Revel Ultima Salon 2's vs B&W 802d's

oops; to correct my last post; the Revels were in fact powered by the Mark Levinson amps...not Parasound...

Did you listen at Definitive Audio in Seattle? Your experience sounds similar to mine, auditioning-wise.

Last year I listened to the "new" 802Ds, at Definitive (they just came in) and they certainly didn't sound veiled at all. Interesting that you had that impression.

Personally, I don't care for the sound of Wilson speakers. They seem "voiced" for a particular spectral balance, and I prefer a much more neutral speaker. Dave Wilson must like "Technicolor" frequency response curves. I do like Wilson's fit and finish over the Revel's. Harman clearly spent the bucks on R&D, drivers, and cabinet construction, and the Salon2 looks cool to my eyes (especially in black), but it doesn't look like $22K.

Where the Revel cleans house, IMO, is in imaging. I've had my pair for a about a year now, and I'm still amazed by the soundstage they throw. Just amazed. A couple of nights ago I was letting someone else sit in the sweet spot in my room, and I sat in front of the right speaker. Even in that skewed position I still heard the image coming from between the speakers and not from the speaker in front of me.(!) I've only heard two other speakers that can pull off that trick, the OHM Walsh (I heard the 4000 in a private home) and the Linkwitz Labs Orion, and neither one of those seems to do the pinpoint imaging trick in the sweet spot.

Nonetheless, I can understand where different people, with different preferences and priorities, would prefer the 802s or the Wilsons. I suppose that has always been one of my complaints with high-end audio, in that many of us want to search for the "one best" solution. As with musical instruments, I'm not sure there is such a thing wrt speakers in real rooms.

I think a more truthful comparison should have been made with the same amps; "and the Revel Ultima Salon 2's...the B and w were powered by recommended Classe power amp; revel's I think by Parasound", or ML as you later described. These are vastly different amps and therefore, will reveal the differences in these speakers based on the power derived from the amplifier and the amplifier design itself. That does not make it a close A/B comparison, unless you hook up each speaker to the same amp.

I for one, do not think that Classe amplifiers are an automtatic match to all of the B&W's, as any amplifier for that matter, and the same could be said for matching amplifiers with Wilson's or Revels.

I have the Salon 2s with ARC electronics. I can tell you I'm extremely happy with this system. Did not listen to the B&W 802Ds but they appear to be a very nice upgrade to the previous version of this speaker.

I've had B&W before (804s) as well as Revel (F32s). My personal preference has been with the Revel.

Again, both are very nice. Down to personal preference.

Enjoy!

I'll update you guys in a bit.

My problem is that I haven't had time for extended listening to both in an A/B test (I had one night and need a couple of others now that I know what types of music I want to compare). The only way I can make this happen is to have my wife out of the house for an extended period of time, but that's hard to make happen (unless I offer her a trip to New York).

The way I'm doing it is hooking the same equipment up to the speakers and changing out the leads to the speakers - so I'm not biased by upstream equipment. An initial impression: I was really surprised by the Revels. The only place where I thought I might prefer the B&W's was on vocals (pretty sweet here). The soundstage and imaging on the Revels is really something. There is detail in the Revel's that I didn't hear in the 802d's. Now I want to confirm that initial impression before making a decision.

Variation in the placement of the speakers is limited though and I think this would have an effect on the sound (i.e. putting the BW's in a different room setup from the Revels will change the impression of the sound). I'm still wondering if my Bryston 4bSST is better suited to one or the other speaker (and/or the same question with my CR 2500a). I'm thinking about biamping, but these amps do not really match well (impedance of 29 on one and 27 on the other).

The wife likes the less "alien" look of the Revels, but not the size.

Thanks for the input guys. I quit checking 'cause I thought no one was really interested in this topic.