Description
Appearance and shipping: The speakers are clean, stoutly boxed, (photos), and ready to ship with the drivers specially protected. Youll notice in the backside photo that the binding posts are mounted at slightly different elevations from one speaker to the other. Makes no difference at all to their L/R balance or tonality. Will ship to anywhere in the CONUS only or US FOB. Custom grills for improved sound: If youre reading this you know loudspeakers and may therefore wish to read or re-read the detailed measurements and subjective review of the Revel Performa3 M105s by Amir at Audio S*****e Review. His review and exhaustive measurements of a single 105 were performed with the stock grill removed since the 105 grills are stretched on frames and its mostly those frames which alter the response of these otherwise superbly accurate standmounters. Boo, Revel style dept. especially since Revel engineering, uniquely, tests each of its speaker iterations against an assortment of competitors from behind an acoustically invisible screen with playback volumes exactly matched. The result, as Amir says of the 105s, is a neutral canvas that doesnt color everything you play and produces sublime fidelity. Accordingly, for top appearance, protection and especially acoustics, the 105s deserve a frameless grill, particularly if theyre to fulfill their promise in the real world of kids and pets. After researching, I tossed the stock grills, (gone forever and not available with this offer), and obtained a beautifully performing pair of 5/32 in. dia., (superior transparency), staggered metal mesh grills, (included with this offer, see photos), cut to spec by a specialist fabricator. The mesh grills mount magnetically, are frameless ergo effectively inaudible, yet provide a robust barrier to mischief. Bonus: The custom grills look, well, right. Baffle diffraction and voicing: Speaker cabinets like Revels, with square-ish vs. rounded or chamfered front edges, induce a tiny bit of HF diffraction, revealed in the 105s by the absence of this effect - a surprisingly undesirable absence - when I nulled the diffraction with strips of adhesive-backed insulation mounted just outboard of the 105s faceplates. With the 105s so treated, it seemed that a bit of naturalness had been sucked out of their intonation. Without question I preferred the baffles left untreated just as designed, the audio difference being subtle, but vital. At no time, however, either with the baffles muffled or not, did I ever hear the 105s exhibiting anything like hot voicing, which at home always makes the HF output in showroom type speakers sound overcooked and fatiguing. To the contrary, paired with capable electronics through cables of sufficiently low resistance, (10 gauge pure braided copper in runs of 6ft.), the 105s drivers and cabinets combine with extraordinary refinement, summing to a faithful presentation of whatever input one chooses. These are speakers voiced simply and carefully for critical listening. All of this begs the question, whats the diff between baffle diffraction and grill frame diffraction? In simplest terms, the strength of each is a function of the proximity of their diffracting surfaces to the sound source, (tweeter), and the degree to which their diffractions are reflected off the baffle. Grill frame diffraction tends to be stronger and more noticeable on both counts, although rounded frame edges can be somewhat mitigating. Recommended applications: In my comfortably furnished former listening space of 12 x 25 ft x 9 ft., the 105s were operated with their ports bunged, (bungs included), placed just 14 in. from the front wall, and crossed over at 80 Hz to a remotely controllable sub. In this setup the 105s frequency response initially called out for a few db of downward EQ to address a mild node around 150 Hz which caused male voices to sound a bit chesty. Interestingly, I felt this and a similar degree of reduction around 7 kHz needed to be gradually dialed back to zero as the speakers run time accumulated. I had expected something of the opposite as the 105s limbered up, but hey, for personal use, (vs. studio), youre playing for your gut, so its OK to trust that and your own senses with recordings you know well. For me, the Revels native in-room response, once their drivers and internal crossovers had accrued about 40 and 100 hours, respectively, had stabilized to a very even Harmon-compliant downslope, sounding altogether more vocally and instrumentally correct and unforced with their renderings more dynamically present than from any of my previous three standmounters, all from highly reputable manufacturers, no matter how EQd. Moreover, compared to the 105s own slightly larger stable-mates, the Revel Performa3 M106s, which can play marginally lower but louder and with less THD, (the latter difference being inaudible to me, esp. with the 80 Hz crossover), the 105s performed in my setup with noticeably better attack, coherence, and damping, a predictable consequence of the their mid-woofers being smaller and lower in mass. In my preferred 4.1 Hafler setup the stabilized 105s partnered seamlessly with a pair of appropriately LF-restricted and unobtrusive Gallo ADiva Ti-s, (Gallo ADiva SEs would not have worked as well or at all - wrong impedance). Now that Ive been thoroughly spoiled by the 105s in mid-size room deployments, Im all the more careful in evaluating pairs of higher-output primary speakers for my new space with three times the cubic footage. Care: If your medium size listening space is sufficiently furnished or acoustically treated and if youre seated close enough to them, about 6-10 ft., to neutralize side-wall reflections, the 105s will be class-leading performers with reference-level accuracy, imaging, soundstaging and punch. Over a span of 20 months, I usually drove them to around 65 - 75 db, as sampled from my listening spot 9 ft. away, and on rare occasions to about 80 db. The 105s can play way louder, but, please, from wherever you listen, avoid prolonged exposure to 80+ db! Also, keep speaker cones like these away from excess heat or direct unfiltered window light, both of which will eventually degrade the butyl surrounds. Butyl window caulk, BTW, and butyl sealing tape are UV-resistant, but butyl speaker surrounds, not so much, being as thin as they are and as critical to the control of cone excursion. Fortunately, with their drivers kept protected and clean, etc., and exercised regularly, lest the surrounds stiffen back up, the 105s offered here will remain in peak operating condition for years and years, provoking as many grins when reproducing well-recorded Couperin on the harpsichord at salon levels as while banging out the the Bee Gees at stadium scale. Hugely, unreservedly endorsed.
Live search