John Atkinson: "The best speakers I've ever used in my room were the Revel Salon2's"

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mep said:
I thought JA has spoken on what speaker he would cart off to the famed desert island. It sounds like Mike asked him a very pointed question with regards to cost.
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And I thought the Salon 2's were more than $20k/pr??
 
It's lucky he hasn't reviewed PMC Fact 12s because then he'd have to make the tough call which speaker to knock off his top three. :D
 
mep said:
I thought JA has spoken on what speaker he would cart off to the famed desert island. It sounds like Mike asked him a very pointed question with regards to cost.
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Wow Mark, how you love to rain on a parade :D

It's pretty obvious you're not a fan of the Salons.
 
hiro100 said:
Hi Mike

Very cool you were able to ask him what he thought about and some interesting choices there with Triangle and Sony SS-AR2ES. I'm curious as I may have missed the question on this thread but is it the best speaker he's had in his room or the best speaker under 20,000 he had in his room? Would be curious to see what his choices were if that dollar threshold were removed.
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I'd love to see him compare the Salons to the Alexias head to head, and I would be ok whatever his opinion was. I trust JA more than any other reviewer out there.
 
MDP said:
I'd love to see him compare the Salons to the Alexias head to head, and I would be ok whatever his opinion was. I trust JA more than any other reviewer out there.
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I agree. I like JA reviews even though I don't always agree with him. For the record, I have heard and think the Salons are great speakers. I think it would be really interesting to see what JA top three are if cost was no object and how they compared to each other. Although, I suppose he hasn't had them in his room at the same time next to each other.
 
I'd love to see someone compare the Salons to the Rockport Atrias.
 
John Atkinson: "The best speakers I've ever used in my room were the Revel Sa...

Man, these are all seriously great speakers. Revel, Rockport, Raidho, Magico, PMC, Wilson. Wow. They are all well known for a reason.

I'll throw DynAudio, Harbeth and Focal into the mix as well.


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hiro100 said:
I agree. I like JA reviews even though I don't always agree with him. For the record, I have heard and think the Salons are great speakers. I think it would be really interesting to see what JA top three are if cost was no object and how they compared to each other. Although, I suppose he hasn't had them in his room at the same time next to each other.
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I agree, I would love to see that.

As Myles pointed out to me in another thread, you can't be sure unless you can compare all of them at the same time.

Audio memory is very fickle.
 
Those are all good speakers, and there are others as well. Why does one need to be the "best"? More, since none are perfect, how would it even be possible?
 
rbbert said:
Those are all good speakers, and there are others as well. Why does one need to be the "best"? More, since none are perfect, how would it even be possible?
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Rob, as I have said many times, there is no best.

Synergy between your electronics, speakers,room, and listening preferences are what matters.

It's all personal preferences. I have listened to your speakers at Robert Lee's shop and just loved them.
 
There is definitely no best ice cream either. Pick the flavor that suits you best and go. Everyone needs to consider their room, cabling, music style and most importantly, amplification.
 
So true, Mike. I have the D3's and Salon 2's side-by-side in my listening room right now. At low to medium volumes the D3's are best in class due to their low mechanical damping and ribbon tweeter. The subtlety and nuance of jazz vocals and piano are unparalleled. But at medium to high volumes the Salon 2's take flight. Crank up some Santana Soul Sacrifice and the Salon 2's are energized, they will play as loud as you want and never lose their composure or neutrality. They remain a clear window to the music. As you said, many different flavors out there, all special in their own way.

Best,
Ken
 
I think the beauty of the Salons and Revel overall for that matter is the R$D and scale of the parent company. Ability to procure and demand the best engineers, parts and company commitment to show off the flagship audio creations. I believe Revel is owned by same company that owns NAD etc - Harman? Lots of know how, history and dough.

Same concept as other big firms when they commit to excellence and don't build a spec to a high volume best buy customer. I demoed a pair of Marantz Reference MA9s1 mono amps this weekend. They blew me away driving my Magicos. Nothing has come close to my Constellation Centuar with my S5s. From $45k VAC statements amps to Hegel H30 to CJ Pr350, etc. But the Marantz are just as good in most aspects and better in some regards (bass, warmth/tone midrange down).

I think when smaller houses build the no-holds-barred it ends up costing a lot more. I bet the Salon 2 if built by a smaller audio brand, would retail for $35-40k to pay down R&D, tooling/machines, cap ex etc.
 
MDP said:
I'd love to see him compare the Salons to the Alexias head to head, and I would be ok whatever his opinion was. I trust JA more than any other reviewer out there.
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I asked John last night, he said: "I think the Alexias but they cost more than twice as much as the Revels..."
 
Thanks Mike.

I think a magazine like Stereophile should do that some day. Take an award winning speaker from 5-10 yrs back and then have it go head to head with their new favorite !!

That would be fun to read !!
 
Dpod4 said:
I think the beauty of the Salons and Revel overall for that matter is the R$D and scale of the parent company. Ability to procure and demand the best engineers, parts and company commitment to show off the flagship audio creations. I believe Revel is owned by same company that owns NAD etc - Harman? Lots of know how, history and dough.
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Just a point of correction, NAD is not affiliated with Harman. Harmon International currently owns Revel, Mark Levinson (the brand), AKG, JBL, and some other brands. NAD is a part of The Lenbrook Group which also manufactures PSB speakers. Of course your point about Revel's available resources still applies.
 
audio.bill said:
Just a point of correction, NAD is not affiliated with Harman. Harmon International currently owns Revel, Mark Levinson (the brand), AKG, JBL, and some other brands. NAD is a part of The Lenbrook Group which also manufactures PSB speakers. Of course your point about Revel's available resources still applies.
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Sorry bad data on my part.
 
MDP said:
I think a magazine like Stereophile should do that some day. Take an award winning speaker from 5-10 yrs back and then have it go head to head with their new favorite !!
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That is a good idea, Mark.
Of course, it would surprise me if Stereophile would dare to do such a test blind.
Audio-brands which would benefit from magazines having ABX as a standard procedure in their testing are the really great brands.
Many (all?) hi-fi magazines tend to give their readers the impression that gear being a few years old can not compare to brand new gear.
I appreciate that John Atkinson has measured a lot of gear (the measurements in itself).
The measurements have for instance shown that darTZeel CTH-8550's measured performance is disappointing (Atkinson's own word) although its price is a hefty $ 20 300. On the contrary, Cambridge Audio has made gear which measurements are really great although the products' prices are low. I think Cambridge Audio is among the brands who would benefit from ABX-testing.

That audio products (like Revel Ultima Salon2's) offers superb measured performance matters millions of times more than any subjectivist review in my opinion.
As a consequence, Atkinson's measurements (in themselves) of Revel Ultima Salon2 matters more to an objectivist like me than any subjectivistic opinion.
I consider "reviews" in 6moons and other extremely subjectivistic magazines worthless (and most (nearly all?) magazines are of the 6moons-type).

Just my opinions.
Have a nice day, everybody.
 
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