State-of-the-Art Loudspeakers

[Kal Rubinson]

 

[Juhazi]

With a little help from google -
https://www.lyricusa.com/mike-kay-1923-2012/

 

[DonH56]

Sitting by Maggies, what else need be said? I was never at the store, but have a vague memory of running into him at a CES decades ago. I was a snot-nosed kid (vs. snot-nosed old fart) and he was gracious and lively IIRC.

 

[Bjorn]

Someone questioned the horizontal directivity of the CBT speaker. Below is an indoor measurement at 90 degrees (horizontally) of a CBT prototype. One graph for each side the speaker is pointing. No gating has been used, so the room contributes below 250-200 Hz. There's actually large speaker right next to it by the way, but didn't seem to effect the measurement much. I would say this off-axis measurement at 90 degrees is pretty darn good!

 

[BillG]

As for Revel specifically, it's hard to say why they haven't done any actives without asking someone in charge, but it could just be that Harman considers Revel a fully old school audiophile enthusiast targeted brand, and they would rather develop active speakers for that consumer base under their other brands like JBL. It doesn't make much sense to me to consider Revel without the context of the greater Harman business.

Harmon Kardon seem to be happy developing higher-end active wireless speakers under their own brand for the moment:

https://www.harmankardon.com/citati...l?dwvar_CITATION TOWER_color=Grey-USA-Current

As an aside, they've even developed a streaming, integrated amplifier recently:


https://www.harmankardon.com/wirele...dapt Plus Amp_color=Black-USA-Current#start=1

 

[steve59]

Quite a thread. I bought the salon2 after listening to them at a dealers home and really being impressed, unfortunately once home they sounded very little like the demo. I was disappointed, but not surprised since it happens this way for me more often than not, after asking you guys on the avr forum I sold them and with the recovered money I bought a pair of dsp 8000.2's by meridian. What I found while trying multiple ambitious passive speakers is they can be hyper sensitive to the amp driving them and that affects product consistency. A guy like me who loves a hobby he can't afford needs to know what the final price will be meaning I can't afford buying and selling 5 figure amplifiers until I find the right one. DSP speakers, generally speaking will sound the same at home as at the store.

 

[amirm]

Ah, the likely source of issue was room modes which are solved with proper EQ. Above a few hundred hertz, good speakers for the most part sound similarly in different rooms.

 

[steve59]

Makes sense to me since most passive speakers I've had in this room, regardless of the long wall or short wall roll off really fast. Rear ported speakers do a bit better than front or bottom ported.

 

[Sal1950]

Makes sense to me since most passive speakers I've had in this room, regardless of the long wall or short wall roll off really fast. Rear ported speakers do a bit better than front or bottom ported.

How big is your room?

 

[steve59]

27x17x7 decent room framed out in the basement

 

[Sal1950]

27x17x7 decent room framed out in the basement

Yes, that's a good sized space. I had a friend with a similar sized room that had a like experience with a pair of new F208s.
If you like to play on the louder side and appreciate good dynamics with inner detail you need speakers that can move a lot of air.
I'd bet you'd be thrilled with JBL M2's, or 4367 if you want to stay passive.

 

[steve59]

I got really lucky with these and while I have no doubt your suggestions are good these speakers are captivating.