Revel speakers - dealer scuttlebutt

All - likely will not engage in discussing with dealers brands they don't carry.  John Rutan is  excellent ---- A great ear and trustworthy.  Independent research --- Audiogon, magazines, friends, etc.  all help with  providing useful information  to inform buying decisions.   Many thanks!

A lot of dealers used to intensely dislike the CEO of Harman and had lots of bad things to say about Revel/JBL/Levinson.  I doubt the move to Samsung improves peoples perspectives.  Since they moved their products to on-line retailers like Crutchfield it gets worse.  

Saying Harman/Revel is having financial concerns is odd and likely the dealer is hoping you don't know it is owned by Samsung.  Given Harman made a strategic decision to go all in on Revel and JBL at the expense of Infinity, seems unlikely Samsung is going to kill that brand without making efforts to revitalize it.  Not that I actually think it is having any issue given the recent launch and now expansion of the PerformaBEs.  

Likely a rumour started to disparage a very effective competitor to many companies.  

I had the Revel F208s' nice fit and finish but in the end I found another brand that far surpassed them in detail, dynamics and soundstage. The brand is not"mainstream" that I currently have now plus they are not that much more than the F208s.
Just my 2 cents.
Happy Listening
Mark

I was wondering why Revel hadn't introduced a new Ultima line after what is now 11 years.  They haven't introduced a top of the line speaker since 2008.  And suddenly you see their Ultima 2 line all over the net.  Curious.

It may be "all of the above".

I have no knowledge about Samsung’s business plans but remember that Samsung bought Harman International mainly for their car audio business. In that way, Revel might have been just bundled with what was an actual interest. In relatively similar cases, companies have tried to sell brands they were not interested in. It would not be too surprising to see Revel being for sale at some point. As Revel salesman in their company showroom told me when we talked about this..."Hopefully not to some hedge fund". A bit more optimistically, he was preparing to go to some meeting in California to discuss some new (?) items. It was some months ago.

Ever since this Samsung acquisition, I have been wondering if the quality of materials and craftmanship will decrease. Kind of like a "they don’t make them like they used to". Does anyone have any comparison?