Revel Performa F228 Be speaker... thoughts?

There is not a better speaker then the 228be in its price range. Just have to listen to things and see what you like. They are a flat accurate speaker and that does not mean you will like them but they are near perfect. 

Well if you don’t want comments you will not get any…. Buy some and see if you like them…

 they have no real flaw and multiple measurements back that up. Does not mean you will like them if you like some coloration. 

 I like wilsons better even though they are a “worse” speaker in all factors other than I like the coloration in the mids and bass of the wilsons. the Sabrina is twice the price more or less and worse in absolute terms. 

The Kef reference 3 is 50% more and much worse to my ear even though it measures well it sounds hard in the highs and lacks dyamics. 
The Sonus Faber Olympica nova 3 is very good but again it is not better in anyway way just different. it lacks the bass authority (leading edge impact) of the Sabrina to my ear but very close in sound. 

So no one can help you. Buy what you like. 
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/revel-f328be-speaker-review.17443/

https://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-performa-f228be-loudspeaker-measurements

Well I impulse bought a pair of these 228bes. They were a screaming deal, new in the box at used prices. 


I am still working through the setup with only about 5 hours on them but my opinion of them remains the same as my comments above. This is a very good even handed speaker. No real flaws but with no razzle dazzle either. 


On a personal note I find them lacking bass extension and intern weight without subs but I use duel subs in all my systems. Currently high-passing at 60hz using JL E112 subs, McIntosh MC462 amp and a wyred 4 sound DAC as a preamp (plan to replace the w4s soon).



The 228be seems a hair more forward in the highs than the 328be from memory (same amp). With my subs I am getting better bass than the 328be alone vs the 228be with subs (different room…). Room tuning the bass with subs is a nice option. 


Based on the amp meters (accurate/not???) I am getting 100db with 4.5 watts. Surprised how clean these sound at very loud volumes. I only really listen at 80-85 but I do have a duel home theater music room so nice to know they will not self destruct during a movie.

The Kanta is a fine speaker I am sure but it will need subs imo. 

You can these the bass drops off hard after 100hz and relies on room gain which can be hard to optimize both soundstage and bass or if you have an odd room. Below 100hz you are listening to the port which might not be as clean. 
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2090:nrc-meas...


you can also see there is too much energy in the off axis around 5k. Could make toe in/out tricky depending on how narrow your room is.

I like focal as a brand and having owned both Revel and Focal they are somewhat  similar in house sound. What I can say is that in the US the 228be is both much cheaper and measures better. The tweeter is cleaner to my ears too. Keep in mind the comparable Focal is the Sopra 3 not the Kanta. 

Mtrot,

thanks for catching my mistake. Try this link below for the Kanta 2. Similar tuning as the drivers drop off around 100hz and a strong port tuning picks up. I have personally found this type (strong port output) of tuning a little hard to place. I bet if you dig you will find people that say the Kanta has lots of bass and others that say it has no bass. Both probably true and room dependent with that type of tuning. 
https://www.stereophile.com/content/focal-kanta-no2-loudspeaker-measurements


The 228be is much larger (volume wise) than the Sopra 2 and closer to the Sopra 3 in both size abs driver layout. The crossover points are almost the same too. I think a lot of the extra weight of the Sopra 3 comes from the glass base. 

The only real negative of the 228be is that it gives up bass extension for efficiency. I run subs with everything but if someone was agents subs they might want to pass on the Revels. But the light bass tuning gives them the ability to play crazy loud with little distortion. I imagine this was done for the home theater crowd. 
Anyway I really like the current Focal line. I just think they are over priced in the US with their recent price increases and I feel that Revel is on the lower end of the price scale making them a good buy if you are not worried about having something fancy and exotic looking. 

