Why so underwhelmed by Revel F208 audition???

Owned the F208 for 3 years, bought without listening to them based on overwhelming positive reviews at the time. They actually sound pretty good, very neutral, transparent, not fatiguing at all. Was much better than the Paradigm S6v3 I owned as well and sold eventually. I had them hooked up to Pass Labs XP20 and XA30.5.  Had an opportunity to purchase a set of Focal 1028BE since they discontinued this line. This is what I’m talking about. Just in a different league sound wise. so I ended up selling the F208s. Overall I think at its MSRP price point, the F208s are among the best. Next level up are the Focals with pure beryllium tweeters. 

The speakers have not changed nor have the variable tastes of listeners.

in fact these are praised in recent review on asr and I like mine as yet to hear anything 

I just reread the OP and this thread's 5 years old... We just have to pull these speakers out to beat them down every once in awhile lol.

I heard the 228Be recently at a dealer, to me they sounded thin, dry and somewhat boring.  Then they hooked up the Magico A3 and to my ears it was so much more musical.  A large difference was timbre - the Revels did not seem as truthful to the instruments.  This was on 150w/ch tube amps.  

While HK should be able to make their own drivers The F208 have been admittedly outsourced. When I inquired about availability for my salon 1's the reply was worded in a way that made me believe they also were outsourced and you can find that expensive front firing tweeter on madisound. As for any of the other models I have no idea. I've read the arguments for single speaker comparison tests and how their speakers always beat the competition, but I still think that test should be followed up with a stereo pair if they really want to hear whats going on.

totally agree w kr4. it’s impossible to compare speakers that are in separate environments using different electronics.  i think people need to forget about the harmon thing and just experience revel. they make great speakers imo. 

A friend of mine had them both in his system/room at the same time  and, after quite a bit of comparisons, decided on keeping the Revels.  If you haven't heard them in the same system/room, it is difficult to make such judgements.  

    I recently went to hear the 208s, after reading about them. I am considering a possible upgrade from my Aerial 7Bs. I guess after all that has been said about them, I too was somewhat wondering what I was missing. I could hear what others are saying about being transparent, but I feel my Aerials are giving up nothing in detail, and and giving deeper bass response, as well as more depth in soundstage.       

The Revel F208 has a flat soundpower in the 1-2K range. Most speakers have a dip caused by the crossover here. If you look at the spinorama of the Salon2, it has that typical 2k dip and will image more like a typical loudspeaker.

Very strange that the f52’s soundstage and image as good as any and the f208 that replaces it doesn’t. 

The op’s speakers should be out of the closet by now I wonder if his opinion has changed?

I found the Revel F208 an interesting and pleasant speaker to listen to and as others have said one that would be unlikely to cause listening fatigue.They have a very even and nice tonality and driver integration is extremely good.They have unusual imaging however.The soundstage is wide but has very little projection or depth.It seems strange to me that Harman with all their resources would make speakers with that sort of presentation.It is almost  an anti-audiophile statement.Either that or they were never intended for use in 2 channel systems but rather a surround sound system in which the centre speaker would add that depth and centre fill.

I have the F52`s and they sound great !
It`s nice to be able to adjust for room boundaries and treble output too.

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  @garryh16 - Your post would have more value if you included some details...

It might help if he could make up his "mine"........

@garryh16 - Your post would have more value if you included some details... What specifically did you hear that changed your mind about them? Did you audition the speakers yourself, or are you strictly going on the advice and experience of others? That can be a costly lesson. TIA

I was going to buy a set 208s until I spoke to  a guy that works for revel  I changed my mine.

