I think any 2-way small-ish speakers will have limitations. I have been successful with subs and lucked out with speakers and I know it’s very personal, so the more I know the more I would keep my mouth shut. But if I couldn’t I would suggest that you are a British speaker person.
@grislybutter , I wanted to give some thought prior to typing a reply.
It is not that I do not LIKE the Revels, and it is not that I don’t think that they are BETTER sounding than the nearly 30 year old B&W 805s that they replaced. (Sorry, I guess that sentence was kind of a double negative which might be confusing if read quickly.)
I guess what it is, is that now they don’t sound that MUCH better to me than the B&Ws and I was hoping I would like them a lot more.
I felt that the ancient B&Ws were the weak link in my system and I was hoping that technology that was almost 30 years newer and hadn’t been run real hard and put away wet for many years over would simply blow them away, and that is not the way I now feel about them.
What they do that I like is that vocals sound more palpable between the speakers than with the B&Ws. Sometimes the B&Ws were sounding worn out and tired to me and the Revels do not sound that way. With the lights off the Revels do present the illusion of sound that is bigger than the room (the speakers and the walls "disappear") and they do not sound strained doing it. But the B&Ws did that. I guess I don’t know what a "slow" speaker sounds like, or at least if I do, it’s been many years since I’ve had a pair in my system, but with fast source material the Revels "sound fast" (to me) and they don’t sound strained doing it; but the B&Ws also "sound fast" to me with source material that goes fast, and they (the B&Ws) also did not sound strained.
I have to take into consideration hearing loss and my ever changing moods and the deficiencies in the listening environment my system is now living in, but really, in hind sight, I think what maybe I was looking for was something DIFFERENT than the B&Ws, and the Revels are probably really not different as far as principle of function. (And by that I mean as opposed to concentric drivers or horns or AMT tweeters or what have you.)
And I cannot honestly say I have been doing a whole lot of serious listening lately, and I guess I really need to start doing more of that versus lusting over a different speaker I don’t (yet) have. I do not claim to be a poster child for good mental health, and I am sure that this has an effect on why things sound one way to me one day and another way on another day.
