Revel Studios for half price?

For half the price you are going to give up some bass response and extension. You might try Thiel 2.4. I think the midrange is a little forward whereas the Revel Studios tend to be distant. Otherwise both are accurate sounding speakers.

I owned a pair of Studios, now I own a pair of Salon's. Previosuly I woned a pair of Revel F30's.

If your looking for the sonic qualities of the Studio, then get the Performa F30's(Stay away from the F50's they perfrom poorly compared to the F30's). THe F30's use the same basic crossover points and 24db steep slopes and really high quality drivers. Tradeoffs are in the basic cabinet, and the drivers. But even the Performa drivers are amazing and actually mimic the Studio's(Uses a single 1.1 inch aluminum tweeter,5" midrange,single 10" bass driver) but use a single 10" instead of twin 8's and has no rear tweeter. But you get 98% of the performance of the Studio. When I AB'd the Studio and the F30(this was about 5 years ago when I bought the F30's when on a budget)after hours I found that the F30's sounded almost identical to the studio's. Midrange voicing was almost identical,and the bass driver and tweeter did a great job too.

If you are looking for a cheap pair of "studio's" get a pair of F30's. Great speaker. Can buy a mint pair for just under $2k too.

Geoh - For a little more money you should look into Green Mountain Audio C-3's. http://www.greenmountainaudio.com/

Roy Johnson the owner and engineer is one of the brightest and technically sound speaker designers out there. Do a search on this site for feedback on GMA's Europa speaker... people rave about them. Last week I talked to a guy in New York who's extensively tested an impressive list of speakers across a broad pricing spectrum and he told me without hesitation that the GMA C-3's were significantly better than anything he's heard.

If you send me an email I will be happy to put you in touch with him and he can tell you for himself about his new C-3's.

I would second the last post on the Green Mountain Audio C-3s. I just heard them at a friend's house who is a true audiphile and they were amazing. I have listened to the Studios and Salons extensively and yes they are great speakers, BUT, the Green Mountains are IMO considerably better. I have owned the Verity Parcifals, Talons, Ushers, Maggies and heard literally everything but the Kharmas. If you can put the relatively low price aside and make pretend that the GMAs are $30,000 a pair that about captures the level of sound quality I heard.

Green mountain speakers = home built Vandersteen's with less quality control. I dont even think they match their drivers and crossover components to within db tolerances.

I have personally heard the C-1's. Nothing special, another Vandersteen clone that uses basic off the shelf drivers from different companies, basic 1st order slopes.If someone is gonna recommend this style of speaker, I would rather recommend the 3A signature if were going this route.