Alternatives to Revel Studios?

Steve01s4

To answer your questions:

I think the Lamm's would work acceptably with the Eidolons. I looked at the specs for the Lamm's and it apears that they have 200 wpc at 4 ohms, which is what the Eidolons (and the Studios) both have. (The RM9s would have been insufficient however. I heard the Kora Cosmos, another 100 wpc tube amp, and it sounded great on small scale jazz, but on larger scale pieces, it ran out of gas.) My opinion is that they will sound great with the Studios as well. In fact, it might even work better with the Studios than the Eidolons, but that is a guess on my part. (IMHO, I think the Eidolons are slightly harder to drive, even though the spec's indicate otherwise.)

The Eidolons do have incredible imaging and soundstaging, and yes, even better than the Studios. I will point out that they are a little difficult to set up properly. They really like being pulled well into the room. Their bass is good, very dynamic and very tight. However, it is not incredibly deep. It only goes a few Hz higher than the Studio, but it is enough to be noticable.
(As opposed to the Salon, which goes all the way down to 20 Hz, but you need a lot of power to make them work (probably double what you have) and they need a really large room to make them sound their best, or they can sound boomy.)

If I could trade staight across for the Eidolons, I would do so. (However, the Eidolons are a more expensive speaker than the Studio, in fact, almost double the cost new. $12K vx $22K). A pair of used Studios will cost you $6K-7K, and a used pair of Eidolons should cost between $10K-$12K, depending on condition or finish.

Two points I would like to bring up:

One, is that the Eidolons have been discontinued, and replaced with the Vision. (Which is nothing but a Eidolon with different (better?) drivers, I believe.) That is the main reason why you will see them popping up on Audiogon more in recent months. If you can avoid the Eidolon Diamonds, (Doubtful, as they are $26K used, and about $40K new), I have heard that they are even better than the regular Eidolon. (Check out the review on HiFi+).

Two, if really deep bass is really important to you, than maybe you should stick with the Studios. They are a really good speaker that does everything very well. (I don't think they are the best in any one area, but they don't do anything less than good either.) I like mine, a lot actually, and it would literally take a speaker like the Eidolons (at double the price) to get me to change.

Good Luck!

In the second to the last paragraph, I inadvertantly wrote the word... "avoid" the Eidolon Diamonds. It should have been "afford". (That is what comes from writing while one has a cold I suppose.) Sorry for the confusion.

I have the Revel Salons (10K used) in a medium sized room (15W X 22L X 8-14H) with lots of power (Bryston 7B-SST). The only speaker that I have heard that I liked more than the Salons was the Eidolon Diamonds. I really connected with these 2 speakers when I first heard them. They sounded right to my ears. I know what I like, so I bought the Salons immediately on A'gon. I could not afford the Eidolon Diamonds.

I did not hear the Studios but I was under the impression that the Salons were considered a little better (magazine reviews).

I work from home and listen to music about 8 hours a day. I am always blown away by the tunes through the Salons.

I've heard the Revel Studios with Bryston amps and Oracle front end gear at a dealer. I heard the Avalon Diamonds with Boulder gear at another dealer. The perfomrance that I heard from the diamonds was order-of-magnitude better than what I heard from the Revels - but the total cost of system was MUCH higher, in addition to being in a much better put together listening room, so take that for what it's worth. The soundstaging, dynamics, detail, resolution and richness of the Avalon/boulder system that I heard was SOTA, one of the best systems I've ever heard. I'm not sure what the spec is, but I definitely heard bass around the 30hz range, maybe lower. Very powerful and detailed and tuneful.

I have not heard the original Eidolon, however.

One other speaker that I've heard that I like a lot is the Wilson Sophia. Have you given it a try? Many of Wilson's previous speakers have been voiced pretty aggressively - very detailed, but in my opinion, too much so to be enjoyable in the long term. The Sophias are completely different - the detail and resolution is there, but they are voiced much more pleasing to the ear. They'll probably be my next speaker, unless I hear something very compelling in the meantime. Certainly not in-your-face. Your Lamm amps would be a match made in heaven with the Sophias.

I have Salons in my main system and Vienna Acoustics Mahlers in my second system.

In my systems, as good as the Salons are, the Mahlers image better and have a midrange voicing that I find preferable on a lot of music.

The Mahlers are just as transparent and detailed as the Salons in the mids and highs. The bass on the Mahlers is not quite as tight, but has better weight. The Salons have a little bit better deep bass extension (<25 Hz.). The Mahlers are 3 db. more efficient, but require a careful choice of amp and speaker cables to control the bass.

Both speakers can go incredibly loud, cleanly, with a slight edge going to the Salons due to their use of 4th order crossovers. Because of their bass weight and slam (serious SLAM), I find the Mahlers more satisfying at high volume.

In short, I suggest that you try to demo Mahlers, as they are roughly the same price as Studios and make for an interesting comparison to the Revels.