Audiogod I played flesh on flesh. I don't usually do carnival music and that song put me off though not because my ported speakers couldn't handle it and actually the rest of the cd is Stanley Jordan Esq. Not a bad lead. I have a benefit disc, stairway to heaven highway to hell with 3 drum kits playing Moby dick, Jason Bonham and a couple of others will put a system to the test

Most modern speakers are well designed and meet the goals of the engineering team so to dismiss, focal or b&w or kef or revel is likely dependant on many variables. The f208 are neutral sounding full range and have excellent driver integration, they don't have the sizzle of focal's but if you like rock or just enjoy music on older poor quality recordings they will shine just strap 200 wpc to them.

just have to comment on the above " Although I’m not a huge country music fan, I find the Brooks and Dunn track "My Maria" to be a great track to audition speakers to, because it has really well recorded drums, that challenge the mid-bass reproduction abilities of most speakers." (i suspect that corresponds to your port on your Focal)
Wow that is a joke ! that wouldn’t challenge a pair of BBC ls5a
Try Al DI MEOLA Flesh on Flesh SACD -most ported speakers fart out that much bass not funny it is incredibly revealing of bass quality quantity and rhythm and timing -many tracks on this are just incredible
Also for strictly drums get the Sheffield drum and track test cd - turn that up -very well recorded drum solo not overdone rap bass tracks  

Use your ears and forget about opinions of others. Just enjoy the Revel demo. 

This thread is just in time as just began shopping for new speakers and both these Focals and Revels are on my short list. I gave the Aria 936 a quick listen at local dealer and was impressed. Very balanced in frequency response from top to bottom and excellent imaging and dynamics. Maybe a little too smooth at the high end, but I didn’t have my own tunes with me and wasn’t familiar with the songs the dealer had on tap so I can’t say for sure. Again this was a quick listen more than a thorough evaluation. Later I was surprised to see many reviewers claim Focals have a bright top end. Not what I heard but the room was well damped and treated and I’m middle aged so these two factors may also contribute to this impression.

More auditioning scheduled for this coming weekend, the Revel F206 and F208.

So I'm curious of you dissing the Revel's, how do you feel about Golden Ears or B&W by comparison?

Best,


E

Another -vote against the Revel speakers.

I was in the same shoes, I compared Focal Aria 936 to Revel F208.

Neither myself nor the two salesmen were impressed to the Revels. All 3 of us favored the Aria 936 by a big margin. 

Take my advice and wait for "F208 be" with new drivers/crossovers/beryllium tweeter if you are insisting on Revel. 

I cannot stress enough how disappointing and overhyped the Revels are.  And you are absolutely right about the Aria 948's absolutely embarrassing them.  The Revels are the least holographic and open speaker you could imagine at their price point.

I think the Revel / Harman marketing machine is at work.  And way too many people take their (very flawed) testing procedures to heart and have expectation bias when listening to them.  

I owned a pair for awhile (mainly to build a home theater out of) and sold them after a few months.  I too thought they'd get better after break in and they never opened up no matter what I fed them, and I even tried stuff that has no business being paired with a speaker of its price.

I think their concerta line is more respectable per dollar by far.

I just bought a pair of F208’s and was hoping to find them a big upgrade to my Focal Chorus 826v towers. Immediately, I noticed that they did have a much more authoritative bottom end. However, to my surprise the Focal Chorus 826v clearly outclassed them in every other way. Although I’m not a huge country music fan, I find the Brooks and Dunn track "My Maria" to be a great track to audition speakers to, because it has really well recorded drums, that challenge the mid-bass reproduction abilities of most speakers.
Amplifier was a Parasound Halo A21, Marantz Av8801 processor, Sony ES 400 Disc Bluray changer.
When I played the track back to back between the Focals and the Revels, the Focals brought out all of the detail on the cowbell, and the snare drum and reproduced them with a very 3 dimensional quality. Additionally the cymbals had more sizzle with the Focal tweeters. The Revels by comparison, couldn’t come close to the imaging, or detail of the cowbells or the punchiness of the snares in the drum recording. The vocals weren’t quite as well projected either.

I was there with my best friend that helped me with the set-up, and we unanimously agreed that we were hearing the same things. He was actually going to buy the Focals, but he even admitted that I’d be crazy to replace the Focals with the Revels. This should really speak volumes to the quality of the Focal Chorus 826v, since its a generation older, and two price points down from the Revel F208. Just makes we wonder how badly the Focal Aria 948, must kick the crap out of the Revel F208, since they are the same generation and price point. Pretty bad that Revel got beat so badly by a competitors "previous generation, and 2 price points down."

The only thing I can think of is that maybe the Revel’s weren’t broken in fully, but I bought former demo models that had done several days worth of demo duty at an A/V convention... so they certainly weren’t straight out of the box.

