Revel vs the field

revels do have a bit of a cult following and i liked their older stuff, but i'm not a big fan of the performa 3 line,  nothing wrong with liking what you like.

I had Focals for a while. I liked Revel or Monitor Audio a great deal more. While the Focals had a crisp mid-range presentation, I felt they were cheaply made and often hard to drive compared to their competition. Also a little too bright.

If you like to tinker, Focals use rather harsch film caps. On the tweeter and midrange replacing them with Mundorf MKPs will really make them sound a lot smoother.

Revel is a lot more neutral than Focal.  The other thing they do exceptionally well is create a very wide sweet spot with a very stable image.  Not something a lot of boutique speakers do at all well, including Focals.  Closer to how well Magico does this.

I have heard the Focal 906 and had the Focal towers in my room for about 2 weeks. I compared them against Fritz Heiler’s Carbon 7 Mk 2 SE and they were not nearly as musical, though the towers threw out a much wider sound stage (because they’re towers).

I cannot speak to Revel’s sound, but I did eventually settle (after hearing Martin Logan XT 60i and Dynaudio Evoke 30 towers) on the Ascend Acoustics Sierra Towers with RAAL tweeters. Really an amazing company (small, engineer founded and run, very effective customer service). That tower is now at TMR for about 2/3rds the price.

I have the Focal 926. I have had Sonus Faber Senetto III and a really nice pair of Quad S-5 in my room and A/B them vs the 926 and neither were able to knock the 926 from their perch. Although the Quad S-5 came really close with their beautiful imaging.  LD let me audition the SF cause I bought the Focals from them.  I had to buy the Quads used but ran them in my living room for months before I sold them.  sold them for couple hundred $ less than what I paid but it was worth it to have them in the house.   Few years later I ask the buyer if he would sell them back and he said NO!

I would advise getting whatever you are considering in your room and run them strait up against the 926.

And I also think the 926 flax drivers loosen up after they have been running for some time so let them warm up when you compare.

Instead of rolling tubes, I say roll speakers!