Next stop Revel M20.

This is a fairly large and fairly ugly looking stand mount speaker. Made by Revel who are a American company and who largely deal in the higher end of speaker manufacturing. What they do have is an excellent reputation for making superb sounding products. This is no exception.

One of the first things you will notice about these speakers is their superb build quality even for the £2000 they charge for the privilege. They are well put together although to be fair still bloody ugly!

They come wrapped in nice real wood veneer (either maple or cherry)and have some very chunky wbt connectors at the back. They have two drive units, both of which are metal, with a 6.5 inch unit handling the mid and bass. They also have some room compensation allowance in the form of a treble and bass cut. This is a nice feature and is more useful than you would think. I kept the settings level.

Sound?

Big! They sound huge for standmounters. They also have bags of presence and give a real feeling of weight and scale. The instruments have real body to the sound and bass has a physical presence. Do not think that these speakers will pound you in the chest like a drunk heavy weight boxer, because they won't, but you do get a nice thump as well as the audible sound.

Tonally they are a bit on the bright side but never harsh. These speakers handle high frequency very well and sound very refined at the top if still a little bright. In fact all of the frequency's are handled in a very refined manner and above all there is an incredible cleanness to the sound. There is no glare, no haze, no nothing!

In terms of power they need a bit! 50 watts for a transistor amp of good quality and about half that if you are dealing with valves would be a minimum requirement for these speakers. Anything above those figures and they just keep giving!

Dynamics are very good and timing is a real strong point. With the right amplifier they are never anything but on the beat. The bass is superbly integrated with the mid and treble, so when a drummer locks in with a bass pattern you can rest assured that your not going to hear wayward bass drum beats dragging their feet behind the rest of the music (this is a real pet hate of mine)

So what don't they do? well they are not the most detailed speakers I have heard and they do smooth things over things a fair bit. They also put no particular focus on a certain style of music, they are incredibly even sounding so don't have any kind of special magic with a particular genre.

Some speakers do this, so appeal to people who are only going to listen to one or two different types of music. Proac speakers spring to mind, what they Will do, they they do like few others (female voice....wow!)but when they are bad, they are bad. The revels are different they will play all types of music very well, it is just that they do not excel in any specific area.

They are also incredibly neutral. They neither add or take away anything in the chain. Crap in crap out (actually they always sound pretty good!) but supply them with a good signal and they sound excellent.

Conclusion

These are excellent speakers. They will appeal to the majority of people as they sound big, time well and will pretty much relay what ever sound is coming from further down the chain. They are one of the best stand mounters you can get for this money and one of the best speakers I have heard.

They are incredibly even handed and give you complete access to all of your record collection regardless of recording quality and I think surely this is what this hobby is all about, listening to beautiful music, through these speakers music sounds better than most.

Only if you are after absolute mid range magic, the kind you get from atc or proac, then maybe and I mean only maybe you should look elsewhere, for everyone else just sit back and enjoy!

Ebay alert!

2nd hand values are difficult to judge. These speakers are so much better than anything new for less than a grand. Personally I would not pay more than £750 for a good pair.