I've listened to a decent number of speakers and imo none of them were even close to what I heard from Revel. I'm getting the upgrade bug and I was curious what speaker brands had speakers that you guys considered better than the equivalent at Revel?
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What speaker brands would you consider better than Revel?
- Thread starter BingaMoon
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Genelec and Neumann are hands down better than Revel but they're pricy. KEF is the only passive speaker that is up there with Revel, I've found them to be better than Revel in my comparisons but others prefer Revel so I'd say they are fairly close. One thing that doesn't have to do with sound quality but I like about KEF is their cabinets are very solid, that's one area I wish Revel would put a bit more of the budget into improving.
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If you are looking for Actives, I would vote for Genelec though I have never heard Revel. If it is Passives and you are ok with DIY, I have listened to Linkwitz Speakers Pluto with an ESS Heil AMT tweeter. Excellent it was.
With the caveat that I haven't heard any Revels I don't consider any brand better than Revel, just different. Revel is probably as good as it gets with passive speakers with limited size and with focus on wide, even dispersion and power handling.
You can do the same quality with different choices, like higher sensitivity, better controlled vertical dispersion but more limited dispersion width, better damped cabinets etc.
Without going bigger and heavier, there's compromises needed to be had to reach that level of quality.
Active speakers can take some short-cuts that demands less compromises, so can be made even better (for less) and will likely always have greater potential given same care during design.
You can do the same quality with different choices, like higher sensitivity, better controlled vertical dispersion but more limited dispersion width, better damped cabinets etc.
Without going bigger and heavier, there's compromises needed to be had to reach that level of quality.
Active speakers can take some short-cuts that demands less compromises, so can be made even better (for less) and will likely always have greater potential given same care during design.
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Revel makes good passive speakers, but they appear to be suprassed by the active offerings of companies such as Kii, Dutch & Dutch, Grimm, and perhaps GGNTKT.
steve59
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Kind of an open question as revel has products in many price ranges. Are you suggesting everything revel makes is best? if that were so they would only need to make 1 speaker as all the rest would be redundant. There's a 100 brands that could work better for a specific task. Kef, Revel and paradigm probably are the largest lab drivin companies that remind me of those 80's polk ads with the white coats telling you they've discovered the right and only way to reproduce music. lol it's old business model that still works.
- Thread Starter
- #9
Equivalent in price range
Lorenzo74
Senior Member
pls define "Better".
All passive speakers have inherent limitations.
you cannot correct frequency and impulse response at the same time.
you have to use expensive and intrusive coils and caps in the signal path...
Xo filters typically are 2nd order.. 12db-octave while digitally you can easily go 48db.
you cannot apply time delay to each driver to have better integration of the sound wave at listening position.
It's more or less that was possible 50-70 years ago, refined...
(IMHO) no passive speaker equal in technology what is possible today with wise use of DSP.
listen to Kii three, D&D, B&O Beolab 90 but also Genelec or the Germans: Geithain, Neumann, Adam audio in the pro audio industry
it might help answering the question...
L.
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watchnerd
Grand Contributor
I have a lot of respect for Revel.
I think they're well-engineered.
But I'm not a fan of the sound of their newer Be driver speakers, their styling, and the goofy bi-amp posts.
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- Thread Starter
- #13
I've listened to Neumann KH80 and they couldn't go very loud. This along with problems with the other active speaker I tried kinda put me off active speakers.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Focal.
Pearljam5000
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Try mid field or mains, bigger monitors are a completely different story.
The KH80 is a very small speaker for very close listening distance and for this environment it's almost perfect. You cannot compare it to bigger passive speakers.
You need to listen to a big active speaker before you make up your mind.
What model Revel speakers are you considering?
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