"The Ultra High-End Speaker."

Ultra High End-ish Sound?

~10k onwards (possibly even 5k onwards if bought used) and subwoofer pairing.

Ultra High End-ish Sound+Looks+Bragging Rights+ Club Membership?

Spend half a million, file for bankruptcy, whatever...

Ultra high end speakers are carried by high end electronics w.r.t sonics. When such electronics are paired with many speakers in non-ultra high end price brackets (i.e., when such "relatively affordable" speakers are given the same opportunity), the ultra high end-ness of such speakers shall be revealed.

my opinion is that you can achieve ultra high end sound with Revel Salon 2’s. given the appropriate sized room, meticulously treated, top notch power grid, solid well matured signal path and superior sources.

there is nothing about a Salon 2 holding you back from musical reproduction nirvana.

OTOH there is a ceiling to ultimate degrees of bottom octave, scale and authority in a system with the Revel 2 Salon’s. and a ceiling on ultimate levels of resolution.

but i would rather have this ’optimized’ ultimate Salon 2 system, than an average level effort with a more capable speaker in a larger room. the Revel Salon 2 is formidable enough to take you far along the path. it’s over the hump into high level transducers.

it’s the sweat equity and high level thinking behind systems that become the difference. and there is more than one approach to skin the cat.

of course; what we mostly find is that someone willing to go all out on the effort side, will probably pay the piper to start with a more capable speaker so the ceiling is higher at the end. but this does not invalidate what the Revel Salon 2 can accomplish.

Thanks great post indeed from someone who knows better by owning some of the best ... ... 😊

my opinion is that you can achieve ultra high end sound with Revel Salon 2’s. given the appropriate sized room, meticulously treated, top notch power grid, solid well matured signal path and superior sources.

If "ultra high end" is defined, even in part, by price, the Revel speakers do not qualify.  But, if it is performance, as measured by the owner satisfaction, it is entirely possible for that speaker, or one even less costly to qualify.  Even taking subjectivity out of the equation, there is no such thing as a best speaker that is superior in all aspects of performance, and not everyone agrees on which aspects have higher priority.  Add back subjectivity and there is nothing close to a consensus on ANY speaker being "good" sounding, never mind anything close to "best" sounding.  On top of this, there is no speaker that is appropriate to all rooms.  I personally find that low-powered tube amplifiers tend to be the best sounding amplifiers, and I have very specific favorite amps; that necessitates using certain types of speakers that then relegate others to less that ultra high end for my personal selection.

I've heard ultra expensive custom speakers that sound fantastic.  One such system was about 5 ft wide, by 4 feet deep by 8.5 feet tall.  It has twin 18" woofers, a giant horn midrange with field coil midrange compression drivers and a field coil tweeter.  Truly no expense was spared.  But, even it could not do everything, and the "compromises" might disqualify this speaker for another listener.  The woofers were quite restricted in output below about 35 hz.  Why? Because the requirement of ultra fast and nimble performance to match the midrange compression driver and the extended range for the shallow crossover at 400 hz or so, meant the driver had to be built with ultra low weight cones, and a surround that restricted the range of movement.  This meant compromising ultra deep response. 

In other respects, I suspect that great subjective performance in one area necessarily means affecting performance in another area; for example, the sense of midrange clarity might be a product, at least in part, of a leaner upper bass response because that bass tends to "muddy" the sound, but, if one also likes the warmer sound of a richer upper bass response, one cannot "optimize" both.  Hence, ultra high end might minimize compromises, but, it cannot eliminate them and the right balance could be found in a speaker that is cheaper, better suited to one's taste, and more appropriate for the particular room.

It does my heart good to hear about someone who really enjoys having exquisite sound. Congrats on your system. Too many high rollers haven’t really earned their audio stripes, and are more adept at writing big checks than they are at identifying the true performers. To some degree it’s all relative to what we’ve been exposed to, but those who’ve owned and lived with that "ultra high end sound" truly know the difference.  It still boils down to synergy of the individual components.

My experience has been that price is not a guarantee of fantastic sound, and there are definitely diminishing returns, but it’s difficult to avoid incurring some substantial costs to get that upper level sound. Fortunately, there are still plenty of companies driven by their passion for audio who focus more on performance than profit.