Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
Revel Ultima Studio loudspeaker Measurements part 2
Fig.4 shows the Studio's overall response averaged across a 30 degrees lateral window on the tweeter axis. This is superbly flat, with again just a slight excess of energy apparent in the middle of the tweeter's passband and the small notch visible at 3.4kHz. Though the latter is too narrow to have much effect on the sound, the former might contribute to the in-room HF balance KR perceived. The tweeter's ultrasonic resonance peak is around 10dB in height but higher than usual in frequency, at close to 30kHz. The Revel's bass region is sensibly tuned so that when the speaker is used in a room, the usual amount of low-frequency "room gain" will give extended lows without boom.
Fig.4 Revel Ultima Studio, anechoic response on-axis at 50", averaged across 30 degrees horizontal window and corrected for microphone response, with the complex sum of the nearfield midrange, woofer, and port responses plotted below 300Hz.
The Studio's lateral dispersion is shown in two forms: fig.5, which shows the actual responses, and fig.6, which shows just the differences between the tweeter's off- and on-axis responses, both plotted for off-axis angles up to ±90 degrees. It can be clearly seen from both graphs that the on-axis notch at 3.4kHz fills in to the speaker's sides, hence the ridge at this frequency in fig.6. I do wonder if this correlates with KR's occasional comment about brightness in his quite live room, but the Revel's dispersion is otherwise even and well-controlled. This always correlates with excellent soundstaging and image stability. Though the tweeter is surprisingly directional above 15kHz, I would not have thought this sufficient to explain KR's characterization of the Revel's highs as "soft." In the vertical plane (fig.7), the presence-region notch fills in off-axis, and the use of a high-order crossover means that the listening axis is not very critical.
Fig.5 Revel Ultima Studio, lateral response family at 50", from back to front: responses 90 degrees-5 degrees off-axis, reference response on tweeter axis, responses 5 degrees-90 degrees off-axis.
Fig.6 Revel Ultima Studio, lateral 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.
Fig.7 Revel Ultima Studio, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 15 degrees-5 degrees above reference axis, reference response, differences in response 5 degrees-10 degrees below axis.
- Log in or register to post comments