Revel Performa F228 Be speaker... thoughts?

@james633

"The Kanta is a fine speaker I am sure but it will need subs imo.

You can these the bass drops off hard after 100hz and relies on room gain which can be hard to optimize both soundstage and bass or if you have an odd room. Below 100hz you are listening to the port which might not be as clean."
So, can you suggest some speakers that don't rely on the port for below 100Hz and don't drop off hard below 100Hz? 

mtrot,

all ported speakers work that way but speakers with larger boxes get lowers before dropping off. The subject of this thread the 228be is on example and it goes down to 60hz before heavy roll off starts. 


The Sophia 3 is another example. Even though the 228be’s two 8” drivers have 20% more surface area than the 10” of the Sophia 3, due to the large box of the Sophia 3 it goes down to 50hz before dropping off (resistance and other things at play here but box size is #1)
At each point the port picks up where the drivers leave off. Room gain most likely adds 6 db of bass in the low 30/40hz and you can see that the Sophia is down about 5db at the port and the 228be is down at 6db. 


In listening to both the Sophia 3 has stronger deeper bass than the 228be. The 228be sounds rolled off to me. But with subs crossed in at 60hz all of this goes away. The 228be has much cleaner highs and the mids are more transparent and natural imo. I believe the 228be with subs (picture of my setup in my profile) is better than the Sophia 3 with or without subs.


  
This more or less is how all ported speakers work. Larger boxes are always better. The issue with the Kanta IMO on paper…. Is that the box is pretty small and the port is tuned pretty hot. At high volume it will be limited and chuffing could appear. I think at normal volume they will be 100% fine in every way but next to a large speaker in a large room they will come up short when played loud.
Another approach active speaker when the power is increased in the low bass to get flat down to 20hz. This is effetely what is burnt done when you high-pass in subs. It turns the speaker into a 4 way with active bass. The kicker is you as the user then kind of become the speaker designer which is not for everyone.
Since we are on a harman thread so to speak harman claims that in their subjective data bass extension attributed to 30% of the total positive opinion of their blind test. Interesting for sure abs it show how important it is to get the bass right.



So nothing wrong with the Kanta just point out as a smaller speaker it will be more limited in shear output. Rear wall placement could be more critical too.


https://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-performa-f228be-loudspeaker-measurements



https://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-audio-sophia-series-3-loudspeaker-measurements



Video of audioholics talking about how good the bass is on the Kanta. Notice how close they are to the wall. 24” maybe and this is probably where they need to be for strong low flat bass.
https://youtu.be/KVNoiBOf96o

@james633

Thanks much for the extensive explanation.  Hmm, considering that in my family room, the front L/R speakers have to be close to the front wall, perhaps the Kanta 2 will work great.  The back of the speakers will need to be about 18" from that wall.  I was about to rule them out, based on your comment about Focal rolling off the bass hard below 100Hz. 

One nice thing about the Kanta 2 is that nice used sets are showing up at around $6500 lately.  Similarly, used sets of F226Be are showing up around that price or even lower.  So, Kanta 2 vs F226Be.....  They will be used probably around 50% for movies/50% music, so they also need to work well when playing movies fairly loud. 

mtrot,


No problem, just one armchair hero’s opinion lol. 

Yes either speaker, the Kanta 2 or the Revel 226be should work fine close to the wall. Typically measurements are taken from the driver face. I pushed my Revel 228be back to 24” and 39” and turned the subs off just see if I could get some more punch out of them. I did and surprisingly it sounded fine with no major bass boom (ran a quick measurement and was pretty flat). I later moved them back out from the wall and turned the subs back on. 

I think I would take the Kanta 2 over the revel 226be in this case. Being that they are both “smaller” speakers they both appear to be tuned (low bass roll off) to sit closer to the wall. If you are going to be doing home theater I think there is some leverage for the Revel as their matching center channel is pretty awesome. But I think there is more pride of owner ship with focal (they look great and are “fancy” lol). 

Between those two I think the Kanta looks more interesting. I have never heard the or the 226be (or Kanta) but based on owning the 228be I would imagine the 226be is pretty bass light as the 228be is tuned lean also. 
Another really good speaker is the older Focal 1038be. A pair on here for $6000. I almost bought the 1037be when I demoed them. 
Here is a good review of the 226be with measurements below. 

https://youtu.be/r1JjCVVgIdc

Revels sound nothing like Harberths, having a modern, analytical house sound that I find cold/clinical. Be domes can also be generalized to be on the unforgiving side compared to fabric, but then again Harbeth uses metal domes, too. You should really go audition and judge for yourself. .