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Revel Salon2s: Seeking Advice

All,

 

There's a closeout on new Revel Salon2s locally and it's a speaker that's always intrigued me and been widely praised for characteristics I like in a speaker (detail, neutrality, punches above its weight, good midrange and bottom end). My concern is if it would be a lateral move based on my current speakers so I wanted to ask your opinions.

 

Current setup: Focal Kanta 3s, Parasound JC5, Pass Labs xp22, Denafrips T+, Lumin U1 + X1 PSU, great cabling, dedicated 20amp circuits, etc.

 

Any thoughts on if I should look into the Revels further versus what I currently have? Tangentially I have also considered trying tube pres but consider speakers as the foundation of the system and don't want to pass up this up unnecessarily. TIA!

christianb5s4
steve59's avatar
steve59
1,740 posts
 
deep_333

Your last post was interesting for sure. I demo’d the Salon 2’s at a dealers home where he was driving them with the most expensive Mark Levinson products Available in 2018 and they sounded full bodied and detailed and I bought them. Once home those exact salon 2’s driven by a hegel H360 (The one I picked for making the Salon 1 sound so alive and dynamic,) sounded dry and detailed with little bass energy or harmonic overtones. I resold those salon 2’s to a guy that plugged them into a pair of Mc601’s and presto, they came back to life. This story’s over for now as our op is waiting for another deal to come around, It does need to be said tho’ the Salon 2 needs power(Kennymacc, as much of a fan of the H590 s as I am, you’d be surprised.)LOTS of power!

drdetroit
2 posts
 

A couple of thoughts.  deep_33, Revel does extensive blind listening testing, and has been written up for this in many places.  Not just engineering in a box: https://www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/revel-speakers-lineup-overview

As for power needs or bi-amping, I just put a pair of Salon2s into my room, and would be curious as to thoughts on bi-amping them with two different amplifiers - say tubes for top end and SS or ClassD for bottom end with a proper crossover. Thoughts?  

Jeff in Detroit

steve59's avatar
steve59
1,740 posts
 

A couple of thoughts.  deep_33, Revel does extensive blind listening testing, and has been written up for this in many places.  Not just engineering in a box: https://www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/revel-speakers-lineup-overview

As for power needs or bi-amping, I just put a pair of Salon2s into my room, and would be curious as to thoughts on bi-amping them with two different amplifiers - say tubes for top end and SS or ClassD for bottom end with a proper crossover. Thoughts?  

Jeff in Detroit

 

Hi Jeff. I was furious with that single speaker test because I don't listen in mono and soundstage, imaging and detail are the 3 things that separate speakers from each other, have no measurements for and really need to be listened to to justly evaluate. In short I found their listening test to be pure marketing hype despite my respect for their then Chief Engineer Kevin Voecks.

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