You may be like me. I prefer intrinsically damped speaker drivers. Paper pulp and doped fabric - no metal or ceramics for me.

the problem with a rigid driver is that it MUST necessarily have internal vibrations (hit a wine glass with a spoon or think of a bell). This is unavoidable physics. I find rigid drivers often sound hashy and lack the natural sparkle that you get from a damped driver - it is all about timbre and the decay that some people are more sensitive to than others.

Your PMC 22 are paper pulp with a soft dome tweeter and in my mind there is no surprise they sound sublime

That said, some rigid driver designs are better than others. Focal sound pretty good for example - light rigid drivers can be driven by smaller cheaper drive motors and they have a flatter frequency response but they all vibrate internally which can affect timbre - some have added rubber damper dots to ceramic drivers to try to band aid the problem (like putting your hand on the cymbal after hitting it to "choke it") others have used stitching on the rubber surround to dampen the cone (common for a while with polypropylene cones)

Not all pulp paper and soft drivers are superior - being less rigid the designers must worry about breakup of the cone. So it is not completely black or white but what advantages/shortcomings that you as the listener are prepared to accept.

Well I'm an extremely picky audiophile and find the Revel 206 to be outstanding. Also my Salon 2's will compete with anything at their price point IMO..Some very weird opinions here bc one thing the Revels aren't is poorly designed and sound anything less than beautifully musical. Good grief. Kevin V. is a legendary designer with incredible resources for R&D. 

I'm afraid that I too was not bowled over by the F208s, though the salesperson tried to tell me they had the most natural sounding horns ever, I felt they sounded like the sax player used Tupperware for reeds. An exaggerated plastic like sound which is just not natural.

I think one of the big selling points for the F208's is a very wide listening area, but meh.

On the other hand, honestly, I didn't find them objectionable to listen to either. I was just not moved to take money in my pocket and exchange it for the speakers. :)

Best,


Erik

I auditioned a pair of f 32's along  with f 208's and they were being driven by a relatively cheap Anthem 225I and I spent the afternoon enjoying good music. The salesman told me the Revels were power hungry speakers and I was really surprised how well a $1995. integrated  drove them. now comparing the two F-32 were good speakers that could easily pull me into the music but the sound was still coming from different drivers that weren't perfectly integrated, things like "wow powerful bass" or doesn't her voice sound incredible". The f 208's make music, they need gobs of power but I just sat there trying to hear anything they did exceptional, like, 'excellent midrange, or feel the bass, but all I got was music with an open soundstage. I love them. My reference are Kef 105/3, 107/2, beethoven mk2, revel f 52.
 component matching is the holy grail and getting it right is trial and error if you don't have your own shop to mix and match.

Just for completeness I want to say that these Revel 208's are the most amazing speakers I have ever heard. After 3 weeks of listening I just can't pull myself away from them. The top to bottom crystal clarity is so addicting that a pair of f206's will end up replacing my PMC's in my main system.

The poor demo in no way represented these excellent speakers. I believe that the factors that made the f208's sound so bad in that initial audition was a combination of issues

1. They where located in more of a large hallway then a listening room.
2. They had no break in time whatsoever.
3. The electronics that feed them was not great IMO.
4. I'm very picky about sound quality.

After having owned them for 6 weeks now (3 weeks break in) I am simply smitten by them. They make the majority of my music sound amazingly good, They can also make a bright, edgy and thin recording sound really bad...but that's what transparency does. They do require decent electronics to sound good. Maybe not the best hard rock or headbanger speaker but make most of my lighter rock to classical sound fantastic. Read my review on this site called 'Revel f208 review by Earl'.

Earlxtr: I have a Modwright KWI200 integrated. In retrospect the Revels weren't terrible, but they were definitely too bright for me. The KEF R700 I tried around the same time had smoother treble IMO

I have the F208's running at listening levels, except for at night when when I feed them low level choral music so I can sleep. The Stereophile reviewer says they need 500 hours to reach their optimal sound quality, which is around 3 weeks.

I also ordered Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone for my first listening session. Apparently that's a tradition with any new pair of Revel speakers:))) I'll also pull over some of the jewels from my main system (Metum Hex and Benchmark Pre -> 4BSST2) so I have optimal electronics to feed them with. I'm not expecting miracles but I hope they get close to the gorgeus sound of the PMC22/Rythmik combo.

