Focal 1038be or Revel Ultima Salon 2?

What is your room dimension?

I agree there is a lot of good stuff out there beyond these two speakers but between these two I've gotta go the direction of the Revel Salon. The Focal just doesn't do it for me.

Salon 2 is one of the best sounding speakers ever made regardless of cost

Sorry to interject a sideline question: are Salon 2s to be driven by powerful SS amps? I ask because I see they are 86 dB sensitivity, suggesting the need for large amps, yet there is one listing here displaying them with smallish tube amps. I have a tube amp so I wonder if I should disregard this speaker altogether.

Thanks!

I currently own Salon2. No, small tube amps won't cut it. You need high current solid state amps. You can try high power tube amps (with a 4 ohm tap to choose). I had a friend bring over a $18k tube amps (transformerless) to demo with the Salon2 and the bass wasn't there.

I have good result with high current solid state amps. The better the amps the better the speakers sounding. Like other high-end speakers, the Salon2 is very revealing. Little changes here and there would be ruthlessly revealed.