multiple Purifi drivers.;)
 
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hardisj

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YouTube video review is complete.

It's a long video. I know. I edited it down as best I could. But this is a complex speaker and takes time to discuss the performance of it both subjectively and objectively (in an appreciable way).

I hope you all enjoy.
 
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wannarock2

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And then there's the strange "ringing" of the 226/8's midrange cone.

it may be a feature. i’m suspicious of the ceramic drivers with a ring like porcelain or crystal.
 
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