Are Revel Salons too much?


I recently acquired a pair of Salons, (along with a Voice and Embraces) for a "non-dedicated" listening/family room. The comments of some now have me concerned that the Salons are too much speaker for the room (15x30 turning into a Kitchen at the rear in a "L" shaped room.) The other comment is that, as they will be used in a non-dedicated room, I can not achieve a good set up due to limited placement possibilities. The Salons will be a few feet in from of a wall unit behind them, but not several feet.

Power is not the issue as I have the power to drive them, in the form of 2 ML 436 amps. I also have 2 B-15's which really smoothed out the bass with my prior Anthem/Mirage HDT set up.

Am I being overly concerned or would I be better off with F-50's or something like that?
128x128chm3986
I don't know a lot about the Salons, but if they are like most speakers they aren't going to like being just off the wall. If you can't set your speakers up the way they need be you are certainly paying a lot for something that you will not realise what it is capable of. If I were in a position of having to place speakers close to the wall then I would look at speakers that perform well close to the wall. Speaker placement is one of the most important factors if a system is to sound great.

I was in the same position of having to find a system that could live in the family room and still sound great. My search ended with the Innersound Eros, and Innersound electronics. The speakers work well close to the wall and being that they have an active crossover with bass and midrange control, you can really dial them in. The electronics run cool and work well with the speakers.
Chm3986, you may want to consider the Tact Room Correction System, 2.2x which makes placement of speakers near the rear wall possible while correcting for room anomolies. While I don't currently have this system, I did in the past, and it made speaker placement very flexible with few downsides. One limitation is that listening position tends to get smaller but other than that it works wonders.
What Ejlif said...also, the Rives audio PARC is the single best analog parametric EQ I've heard. And I've heard most. Infact, I heard(or didn't hear) their PARC ($2200?) on many high end systems at the Shows this last year or two, and it's as transparant as is basically possible! Put that between amp/preamp and you're good to go when calibrated.
Yeah, it MAJORLY HELPS to get the speakers/seats in teh right place. But this EQ would be the best chioce nonetheless. The best sonic improvment you'll likely improve to...seriously(no, no affiliation...just admiration).
Still,how does it sound now overall, boomy? If so, you need to either move speakers, change speakers, change listening possition(s), or EQ! That's it basically. You can do things like "soft plug" the ports, but you gotta try to see.
And no, getting F50's won't fix your challenges, if any. perhaps going smaller more bass limited speakers with your B15's would do the trick in balancing things out better?
Also, proper bass management is a must for HT dubties.
How do you like your sound overall?...are you happy?
Good luck
I don't think it's a "too much" situation, because your room is certainly big enough. Either speakers are designed to go back against a rear wall comfortably, or they're not. Some great speakers, like the Eidolons, are intended to be as much as 6 feet from the back wall. My experience is certainly that B & W's work better away from the rear wall, and the Revels I've heard were placed pretty far from any walls (and sounded marvelous that way). If you're looking for a superb pair of speakers which ARE designed to go within 1.5-2 feet of the back wall, I suggest the Eggleston Andra II's. But they are also intended to be placed as far apart as possible in a normal room to take advantage of their sound front, and are really wasted if you don't separate them enough. You might give them a listen.
I have the Salons in a smaller room than yours. For awhile I had them sitting about 2 feet from the rear wall (measured from the back of the speaker) and 3 feet from the side wall, with a large screen TV in between and about 1 foot back. The speakers were not boomy in that position (you can also help this by the adjustments in the back of the speaker). Indeed the response was quite flat - I measured it using Stereophile's test cd and an SPL meter. The dealer had indicated that he keeps his pair even closer to the wall. The problem I had was with reflections off the TV screen, which really congested the sound and lessened the depth of soundstage. If your wall unit has a glass front, you may have the same problem, but perhaps not as bad, since I beleive part of the problems came from the viration of the screen and the speakers in the TV. Hope that is helpful.