Revel Performa F228 Be speaker... thoughts?

@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. .

Revel home audio outsources everything and because of it seems like a money grab. How can a company with the backing of HK not invest in their own tooling? I respect their chief engineer, but can’t help to think companies that can make some of their own products would be able to pass some savings to their customers 

Steve59,

That is just the way of the world these days. Happens less in highend audio I guess. I own an $8,000 mountain bike and not a single part is made by the company I bought it from. They design it and outsource everything, even assembly. 

As for Revel I think it shows in their fit and finish. It is not bad but they showed up with little things that would not happen with Wilson, Magico or B&W. Minor glue marks and some very small paint issues etc. 

But I still feel you can’t get a better speaker for the money sound wise. There might be one someone likes better but objectively it will not be better. The 228be is neutral, very detailed and seem to have limitless volume output in a domestic listening room anyway. As I get used to them the mids are very natural and effortless. In my demos the mids did not standout but now they have my attention. 

At the $6300 I paid for the 228be they are going to be hard to replace. I will have to spend a lot more (multiples of their cost) for something maybe just different. Like many people I am always looking for my next speaker. I would love to try some big JBL horns or own big Wilsons but not sure it is worth it at this point. 

I think I will just start playing with more room treatment. I have my entire ceiling treated now. I put 6” of dens mineral wool behind an acoustic drop tile. That made a huge different is the sound of the room. With the Thiels I had the tweeter was low and shot straight into my theater seats (big wide soft cloth seats), this kept the rear wall reflections to a minimum but the revels tweeter is above the seats and wow does it excite the room, so i need to do something with the rear wall now and will try some wide band bass traps at the first reflection points while I am at it.