Yes the high tweeter on the 228be could be an issue at 33”, which is pretty low. My ear is about 38” and I sit 9’ away and have not had any problems. 
I got the Revel 228be for $6300 from Music Direct “new”. They were marked as demos but showed up unopened with the frisk still on them. They had 3 pairs marked as 60 day returns or demos but looks like they are all sold now. 
I demoed the Sonus Faber Olympica III, Wilson Sabrina, Revel 328be, Kef Reference 3, Klipsch Cornwall IV, Klipsch La Scala, B&W 803D3, and 804D3 before buying tue Revel. I liked the 328be the best and figured the 228be with subs I owned would work well and save some cash. It was an impulse buy due to bring so cheap but worked out well. Interestingly I inquired about ordering a pair through another dealer and was quoted an 8 month lead time (crazy) then started looking around online. 

I have heard the Salon 2 and 328be in the same room back to back but on different electronics. McIntosh C49/MC462 on the 328be and Mark Levinson on the Salon. salons on the inside and 328be on the outside. 

So not a true direct comparison but they are very similar. As a whole the 328be system seemed to have cleaner more even highs (to my ear) and the Salon system had deeper bass. They would be hard to tell apart if they were not in the same room. room/toe in/ and general setup will probably make a bigger difference than the speakers then selves. I felt like the equipment was making a bigger difference. I could hear the Mac sound through the 328be. I own Mac so no hate just an observation. The sound was a bit more in front of the 328be and a bit more behind the Solon. Again just a demo room so not super tweaked out.

I would be iffy on buying the Salon/studio as they are more or less discontinued. They have been out forever and I question part support going forward. Maybe if you don’t have kids running around to worry about breaking them. 

I have owned older B&W and Focals. I would take the Focals every time. B&W’s only good speaker imo is the 803/802/800 and even they have some midrange and treble oddities. Amazing speakers messed up with questionable tuning.  

Most impressive thing of the 228be has been the mids (well and how stupid loud they play) So transparent but natural sounding. The mids are a little forward for a revel but just a hair forward in reality. Really great speaker but I don’t think it impresses during the demo. When I demoed the 328be I thought it had the least issues of everything I demoed but I was not wowed. Even having them at home it took me almost a week to appreciate them but they were good right away. Not sure if it was positioning, sub integration tuning (I use two high-passed at 60hz), break in or psychoacoustics (I am going with the last one lol!) but I really like them now and have finally had a few wow moments. 

I have a hometheater music room so now the decisions is do I get another pair and center… or just live with a mix and match home theater. I am 90% music 10% home theater.  

 As a side note I have never had a speaker that can play this loud. I don’t understand what is going on. Maybe it is the 24db crossovers and some what limited bass extension. But even at 100db the sound seems to never compress or change. The highs are still clean, no midrange break up and the room gives up and rattles long before the bass drivers. From 70db to 100bd they frequency balance seems to stay the same. 

mtrot,

all ported speakers work that way but speakers with larger boxes get lowers before dropping off. The subject of this thread the 228be is on example and it goes down to 60hz before heavy roll off starts. 


The Sophia 3 is another example. Even though the 228be’s two 8” drivers have 20% more surface area than the 10” of the Sophia 3, due to the large box of the Sophia 3 it goes down to 50hz before dropping off (resistance and other things at play here but box size is #1)
At each point the port picks up where the drivers leave off. Room gain most likely adds 6 db of bass in the low 30/40hz and you can see that the Sophia is down about 5db at the port and the 228be is down at 6db. 


In listening to both the Sophia 3 has stronger deeper bass than the 228be. The 228be sounds rolled off to me. But with subs crossed in at 60hz all of this goes away. The 228be has much cleaner highs and the mids are more transparent and natural imo. I believe the 228be with subs (picture of my setup in my profile) is better than the Sophia 3 with or without subs.


