Former Revel Salon Owners: What Did You Switch To?

Jeff, after careful consideration and extensive listening experience with numerous alternative speakers, I upgraded my Salons to the Evolution Acoustics MM-Twos. The upgrade is very substantial and highly recommended.

I think you will have a hard time finding a speaker that beats the Salons at its price point. The Salons are truly world-class speakers with superlative transparency and timbral accuracy. The Evolution Acoustics speakers are the only speakers I found to clearly top the performance of the Salons in the reproduction of large scale orchestral music at a price that is within the stratosphere.

The Revel Salons were my last dynamic speakers. Before that I had several versions of the Wilson Watt/Puppies and prior to that Thiel 3.6's. Before all those loudspeaker boxes with their dissimilar drivers and inherent distortion inducing crossovers and cabinets, I had owned and thoroughly enjoyed the Crosby modified Quad ESL-63's. I have returned to Quad electrostatic loudspeakers two years ago and purchased the Quad ESL-2905. Truth be told, for years I had missed the Quad's seamless, accurate, musically involving and non-fatiguing presentation. Switching back to the Quad's after many years absence was heavenly! Simply stated - Quad ESL-2905's sound like music and the Revels sounded like "Big Hi-Fi". Good Luck with your search!

Being once very familiar with the Salons. As an alternative I would point you in the direction of the Aerial 20T's, Dynaudio C4's, Avalon Isis, Focal Utopia, or Montana XP's.

My personal favorites are the Aerial and Dyn C4's. The Aerial 20T being what I'm in love with and one I plan on living with for a loooooooong while.

ttowntony- The Avalon Isis are $65k new! I don't think that's in the ball park for Jeff, and certainly out of the league for this comparison. Maybe you meant a lesser Avalon model? However I agree they are excellent (they had better be at $65k!!).

I also agree with your suggestion of C-4's. I recently compared the latest version of the Salons to the C-2's in the same room with the same pieces driving and actually preferred the less expensive C-2's more natural laid back tone and deeper more defined soundstage. The C-4's should be a step up from the C-2's and they go for about $9-$10k used.