Revel Concerta2 F36 Tower Speaker Review

When Revel broke onto the audiophile scene in 1996, it did so in blazing fashion with the introduction of their flagship Ultima line. The Performa series, touting inspiration and advancements from the flagship Ultima line, followed to similar critical acclaim.  While the Concerta line, designed for the entry-level audiophile, bore many of the hallmarks of its more expensive siblings (and equally positive critical acclaim), somehow it never seemed to reach the same hallowed status in audiophile circles.

With the launch of Revel’s Ultima2 speakers in 2008 and subsequent Performa3 speakers, it was only a matter of time before we saw an updated Concerta line.  Therefore when Kevin Voecks, Harman Luxury Audio Group’s Acoustic Technologies Manager, reached out and asked if I’d be interested in taking a pair of Concerta2s for a spin, I couldn’t wait to see the new line-up up close. From my interactions with Kevin I could tell that he and the Revel team felt something special about the new Concertas.

Given my familiarity with the Revel speakers over the years (frequent readers will note that I’ve often brought review gear to a setup featuring Revel’s top-of-the-line Ultima2 Salons as a reference), we decided that auditioning the flagship model in the Concerta2 lineup, the F36 tower speakers, made the most sense.

While my test setup would be a pure two-channel arrangement, the Concerta2 F36 towers are part of a larger lineup geared towards both two-channel and home theater enthusiasts. The F36 is joined by the slightly smaller F35 towers, M16 bookshelf, S16 on-wall, C25 center channel, and B10 subwoofer.  Therefore, whether you’re a two-channel purist or home theater aficionado, Revel has you covered.

The Revel Concerta2 family of speakers and sub

Unpacking and first impressions

My review pair arrived in typical Revel style.  While relatively large, the F36 speakers weren't so big and heavy that they needed a pallet or freight shipping. They weighed in at 50lbs each and were packed in separate boxes. The Concerta2 F36 speakers arrived via FedEx and were relatively easy to manage (though I strongly recommend making this a two-person job). The F36 speakers were double-boxed and impeccably packed. 

A white cloth covered each speaker, ensuring that the high-gloss finish would be pristine when unpacked.  Gone is the vinyl-clad wood finish of the previous generation.  The new Concerta2 line-up only comes in high gloss black or white. My review pair came in white, at my request.  While many in the US are accustomed to black speakers, white speakers are actually the most popular color worldwide.

You have the option of large rubber feet or spikes on the F36.

Up close, the high gloss finish is impeccably first-rate, giving an air of class to the speaker’s look. The finish on the Concerta2 F36s, which are made in China, has the same beautiful attention to detail as the Performa3 or Ultima2 lines. In case you're wondering, there is no hint anywhere of the cabinet finishing issues that Revel experienced some years ago while transitioning manufacturing facilities.

Even though these are large tower speakers, they don’t feel big in the room. The tapered design makes them appear much smaller and more shallow than they actually are. Even with a slight toe-in you only see the first quarter (or less) of the speaker at the primary listening position.

The Revel F36's curved top makes the speaker look smaller than it is

Other aspects of the F36’s cosmetics are relatively standard, but premium quality. The F36 towers come standard with four rubber feet. Prefer spikes? You have that option too. A complete set is included. Leveling the speakers with the included feet isn’t as easy as it could be, unfortunately.  You need a hex key to tighten or loosen the feet.  Making speaker leveling easier is one area I’d like to see Revel address down the road.

Revel has now standardized magnetic grilles on every speaker they make. The grilles included with the F36 are capped on the rear with a thin white felt, which prevents the grille’s magnetic ends from scratching the speaker’s fine gloss surface.  A single pair of high quality, gold-plated five-way binding posts is your only option.  You can accommodate spade, banana or bare speaker wire with them. Sorry, no bi-amping—assuming you ascribe to such benefits.

The Revel F36 is a rear-ported design and has a single set of binding posts.

Revel F36 Speaker Engineering Advancements

To label Revel’s new Concerta2 line as an "update" is really a misnomer. Revel, which is part of Harman’s Luxury Audio Group, isn’t in the business of cranking out speaker updates for the sake of announcing a new model.  On the contrary, part of Revel’s mantra has been that a new speaker has to have a “distinct sonic improvement” over the previous generation.  While we can all say that’s just marketing speak, Revel’s real-world practice has shown that they’ve been pretty faithful to that mantra.

The Revel team felt that the new Concerta2 line had to have measurable sonic improvement but, as Mark Glazer, Revel’s principal engineer, told me there were three more goals they had in mind:

1. Be visually stunning with a more modern design
2. Be easier to drive
3. Hit Revel’s target price-point for the line

Even if you didn’t know this aspect of Revel’s DNA or those goals, you’d certainly sense it by placing the new Concerta2 line against its predecessor.  In fact, at first glance you’d doubt that they harkened from the same family tree.

