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My new B Stock speakers

I finally got off the fence and a pair of B Stock Revel M126Be speakers arrived Friday, and there was no electrical activity in the atmosphere for the first half of the day, so I put 4.5 hours on them today (Sunday).

I want them to replace a pair of nearly 30 year old B&W 805 Matrixes. I say nearly 30 years old because I only remember that I bought them some time after ’94 and sometime prior to ’98.

Walnut cabinets and their appearance and finish is truly gorgeous, but that was not a priority, and the listing at MD did not do appearance justice. I listen in the dark with my eyes closed, and my listening room is closed off (I have three sometimes rambunctious dogs) whether I am in the room or not in the room. Appearance meant/means nothing to me. Just like my vehicles.

The serial numbers are not anywhere close to each other. I assume this is why they are B Stock? Not matched? The MD sales rep on the phone just gave me some generic possibilities why they could be B Stock.

This next is on me. Whenever I see speakers at MD that interest me (and the Revels did quite some time ago) I usually send MD a question asking where they are made. It is not due to xenophobia, but I would prefer to buy a speaker manufactured in America. I am not crazy about the idea of a company outsourcing for cheaper labor. But I am not trying to start a discussion on that. For the Revels, for some reason I did not send MD a message asking them where they were made, I did a google instead, and I got the impression that they were manufactured in Ct. And, without me asking, the sales rep from MD volunteered (when he was comparing Revel sound to B&W sound) that I would be impressed by the difference between British speaker sound versus American speaker sound. But the placard on the back says they were "made in Indonesia." Okay, enough on that . . . but I was looking for an excuse to send them back within 60 days.

They are rated at a sensitivity of 86 (the reviews say "easy to drive") and nominal impedance of 8 ohms. My Cary V12 did not sound (to me) strained using 50wpc triode vs 100 wpc ultralinear. These are in a small room at nearfield..

Out of the box:

I guess I had been in denial and my old B&Ws are actually worn out &/or obsolete.

Here is something that is NOT subjective that I do not understand, and perhaps someone who is knowledgeable can explain it to me. I have several test CDs. An older one has an in phase/out of phase that is a series of three test tones and the middle tone is supposed to be quieter as it is out of phase. With my B&Ws all three tones sound the same, BUT, on Rodger and Doug’s CD, where Rodger says says verbally "in phase, sound should be centered between your two speakers/out of phase, the sound should be all over the place. . ." (that was a paraphrase) the B&Ws did exactly that. So in the 4.5 hours I put on them today (before dark clouds appeared on the horizon) , I had both of those CDs out. On the first one that all three tones sounded the same with the B&Ws, with the Revels, the out of phase tone is CLEARLY quieter! What gives? I asked either here or on AA years ago why I was hearing no difference with the B&Ws, and the consensus was don’t worry about it as long as you hear what you are supposed to on Rodger & Doug’s CD.

Okay, I am going to wrap this up because I don’t have the ear that most of you guys have (no sarcasm intended) or the vocabulary. So I don’t always know what it is that I am hearing that makes me like and dislike or thevocabulary to describe. I do know that the test tone (in pase/out of phase) is tangible. I did unhook my sub (hmmm, is it possible that this affected my test tone experiment? I just now thought of that) because I wanted to hear them standing a lone. They could definitely benefit from more bass, and I do plan on listening with the sub, but to my ears they were not absolutely pathetic. They could just use more. They are rear ported versus front ported like the B&Ws are.

What I heard, and with my ears (abused by 28 years of jet engines and shooting rivets and other loud noises) anyone would be entitled to say "confirmation bias," but:

I did say I was looking for an excuse to send them back. However, I also said that relatively shortly after feeding them musical signals, I QUICKLY came to the conclusion that they sounded better than the B&Ws.

So at the risk of using subjective cliches, the clarity (especially on percussion and the high keys of a piano) was much sharper and defined. Voices immediately sounded as if they had more "texture" (if that’s the right cliche) and inflections were more noticeable. I put on the DCC red book L. Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits Volume 2 (because the same tracks sound better than on the MFSL red book Simple Dreams, I like the DCC sound better) and I wanted to hear the opening bass track on Poor Poor Pitiful Me (I definitely like the sub turned UP for that better than no sub), but despite that, her voice is a lot more "interesting" with the Revels than with the old B&Ws. By "interesting", I mean real.

I’ll leave it at that because I am no reviewer. I don’t even pretend to be. If anyone has borne with me this long, however, I am interested in why the in phase/out of phase test tone works with the Revels but not with the B&Ws.

Oh, and associated equipment was a Maranzt SA10 (but I did not use any SACDs for those 4.5 hours) a Cary SLP05, a Cary V12 in 50 wpc triode, I cannot biwire these Revels so I only used one half of my shotgun biwire set up which was the thicker of the two Kimber blue speaker wires, but I don’t remember the numbers, and Kimber balanced (XLR vs RCA is what I mean to say) Silver Streak interconnects. On an edit I will add that the power cord for the SACDp is a newly purchased from Amazon $50 Preffair (if I spelled that correctly) and the amp and preamp still have stock cords, but Amazon tells me that two more Preffair cords will arrive on Tuesday.

I’ll now apologize for any and all typos that I don’t get edited out . . . I was a bad typist when I had two functional eyes, and now I am a REALLY BAD typist. Plus, since it was too early for me to be drinking alcohol when I was listening, I went with coffee, and that also has an effect on my typing.

