Revel Studios for half price?

GMA quotes : "We do indeed match to tight tolerances as stated above- always have. I personally have re-checked drivers and crossover parts from customers' speakers we made going back 20+ years, and seen no remarkable changes. Your measured differences don't agree with our tests, or those published by Brent Butterworth, Andrew Marshall or John Atkinson. So there must be a wiring error inside, if the speakers weren't abused. I'd encourage that owner to contact us to make it right."

Im sure you do under circumstances. But the 2 pairs we had(this was 2-3 years back btw)wouldnt match up and the soundstage seemed to shift with moderate power amplifier loads. We did do basic checks for polarity, but everything did seem in order. The speakers were in the posession of a BA rep at the time. They seemed to be in good condition. But I didnt physically break the speaker down either.

GMA quotes: "BTW, our drivers are not "average", but it's understandable how you'd have a negative opinion after getting such weird measurements. The drivers we've used over the years are the most linear, and many times not flashy-looking. Linearity is not an opinion- it's a set of measured quantities, and you should have been able to see linear behaviour in your measurements. This is why I suspect we screwed up or that the speakers were abused."

Yes, measurements do give a first impression(along with sound quality of course). And our first impression sure wasnt a sparkling review(but thats not to say they sounded bad, as I felt they did sound very good with a definete "Vandersteen" quality to them). And I am know your drivers have to be linear to implement the crossover slopes used. This is a given. Drivers sure dont need to look "flashy" to be a quality driver either. I dont want to give off that impression. But I still felt that for the money they represented that better drivers or crossovers could have been used but then of course that cuts into profit margin, and of course trade-offs need to be made Im sure you will agree at least to some extent. In high end speaker design, I feel that the biggest offender is the passive crossover set though.

Just out of curiosity what tolerance parts are used in your crossovers?

Thanks for your comments, Ritteri.

From what you said about the image shifting with power levels, I believe an employee (no longer with us) must have wired the L-pad resistors to mid and tweeter "backwards", which would produce some strange results. It would have likely affected both pair, as they would have been made together.

"for the money they represented... better drivers or crossovers could have been used."
You may not know those retailed in 1995 for only $1295/pair, for a 10" three-way.
We don't believe we compromised:
Hovland and Solen caps,
Solen air core inductor on the mid,
350Watt E-I laminate-core inductor for the woofer,
voice-coil Zobels on all drivers,
high-power non-inductive resistors,
Kimber TC wire with Wonder solder, hard-wired,
a Morel neodymium soft dome with acoustic felt around it,
a 4.5" mid made for us which measured +/-1dB from 250Hz to 5kHz before any crossover circuit was applied,
an Audax 10" woofer we modified with a vented dustcap and epoxy reinforcing its chassis,
an industrial-grade particle board woofer cabinet with adjustable spikes, and
a cast marble mid and tweeter housing, adjustable for "Soundfield Convergence" to most any listening position.

We sold several hundred of them, but never got the man-hours down low enough to make sufficient profit- one of the mistakes of a young company...

You are right- passive crossovers usually veil the sound. Over the years, we've found better parts (the best parts?), and still only use one or two per driver with no circuit board, which is about as transparent as you can get. Much of the loss of transparency I found came from using certain well-known brands of parts. Much sharpness is also lost from the "voicing" tricks designers use when the circuits are not time coherent, to "compensate" for cabinet reflections from the mid and tweeter, to "correct" drivers that have non-flat responses, and to balance the sound from multiple woofers/mids/tweeters for a specific listening distance. As you may know, these manipulations always produce a very irregular impedance curve and/or a complicated circuit.

Our tolerances for capacitors: < 0.5% from the design values, +/- 0.05% pair match.
Inductors and resistors: < 1% from design spec, +/- 0.1% pair match.
Drivers: < 0.5dB from the design spec max (usually +/- 0.25dB), +/- 0.25dB pair match.

No way to know where those speakers went?

Thanks again for your thoughts.
Best,
Roy

Man, this is some great reading!

$1295 back in 95' to what now? Dont want to under sell em by all means, just dont go to the other extreme(Like Wilson Audio) either if you know what I mean! =)

For a 10" three-way, we've made the Continuum 1.5 since 2000. It has several times the parts cost of the C-1, with better cast marble visually and acoustically, and an even stronger and quieter (more difficult to make) woofer cabinet. $4995/pair in black. And it sounds better.

We are still working on a less expensive 3-way. Sound quality is not an issue. Simplifying the design to reduce man-hours in cast marble and cabinetry is.

Have an excellent weekend!
Best,
Roy