Loudspeakers

Employing the same ribbon tweeter and two of the 165mm bass/mid units featured in the Revela 1 [HFN Mar ’24], it’s the 650Hz/ 3.8kHz crossover frequencies (vs. 2.9kHz in the Revela 1) that fundamentally shift each driver’s workload. For example, the woofers are shorn of two upper octaves, and with their high 55Hz port tuning (x2) also have a steeper roll-off, delivering a diffraction-corrected extension of 49Hz (–6dB re. 200Hz) – far deeper bass tuning will be realised with near (rear) wall siting. At the top-end, the ribbon tweeter still sails out to 60kHz [–6dB re. 10kHz, pink shaded area, Graph 1] after a gradual rise to 20kHz, offsetting the falling power response of the ribbon due to its reduced vertical dispersion. The latter, and dip in the middle of the ‘filler’ 150mm mid unit’s bandpass, largely accounts for the response errors of ±3.2dB and ±2.8dB, respectively. Meanwhile, the 0.65dB pair matching (all re. 200Hz-20kHz) is very tight.

Sensitivity is higher than Quad's rated 89dB at 90.3dB/1kHz (or 89.5dB from 500Hz-8kHz), and while distortion is good to within ~0.3% from 200Hz-20kHz (re. 90dB/1m), the relatively benign-looking CSD waterfall [Graph 2, below] also indicates few breakup modes in either the cabinet or drivers. Like the Revela 1, the '2 is only marginally tougher to drive than Quad's '6ohm nominal/3.9ohm minimum' might suggest - the minimum being closer to 3.2ohm (at 178Hz) while the sub-100Hz phase angles of +42°/-56° contribute to a 1.4ohm/120Hz EPDR (equivalent peak dissipation resistance). Above the 650Hz crossover the load never drops below 6.0ohm (EPDR is >2.9ohm) so the Revela 2 will never be especially taxing with high strings or brass... PM