silvertone
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Revel Salon 2 and Ayre Question
mrlowry
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I've heard lots of Ayre gear with lots of different speakers (B&W, Thiel, Magnepan, etc) and it NEVER fails at being engaging. In fact many of the MOST emotionally charged listening sessions I've had were with Ayre gear. On the other hand my limited experiences with Revel speakers have always left me flat. Of course it's always possible that I just haven't heard them with the right gear.

dcstep
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I'm not a Revel owner, but the description you give sounds like you need a Sumiko Master Set of your speakers. Most speakers are not set up properly, causing intermodulation distortion between the speakers that makes vocals sound "shouty" and the bass/midrange continuity is disjointed, with one overpowering the other.

With luck, you can find a Sonus Fabre or Vienna Acoustic dealer that'll agree to set up your speakers using the Master Set, for a reasonable fee. It'll be the best investment you've ever made in your system.

It's not your system, it's the placement in the room.

Dave

commsysman
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If I was considering spending $22,000 for a pair of speakers, I would certainly expect the dealer to demonstrate them IN MY LISTENING ROOM and hear sonic perfection, or bloody close to it, before I closed the deal!

Personally, I think the Audio Research LS-26 is the best preamp I have ever heard. Try it out with the Ayre power amplifiers and see if you like that sound better...I think that many people would.

With the Ayre equipment you mention and those speakers, if it doesn't fulfill your expectations 100% I would suspect that there is probably something wrong with the setup or acoustics!

I assume that all of the interconnections from the CD player to the preamp and from the preamp to the amplifiers are BALANCED connections; reviewers have repeatedly said that Ayre gear does not perform at its best without balanced connections (and at the quality level we are talking about, using anything other than balanced connections is an absurd compromise anyway...).

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