  
This more or less is how all ported speakers work. Larger boxes are always better. The issue with the Kanta IMO on paper…. Is that the box is pretty small and the port is tuned pretty hot. At high volume it will be limited and chuffing could appear. I think at normal volume they will be 100% fine in every way but next to a large speaker in a large room they will come up short when played loud.
Another approach active speaker when the power is increased in the low bass to get flat down to 20hz. This is effetely what is burnt done when you high-pass in subs. It turns the speaker into a 4 way with active bass. The kicker is you as the user then kind of become the speaker designer which is not for everyone.
Since we are on a harman thread so to speak harman claims that in their subjective data bass extension attributed to 30% of the total positive opinion of their blind test. Interesting for sure abs it show how important it is to get the bass right.



So nothing wrong with the Kanta just point out as a smaller speaker it will be more limited in shear output. Rear wall placement could be more critical too.


https://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-performa-f228be-loudspeaker-measurements



https://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-audio-sophia-series-3-loudspeaker-measurements



Video of audioholics talking about how good the bass is on the Kanta. Notice how close they are to the wall. 24” maybe and this is probably where they need to be for strong low flat bass.
https://youtu.be/KVNoiBOf96o

mtrot,


No problem, just one armchair hero’s opinion lol. 

Yes either speaker, the Kanta 2 or the Revel 226be should work fine close to the wall. Typically measurements are taken from the driver face. I pushed my Revel 228be back to 24” and 39” and turned the subs off just see if I could get some more punch out of them. I did and surprisingly it sounded fine with no major bass boom (ran a quick measurement and was pretty flat). I later moved them back out from the wall and turned the subs back on. 

I think I would take the Kanta 2 over the revel 226be in this case. Being that they are both “smaller” speakers they both appear to be tuned (low bass roll off) to sit closer to the wall. If you are going to be doing home theater I think there is some leverage for the Revel as their matching center channel is pretty awesome. But I think there is more pride of owner ship with focal (they look great and are “fancy” lol). 

Between those two I think the Kanta looks more interesting. I have never heard the or the 226be (or Kanta) but based on owning the 228be I would imagine the 226be is pretty bass light as the 228be is tuned lean also. 
Another really good speaker is the older Focal 1038be. A pair on here for $6000. I almost bought the 1037be when I demoed them. 
Here is a good review of the 226be with measurements below. 

https://youtu.be/r1JjCVVgIdc

Steve59,

That is just the way of the world these days. Happens less in highend audio I guess. I own an $8,000 mountain bike and not a single part is made by the company I bought it from. They design it and outsource everything, even assembly. 

As for Revel I think it shows in their fit and finish. It is not bad but they showed up with little things that would not happen with Wilson, Magico or B&W. Minor glue marks and some very small paint issues etc. 

But I still feel you can’t get a better speaker for the money sound wise. There might be one someone likes better but objectively it will not be better. The 228be is neutral, very detailed and seem to have limitless volume output in a domestic listening room anyway. As I get used to them the mids are very natural and effortless. In my demos the mids did not standout but now they have my attention. 

At the $6300 I paid for the 228be they are going to be hard to replace. I will have to spend a lot more (multiples of their cost) for something maybe just different. Like many people I am always looking for my next speaker. I would love to try some big JBL horns or own big Wilsons but not sure it is worth it at this point. 

I think I will just start playing with more room treatment. I have my entire ceiling treated now. I put 6” of dens mineral wool behind an acoustic drop tile. That made a huge different is the sound of the room. With the Thiels I had the tweeter was low and shot straight into my theater seats (big wide soft cloth seats), this kept the rear wall reflections to a minimum but the revels tweeter is above the seats and wow does it excite the room, so i need to do something with the rear wall now and will try some wide band bass traps at the first reflection points while I am at it. 

Steve59,


No, offense taken, Revels don’t fall in the pride of ownership category. They look too plain and the fit and finish is just not three. Not bad but clumsy/plastic looking next to Sonus Faber or Focal. 
They do however sound good in absolute terms and excellent for the money. cost no object most of use would own Rockports or similar brands with extreme attention to detail.