REVEL Ultima Studio2
Floorstanding loudspeakers
The first good thing to put down is that there is a surprisingly wide sweet-spot window. It does not really matter if you move your head left or right – you are always getting the same - that is the best possible - sound. Dispersion characteristics of the waveguided beryllium tweeter and inverted-dome titanium drivers allow even for two listeners to enjoy the same sonic images - a fabulous achievement from Revel.
Function and form
Starting from the top there is a beryllium dome tweeter (2.5cm) that rests in a concave waveguide. The extremely lightweight and stiff dome radiates energy up to 45kHz (!) with its resonance frequencies being below 600Hz and above 50kHz which is far enough from its operational range and thus virtually not audible. A copper pole-piece is supposed to reduce inductance modulation and herewith the harmonic distortion of the tweeter. The outer diameter of the tweeter’s waveguide equals to the outer diameter of dedicated 14cm midrange driver. Both the drivers thus sit closely next to each other in a monitor fashion and it helps to unify their dispersion characteristics.
The midrange unit and two 20cm woofers (note that the sizes of the woofers do not differentiate a lot from the other drivers) all have titanium inverted-dome diaphragms. This is also where the Studio 2 differs from the Salon 2 that employs aluminum woofers. Neodymium motor assemblies in the titanium drivers are doubled to increase performance and speed of reaction with a positive effect on the speaker’s dynamic behavior. Designers were also attentive to voice coils that are wound with a flat ribbon wire to prevent losses. There are two cross-over boards in the Studio 2 set to 230Hz and 2kHz (24dB/octave) so each driver works in quite narrow frequency range. Personally I think that the Ultima Studio 2 owes much of its performance to the fantastic alignment of its drivers – throughout my use of the Revels I have never been able to identify which driver is a momentary source of sound; the handover between the drivers is exceptionally smooth and seamless.
The last ´passive´ driver can be found at the bottom of the speaker’s cabinet. The bass reflex port fires downward, however, not to a floor but to a pedestal that is a firm part of the speaker. By this arrangement Revel makes sure that there is no difference whether you place the Studio 2 on a thick furry carpet or on a wooden floor – the port’s output is uniform in both cases and you are expected to use supplied spikes anyway.
Bass management
The 60mm thick front baffle cut from 9-layer MDF is elaborately contoured not to leave a single unrounded edge with one aim: minimize diffractions. For that purpose the speakers are also unusually slim with the dimensions to be only 117 (H) x 35 (W) x 52 (D) cm including the pedestal.
Further to its frontal curvature the cabinet is rounded towards rear where both side panels eliptically meet so the real ´rear´is virtually missing. What you can find here, however, is the plexiglass door covering a recessed area that hides two pairs of gold-plated terminals shorted by removable jumpers and two regulators: one is the aforementioned tweeter level adjustment knob and the other is a low-frequency compensation that works between 30 and 50Hz. The 3 settings of the bass knob allow to fine tune the bass performance of the Studio 2 within +/-5dB range according to the actual placement of the speakers in a room.
Clarity & delicacy
The output of the beryllium tweeter can be adjusted within +/-1.0dB by a knob from behind the speaker’s cabinet to fine tune the Ultima Studio 2’s high frequency shelving as you need. This optimization feature is very useful in case you room is a tad more overdamped like mine and encourages faster roll-off of highs. Putting an accent on what happens from ca 10kHz onwards helps to maintain sparkling clarity of the Studio 2 in my room.
Tonal accuracy
Further into listening you would realize the miracle of the tweeter in full: comparing to what I heard from JMLab Focal and Usher beryllium tweeters I can only applaud to Kevin Voecks for the refinement he had achieved with the new generation of the Ultima Studio high-frequency drivers – they are even more delicate than JMLab, almost as airy as Usher’s top designs and on top of that fantastical non-directive. The tweeters of the Studio 2s are virtually non-existent and nothing reminds you of their presence, yet there is abundance of inner details like drumsticks hitting the surface of cymbal in Topsy (Dick Hyman, From the Age of Swing, Reference Recordings). There you get the initial sharp transient (and it is really sharp with the Studio 2s) followed by ringing brassy delicacy with overtones gently trailing off. The sound is very clearly outlined yet exhibits subtlety and sweetness, though the latter is tamed a bit due to the Mark Levinson No.432´s tendency to dryness.
One more again, there is no directivity to the highs, they seem to come to you from the space ahead rather than from the loudspeakers. And it does not have to be an audiophile recording to live through this magic – even synthesized Sounds Like a Melody (Alphaville, Forever Young, Atlantic 80186-2) can greatly benefit from unobtrusive superresolution of the Revels. By the time Marian Gold’s smooth voice joins the multilayered instrumental background you already know that the Ultima Studio 2s are superbly top-to-bottom coherent.
Spatial resolution
Simply everything sounds more like live music rather than just reproduction. A bass clarinet, for instance, gives you the reed spittle, the key clicks, the sense of hollowness of its wooden body. Similarly, the Studio 2s let you hear instantly the changing pressure that a guitar player applies when plucking strings; that is why the intimate pieces of music like For Abai and Togshan (Stephen Micus, Listen to the Rain) are so immediate, almost scary in their reality.
Should you require an example of the Ultima Studio 2´s imaging capabilities just listen to the digital recording of New York Reunion (McCoy Tyner, New York Reunion, Chesky) which represents a fantastical capture of three-dimensional musicians and their instruments being moved to your listening room. I am sure you would join me in adoring the fullness and warmth of Ron Carter´s bass – the Studio 2s can bring plenty of it as well as they can make the drum presentation be very punchy and penetrating. The Revels are rated 32Hz-42kHz. I did not measure their low frequency extension in my room yet but I assume it actually gets lower than the 32Hz judged by Organ Symphony #6 from Recital CD of Marcel Dupre (Mercury Living Presence) that was presented with full force including the lowest registers of the organ’s pipes. Being back to the New York Reunion the Carter’s bass is impactful, clear, well-controlled and easy to follow.
Recommended resellers
Excelia HiFi, Chrudim, tel. +420 724 00 77 44
Absolute Audio, Praha, tel. +420 777 739 377
SK: Nisel SK, Bratislava, tel. +421 905 203 078
Manufacturer's website: http://www.revelspeakers.com
Associated components
- Sources: C.E.C. TL51XR
- Amplifiers: Bel Canto Pre3/M-300, Mark Levinson No. 432, Pioneer A-400X, a passive attenuator
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Kubala-Sosna Emotion
- Power conditioning: Nordost Qb8 power distribution unit
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