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Salon 2 vs. F208, shoot out or just killing

Posted by Mr Peabody (A) on November 11, 2014 at 07:20:15

Revel has sure bought some press or made sure the new Performa 3 series gets into a lot of reviewers hands. One such reviewer heard the F208 against the Studio 2 and I forget what other model on Revel's special comparison rig and said the F208 was as good, I've read other such comments as well. I finally got to hear a set of F208's compared to the much more expensive Salon 2 driven by a Levinson rig with a top Marantz Reference DAC.

You may already be getting bored with me being long winded so bottom line, the F208 is nothing like the Salon 2 in sound, different presentation and the Salon 2 kills the F208 in detail, as it should for the price difference. The Salon 2 presented music in a controlled and detailed manner. The F208 had ample and full bass, the type that radiates into the room and you can feel, gives up a bit of detail but I think most who listen to mainstream music would find it fun, vocals were natural and the highs extended. I would have liked to hear the F208 compared to a speaker closer to it's price just to see how the detail compared. The Salon 2 clearly outclassed the F208 in that department so those who are trying to sell a F208 as the poor man's Ultima is full of it. With that being said I think many might like the F208 sound, it's more of a fun presentation with a boogie factor, not so much discipline and control as the P2 series. Worth mentioning the F208 has what I can only describe as a dark background presentation that I liked making the F208 seem to have less glare, and I believe could be why the vocals sound so good. The F208's feature the boundary controls on back to help tailor the sound to different rooms and placements and has a front firing port, so the F208 should sound good most any place. I was also surprised by the quantity of bass coming from a front firing port. One other note regarding bass, and again, consider price difference, the F208 didn't go nearly as low as the Salon 2. On Jazz Variants from Ozone Percussions Group the Salon 2 created a virtual earthquake where the F208 was full there to a point, it was clear it didn't go as low.

I use F52's, will I switch to F208's, no. I personally prefer the more detailed and controlled presentation, in my opinion the F52's are closer to a poor man's Salon 2, same type of character just not to the Salon 2 level. Whether you like the F52 or F208 will clearly be a matter of personal taste, they are clearly not even similar, same can be said for the Ultima's, the F208 is a total different Revel sound in my opinion. I'd say sort of a hybrid combining Revel with aspects of JBL.

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