Any speakers -even cheap ones, can sound 'great' under the right conditions. I have heard many demos where I was underwhelmed by the speakers. It's often the room. Also, I think we all get used to (conditioned) a certain sound and when we hear something different, unless it is noticeably a lot better, we compare it to what we are used to (for example, as another poster mentioned above, the system we have may have great bass because it has a subwoofer. If a small speaker is auditioned, it's hard to evaluate it solely on the freq's it reproduces when you're used to hearing full range). And then as everyone above states, there are so many other variables that could affect the sound. The worst speaker I ever heard that I "knew" was better was a Vienna Acoustics Baby Beethoven. It sounded thin and terrible, and I know it was the room. One of the best I ever heard - and I mention all of this because I think some speakers are less room AND equipment fussy, was the Harbeth SHL5. I ended up owning a pair and they always sounded good, no matter where I put them or what they were paired with. So, my point and opinion is, all speakers can sound good, and some of them need more attention than others. None are really bad. The problem comes when you buy a great speaker that needs a ton of power (or whatever) - B&Ws and Aerials are examples - and you don't have the right match, for whatever reason.

Make sure to do a bunch of the breaking in at normal listening levels...

I just listened to my F12's to break them in, they sounded much better after only 50 hours of break in time and even better after 100 hours, I never auditioned the F208's so don't no how they sound, I would think they should sound better than my F12's, I have a pair of Infinity IRS Epsilons ($16,000.00 in 1995) that I can compare them with, no they do not sound as good as the Epsilons but for their price the F12's sound very good, can't wait to see what you think of the F208's as I was thinking of getting a pair.

I now have my new F208 speakers facing each other in a closet with blankets over them breaking in. Of course I only feed them the highest quality music such as Saleh, Academey of ancent music, Carrie Underwood and let's not forget the god of rock, Van Halen:))))) it's going to be about three to 4 weeks before they come out of the closet for a listen.

Did OP indicate what else was in the underwhelming system?

Speakers make no sound by themselves.

Also there is always possibility of something in the system not working properly or up to spec.

Or the sound might just be significantly different than what OP is used to and likes hence judged not good.

Of course it all depends. No easy answer. If really interested, best thing would be to do repeat demos and account for as many factors as possible each time. Or just chalk it up to not ones cup of tea and move on. There are many fish in the sea and different strokes for different folks, you know all the old cliches that get tossed around all the time because they are so true.

Hi Earlxtr ..... Congratulations on buying the F-208's ! I've been extremely happy with my Revel F-12's for almost three years now, and am loving the total presentation of these speakers. For a long time, I was the proud owner of Vandersteen 1C's, and when I was considering speakers with greater dynamic range and fuller bass, a well respected Rogue Audio dealer (I have the Cronus integrated) recommended Revel as a beautiful match to the Rogue electronics. He was absolutely correct ! ..... Revel and Rogue Audio is a sublime combination. You may want to consider seeing how you like a Rogue Audio amp with your new F-208's.

Anyway, now that you made your purchase, sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite music ! Properly set up and properly driven, Revel speakers are wonderful !

The_rang: what electronics did you feed them with at home?

OK, I just took a FLYING LEAP OF FAITH and bought a new (warranty replacement) pair of F208 speakers for the price of the F206. If buying speakers without listening to them is a cardinal sin, what do you call buying speakers that you listened to and didn't like??? To some this might seem like utter insanity but I have read so much about this speaker that I am willing to take the risk and am very confident I will love them.

I have since read several forum posts that state that these speakers need 300+ hours of break in to hit their sweet spot and that they do sound like crap right out of the box.

Also, my most trusted review site is not very complimentary to the Arcam A39 and I believe my METRUM->BENCHMARK->BRYSTON setup will make a world of difference.

Worst case is I sell them at not a huge loss...but if that happens I'm going to get my internet disconnected and never believe anything I read ever again!!! :)))))))

I recently heard the F208 and another much more expensive model, 20K+ CDN and thought both were on the dull side.
Thought the F206 were great with Cyrus gear so brought 'em home for a demo......awful.
Bass was OK, enough of it but I've heard tighter.
The treble had me running for the volume control, hate to say it but my first thought was "metal tweeters strike again"

Erikminer: if I would have loved them, then break in time would not have mattered. Since I didn't, I started hunting for reasons.

