Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

The tweeter axis is 35" from the floor, which is typical for a seated listener. Fig.3 shows how the response changes as the listener moves above and below that axis. A standing listener will perceive a suckout at the upper crossover frequency of 3kHz, but as long as the person sits with his or her ears between the top of the enclosure and the midrange unit the speaker will sound neutrally balanced.

Fig.3 Hales Revelation Three, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 15 degrees-5 degrees above-axis; reference response; differences in response 5 degrees-10 degrees below-axis.

RD commented on the Hales' excellent imaging, which is what I would have expected from the speaker's lateral dispersion plot (fig.4). Paul Hales' choice of a small-diameter drive-unit to cover the decade from 250Hz to 2.5kHz, coupled with a carefully contoured baffle, results in superbly controlled dispersion. The balance hardly changes to the speaker's sides, except for the usual top-octave rolloff at extreme angles.

Fig.4 Hales Revelation Three, horizontal response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90 degrees-5 degrees off-axis; reference response; differences in response 5 degrees-90 degrees off-axis.