 

 

immatthewj
immatthewj OP
2,554 posts
 

I did put three hours plus on them last night, and this afternoon I put five hours plus on them. On the positive side (and since my memory is so short I’ll speak for today) I played a lot of my classical music CDs (and one SACD) which I am not really familiar with because it is not a genre I really like all that much, and . . . I did not find myself getting bored and wanting to take the disc out. Also on the positive side, although without the sub hooked up I can tell that the bass could really benefit from reinforcement, depending upon the CD, it was not totally pathetic.

I finished off a while ago playing tracks I really enjoy from older CDs that I am quite familiar with: Jackson Browne, The Highway Men, Brandy Carlile, and Eliza Gilkyson. I think I may have heard more texture in the vocal work than maybe I was hearing before. (I think/may have/maybe are all probably the operative words. But it is vocal work that I probably enjoy and pay most attention to. On the Highwaymen, for example, I listened to The Devil’s Right Hand written by Steve Earle and The Road Goes On Forever written by Robert Earle Keene and in each one of these songs, Johnny gets a verse then Willie then Kris then Waylon and I noticed what each one of these guys actually did with their voice on their part of the song, kind of like what a trumpet player might do with his or her particular solo. But with that typed, perhaps it was because I was listening more attentively, or perhaps it was the effect of the coffee I had been drinking since I started listening this afternoon.)

On the negative side, as much as I enjooyed what I listened to, it still didn’t make me say, "OMG, I feel like rolling on the floor and screaming in ecstasy and telling the world."

But I have more to say about that later, and I am fully cognizant that I only have 20 hours on them at this point and that you all have told me not to expect miracles until 100 to 200.

@ghdprentice , I always appreciate the tone of your posts. An old receiver would be an excellent idea. I do, in fact, have a couple of Rotel amps that I used back in my Dolby Prologic HT days and an older 12au7 preamp; however, the way my system is set up, I finally have it where interconnects/wires, power cords are not a tangled mass--they are nicely segregated--but it is a bitch to get to the backs of the stuff to work on them/meaning take stuff in and out, and I find it more relaxing to put the time in as opposed to take equipment in and out. If I had a spare CD player and I trusted that old preamp, I could put some continuous hours on them without messing with the main equipment while I did other things, but, to both those points: I don’t, and I don’t. (On the preamp, I don’t completely trust it anymore after what I have read here about DC voltage sneaking out of older preamps.) But it is no biggy . . . I can be a patient person, and I am fully believing that my patience will be rewarded in this case. And if it isn’t--it isn’t; I can deal with disappointment--I am not a stranger to it.

@soix , I always appreciate the tone in which you post in as well. I am liking the sound right now even though it hasn’t YET hit me like a punch in the face. I am attributing my appreciation to the fact that my B&Ws were sounding worn out and tired, and also my limited experience with different speakers means my standards may well be lower. I could probably expound on what I mean by that, but. . . .

@kennyc , thank you for the supportive comment. The B&Ws replaced a quite affordable pair of NHTs, and it was a big step up and at the time I was beyond happy with them. (The NHT s replaced a pair of "big Masonite boxes with paper cone drivers" that were part of a rack system, and I was happy with that upgrade also . . . at the time. But I hear you, and I also hear the Revels, and I like what I hear with them also.

@grislybutter , I liked the Revels when I first heard them, and I believe that I will like them way more in a hundred hours or so. I’ve also enjoyed the discussion.

I apologize in advance for the typos I am sure I made and don’t have time to correct as I am late to run an errand.

Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. I am pretty much a happy man right now, but the caffeine may have some bearing on that as well.

immatthewj OP
2,554 posts
 

. . . I wonder if speaker break in could be compared to adopting a puppy (or in my case, puppies)? Three years ago we adopted three dogs anf two of them were either 8 or 10 (I cannot remember for sure right now) weeks old at the time. There were times that I wasn’t at all crazy about those puppies, and in three years they have gone through some pretty radical personality changes. They have pretty much turned into good loveable dogs, but/and after reading what you guys have typed about speaker break in, I am thinking that there may be some vague similarity between that and puppy to dog maturity. Oh well . . . ramble on. . . .

grislybutter
3,569 posts
 

I will stay away from the breakin comments because I am the odd one here. Given my dog: nothing like speakers.😂 She is still crazy, but lovely.

immatthewj OP
2,554 posts
 

Maybe, @grislybutter , but from the reading on this forum, you have way more experience than me with different speakers. I am open to what everyone has to say.

When I bought my previous B&Ws home, there was a tangible and obvious improvement over the NHTs (as there should have been, or I probably should have quit audio altogether). Back then I was working (3 to 11s) 40 hours a week minus sick days, and during the week I didn’t listen much (unless I had called off sick), so my listening was on the weekends (and combined with HT and HT was probably most every Sat and Sun night) . . . and that is all to say that I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the break in process (as I am trying to do now) . . . but there did come a time when I realized I was enjoying the listening experience more and spending more time doing it (listening, that is). But as far as experience with upgrades, it is all limited, but speakers is what I have the least experience upgrading.

grislybutter
3,569 posts
 

it's a process for sure. I wish my experience has added up to knowledge. But thanks to this forum/the people here, I am making improvements and having fun.

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