I owned the 3a's then bought a pair of Revel performa F 30's
F 30's were much better. Kept the Revels for a long time and wish I still had them. |
These questions are always impossible to answer. When you ask "Better, better" at what? Something may be better to one person and absolutely suck to the next.
I find the Revel F30's kind of bright and not as much bottom. I find the Vandersteen 3A (not 3a Sig) a little conjested and maybe not as transparent as it could be-certainly not as transparent as the 3A Sig. However, it's easy to listen to, accurate(as for frequency response) and it's bass goes deeper. It does jazz and acoustic music very, very well. Voices come off a little more realistic.
Shoe likes the Revel, I like the Vandersteen. He is certainly not invalid in his opinion. His tastes run a little different to mine.
The point is, listen for yourself and make up your on mind! |
Both sets of comments above are legitimate. Here's an alternative idea: get your 3A's upgraded to the "Signature" version. I owned 3A's and was pleased and a bit surprised how much improvement the "Signature" version provided. The 3A Sig's provide a significant improvement in the areas of detail and transparency, and I think the upgrade is well worth the rather modest cost. If, after doing the upgrade, you still have the itch to buy the Revels, you should have no difficulty selling your 3A Sig's. |
Strad549,
i still have my 3A (huge sounstaging)in the storage,if interested let me know.Too big for my B/R,downsize to a bookshelves. |
If you care about accuracy of harmonic content that is essential for proper definition of timbre, then there is no contest: Vandersteen does it , Revel, by design, removes harmonic content.
It matters to me, but it might not to you. |
Just to clairify I had the 3A's not the 3A sigs. I would however like to try the Vandersteen 3A sigs. Have heard so many good things about them and did like the way they sounded at the dealer! |
Can you clarify what you mean by "removing harmonic content"? |
"harmonic content"
I take it ='s fidelity of the musical image.
IOW fluid/neutrality/harmony of fq's/non-attacking sound..
As opposed to coarse/grainy/boomy/tin treble/tiresome after 30 minutes. . |
well, it's simple. If you purposely have some of the drivers, even one, out of electrical phase with the other drivers, then there is no way all the harmonic content of timbre will be produced because, by design again, out of phase firing of part of the frequency response will actively remove content. Those step reponse measurements are, in my opinion, accurate and revealing of what a speaker is and is not capable of doing. A 30,000 Hz bandwidth pulse reveals what is going on in the time domain and it is simply a matter of when that speaker manufacturers finally realize this is a gotta have spec. Nuff said. |
Nuff said. As long as you don't choose a speaker by actually listening to it, you're dead right. Nuff said. |
Good point, Evita.
Do we choose our audio system components on electrical and physical properties/theories or because they bring us closer to the event? And we all have enough experience to know immediately when something sounds natural or artificial.
Stevecham: You seem very obsessed with Thiel and Vandersteen speakers and bash every other speaker when you get the chance. Do you honestly feel you can hear the results of the "perfectly phased" designs of Thiel and Vendersteens in your system? And what other speakers have you brought home and put forth much effort to try in your system directly compared to the Thiels and Vandersteens?
After seeing your setup listed on A'gon, I suspect there are a number of tonality, resolution, frequency extreme, dynamics, etc., weaknesses that would easily mask anyone hearing whether or not drivers are within the last half a millimeter out of alignment with the others in your speakers vs. any other dynamic-driver-based speaker design.
I owned Thiel 3.6 and 2.3 a few years ago. They were replaced by Talon Khorus and Peregrine. The Talons had so much more harmonic content, decays and dimensionality that made the Thiels sound sterile and lifeless in comparison.
I think we benefit a lot more if we pay more attention to our ears and not the latest EE text book.
John |
(((Do we choose our audio system components on electrical and physical properties/theories or because they bring us closer to the event?}}} I think we need both to keep it strait. (((And we all have enough experience to know immediately when something sounds natural or artificial.))
Even the best designers will say ears can be fooled. For example you have a guy who loves Piano music
installed in brand x a tweeter that rings at 12k like a bell.
Listening Panel says ""wow"" amazing its like we are there! Ready for sale!
Had Brand X they taken the right mesurments they would see
it was off the mark and some things are too good to be true or could it be maybe they want it this way on purpose?
Then some poor guy who buys em plays a close mike mature Female voice and the grain hits you in the forhead and blames the recording. Is it Ok to excuse these kind of products and call them High resolution?
Isnt It great that Stevecham is having fun with his audio experience? I think its great.
Cheers Johnnyr |
Usually when people say "Attacking speakers" I find they mean "lack of transient detail" or in fact what makes music sound "alive". I agree some of the up market speakers sound ugly, boomy, unpleasant, but perhaps accurate. I don't think most spaces in which I have heard them have been designed to show whether the speaker was good or not, but instead to make a point about how cool audio gear looks in a showroom. This is not a good test, and neither is an EE guide; I agree. Why does point to point wiring sound more natural? I don't know, but I know it can when it's good. Other things, like cryo have real answers; some are more of a mystery. But phasic problems, especially when you look how crappy the response of ANY speaker is when compared to a waveform baseline, is basically an academic problem no matter what. And time delay echoes around the room seem more likely to crop up than a room in which you WILL hear the differences in cone phase. Let alone gear, and interconnects, and current from the wall. |
Good points made here by all. And yes, I can hear the difference. I traded Thiel 7s once for a pair of Dynaudio Contour 3.0s, thinking I needed to downsize, and within 6 months regretted I gave up the Thiels, so I replaced the Dyns with Thiel CS6s and am happy again, have been for almost three years now. And four months ago I added Vandersteen 2Ces to my second system. And no, I am not bashing other speaker manufacturers, bashing is not what I am about here. But I can hear the difference, call it a curse or whatever, but the clarity and accuracy of the source and amp conveys the truth of the music to me and that's what I like. That's how I get lost in the music and forget the gear. It's just how it works for me. I do hear the inaccuracies in other designs. I have enjoyed other speakers but eventually I hear the smear in time and the little things in the timbre that make them inaccurate in the time domain. Could I do this double blinded A/B? I don't know, it would be fun to try. But brittle, dry and lifeless are not what I would ever call Thiel or Vandersteen speakers. That's silly because it's just simply not true. But I still maintain that future eveloution of speaker design will take this into account, and manufacturers will strive to make speakers that are accurate in the time domain. Hey music is about this as much as it is about dynamics and frequency response. And speakers that give you what the partnering amp (and pre and phono and CDP etc) sends is simply what I want to hear, or at least as close to it as possible. So if I spend hard earned bux on components that in the end, screw up a part of the harmonic content, by design, e.g. speakers that invert the midrange driver relative to the woofer and tweeters because of phase angle deivations caused by a third order crossover, then it's not or me. Engineering and art strike a fine balance in this hobby. For me it's a fair target to try to hit both to reach a satisfying musical experience. Go to a music instrument museum sometime and look at all the early versions of the woodwinds and horns, there's a good reason why the current designs have "landed" where they are, art and engineering striking a logical balance.
Maybe we should be asking other manufacturers that don't seem to care about the time domain. Too expensive to engineer? They don't think it matters? Not enough expertise in electrical and acoustic design? All of the above? Why hasn't anyone asked the so-called "top manufacturers," like Wilson, Revel, Sonus Faber, JM Lab, B&W, and others why they don't do this? Could it be that only Thiel and Vandersteen are "wrong?" |
BTW - Why aren't MIT's good with JM Labs? |