Kr4: I once bought my mother a pair of Yamaha powered monitors for her Yamaha P250 keyboard. Overall I liked the sound but the high end irritated my ears a bit. A some months latter when I returned, all the irritation was gone and only a very sweet top end remained. Either the speakers got broken in or my hearing deteriated to the point where I could no longer hear that high any more:)))))))

Bombaywalla: I did not say the sensitivity to electronics was a good thing or a bad thing... I was making the point that electronics can have a significant affect on the sound of a very revealing speaker, which even you concure with by your response. Weather that's goid or bad is a whole other discussion.

The OP could have saved him self an awful lot of time if he'd botherd to ask the dealer if the speakers were broken..

Earlxtr wrote: Of course no break in on the Revels is one considerable factor, IMO.

I doubt it but that reflects my bias on that topic.

Have you now heard the Revel speakers? Do you think the Revels rival the Brystons?

I have heard the Revels only at show demos and would not dare to make a comparison based on that.

The Arcam in question certainly has me quite curios on how they achieve a class A operation output of 20W until it switches over. My own Pass X250.5 used to power the Revel's hit about 15wpc before going A/B, and are far heftier and run decently warm from the get go. The Arcam appears very light for running that many watts in class A, which often requires plenty of heat dissipation.

There's no reason that the Class-G ARCAM cannot output 20W/ch in pure class-A & then switch over to class-AB. It's more a question of how much output current delivery does the ARCAM have compared to your Pass X250.5. The ARCAM looks like a traditional class-AB design. From the size of the chassis & the heat sinks size it appears that the power transformer used is modest so one cannot expect high current delivery like the Pass X250.5 & that is one difference.
The other difference is that the class-G ARCAM probably runs nominally at a lower DC power rail. Unlike the the Pass X250.5 that runs at its max DC power rail voltage thereby dissipating more heat while idling. This the efficiency that ARCAM is talking about in their literature on their A39 product page. They call in the higher power rail only when the program material is playing & when the program material requires it. So, if the ARCAM is running off a lower supply rail then the heat dissipation will be much less than the Pass X250.5.

I once demo'd some ATC speakers using ATC amplification and they sounded wonderful. Then the dealer replaced the ATC preamp with one from another brand (sim audio I believe) and the sound was completely wrecked. I then realized how much the electronics can affect a very transparent speaker.
Earlxtr

good observation but the wrong conclusion.
IMO, that ATC speaker is a bad design since it is so sensitive to the electronics. A well-designed speaker should not be & if it is then there's something going on with its impedance. In such a case the manuf can make some electronics that can exactly compensate for that varying impedance such that the overall sound from the amp+speaker is satisfactory but if you remove the compensating electronics, as you did, the varying impedance is back & destroys the music playback. So, the user gets limited by what electronics one can use. This should not be the case.
This ATC speaker seems like a high-Q design - just a little off the peak & you fall down sharply into the depths of mediocre playback. Bad news!

i'll add, probably gratuitously, two points:
1. you should listen to whatever almarg tells you, as he is always right
2. i haven't heard the f208s but have heard the the 206s, f52s and f30 (which i still own) with a variety of amps and concur that as a brand they're very, very mercurial--depending on the amp they can sound like a completely different speaker, particularly insofar as low end response is concerned. I useta think they needed a lot of juice because of their low sensitivity, but actually got great results with a modest 125w parasound. in any case, i think the above posters are correct in positing that you'll get better, or certainly different results with another amp.

Mmeysarosh: The settings on the speaker where all set to normal during the demo.

Thank you for your responses!!!

I do still believe that these are a good speaker...I've simply read too much posative stuff about them to just give up on them. Once my dealer has broken them in I will go back with my electronics and try them...and I expect a completely different result.

I once demo'd some ATC speakers using ATC amplification and they sounded wonderful. Then the dealer replaced the ATC preamp with one from another brand (sim audio I believe) and the sound was completely wrecked. I then realized how much the electronics can affect a very transparent speaker.