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In Reply to: RE: Anyone heard or even bought the Revel Studio2 or Salon2? Are they a big step up from the original models? (nt) posted by Guy F on January 28, 2008 at 04:46:08
As a former speaker designer (Avalon), I can tell a fair amount from just the specs and photos. The parts you can see (eg, the drivers and the cabinets) should be significantly superior to the first generation designs. All that leaves are the parts you can't see -- the crossovers, the internal wiring, and the connectors.Based on the parts you can see, I would say that they definitely deserve an audition. And if the parts you can't see aren't up to snuff, you could always do a parts upgrade yourself.
One problem may be finding a place to audition them. They never really seemed to catch on very strongly with the dealers. Good luck and let us know what you find out.
Edits: 01/28/08Follow Ups:
was superb. Upgrade fever has me wondering if I should go for broke (literally) and try to hear them. The only problem is the dealer who sold me my Studios no longer carries Revel.
Thanks again,
Guy.
It seems to me that many TAS reviews are less than critical. But I still think that the Salon 2 speakers have pretty much state-of-the-art drivers. The cabinet is a very big improvement over the originals. The original series had cosmetic features that created diffraction problems, while the new series has a much better design from an acoustic standpoint. As a bonus, they look much better too, in my opinion.
So I would say that they are definitely worth an audition. I would think that they would be very competitive with most speakers in their price range.
But as you found out, it may be hard to find a dealer. They never had very wide distribution to begin with. Part of the problem may have been the strange cosmetics of the original Salons. So they may be able to make some headway with the new series. On the flip side, many people may be unsure about Harman's future plans.
They are a $3.5 billion publicly held company. 70% of their revenue comes from car audio, 15% from pro audio, and 15% from home audio. They recently tried to sell the company for a ridiculously over inflated price that was more the 2x gross annual sales. Their stock had been trading at $100, and when news of the pending sale broke, it went up to $120. But then the deal collapsed, and the last I heard was that Harman shares were selling for less than $40.
I would assume from the fact that they were trying to sell it meant that the current owners are tired of running a conglomerate of audio businesses. And after the deal fell through, they are probably scrambling to find a way to boost their stock price so they don't get sued by their shareholders. (I think that may be happening anyway.)
So it's not clear to me that they have much focus on growing a division that represents (literally) about 0.1% of their revenue. It's a shame, as they are nice products. Probably the best thing that could happen would be for Kevin Voecks to find some investors to purchase Revel from Harman and run it as a private company. I have no idea how likely that prospect is.
.
nt
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