Gone is the boxy look of the original Concertas.  The Concerta2s sport a beautifully rounded and tapered enclosure that calls to mind some of the same traits of the Ultima2 and Performa3 line.  The Ultima2 uses nine 4mm layers of MDF that are glued together and bent as one piece.  The Performa3 line uses curved, multilayer MDF but the side and back are routed. In contrast, the Concerta2 line uses MDF sheets with Kerf cutting. Kerf cutting slices a series of slots into the MDF, allowing it to be bent to the desired curve.  The Kerf-cut MDF is then reinforced with an additional layer of MDF with multiple  “picture frame’ braces added. 

Kerf-cut enclosure of the Revel F36. Photo credit: Revel.

The result is an incredibly stiff and inert enclosure with all the benefits of MDF at the price point Revel was targeting. I can say first-hand that giving the F36’s a good series of knuckle raps on the speaker cabinet showed that Revel succeeded. Unlike the Ultima2 Salons, however, which have a totally consistent sound from one end to the other when you knock on them, the F36s had a few points on the speaker cabinet where the knuckle wraps sounded more dense or more hollow in line where the internal bracing is located.

The Concerta2's tweeter has an improved response thanks to the included waveguide and acoustic lens.
Measurement Courtesy of Harman International.

One look at the Concerta2’s front baffle shows additional areas of improvement and refinement.  Through their acoustic and psycho-acoustic research, Revel has always advocated for wide dispersion and accurate off-axis speaker response.  The new Concerta2 models show advancements in this area.   In Revel’s previous generation waveguides, for example, there was excess directivity and lower output above 9kHz. In both technology papers and measurements that Mark Glazer provided to me, Revel has improved the output above 9kHz by as much as 3 dB. Revel has also matched the directivity of the midrange at the crossover better thanks to a large, gentle blend radius at the exit of the waveguide and adding an acoustic lens in front of the tweeter’s dome. So if you’re the type who likes to tweak your speakers, please don’t remove the tweeter’s acoustic lens and then say that you hear a “dramatic sonic improvement.”

SPL vs. Frequency of each driver and the overall sum in the F36's 2 1/2-way arrangement.
Measurements courtesy of Harman International.

Mark told me that to increase the F36’s sensitivity, a third woofer was used instead of a separate midrange (as in the Concerta F12). All three drivers are identical 6.5-inch anodized aluminum cone woofers but don’t have the same crossover frequency.  In this configuration, which takes advantage of the higher-impedance woofers, Revel has implemented a crossover design that divides the two lower woofers with the top woofer  (drivers are crossed over at 1.8kHz and 600Hz).  In essence, the top woofer also supplies sufficient energy in the mid-band and then crossed higher to the tweeter, while the lower two are crossed lower to the top woofer.

Even though Revel states that the F36 is a 6 ohm speaker, the impedance graph (below) shows that this is really a 4 ohm speaker.  In other words, you should try and use the best quality amplification you can afford with this speaker. At 150Hz, the speaker's impedance drops to 3.8 ohms.

Impedance vs. frequency curve of the Revel F36.
Measurements courtesy of Harman International.

At 150Hz, the speaker's impedance drops to 3.8 ohms. This is a 6-ohm rated speaker but in reality it measures more like a 4 ohm speaker per IEC rating on loudspeaker impedance.  You can see by the dip in the impedance curve between the two peaks that system tuning frequency is around 35Hz. The amplitude of the saddle points are quite asymmetric. This indicates a system tuning a bit too low for the available box size needed to produce a more optimal response. This isn't surprising as many speakers make this compromise in favor of aesthetics.

Unlike some other speaker manufacturers, Revel doesn’t use off-the-shelf drivers. The company is known for developing custom driver designs and materials for their particular application.  The Concerta2 follow suit. The drivers are made up of a Micro-Ceramic Composite with two layers of ceramic with aluminum in the center.  Harman’s patented process deep anodizes aluminum, producing a ceramic substrate.  Revel says that because the speed of sound through the two materials is different, there is added dampening. Revel claims that the resulting composite cone is superior to other conventional metal or aramid fiber cones.

The F36 is also a ported design. The port on the F36 and across the Concerta2 line is what Harman calls a ‘Constant Pressure Gradient Design’ (Harman Patent). Harman developed this patented port design to produce what the company claims is the highest output with minimal compression or distortion. Harman says that with the Concerta2’s port, the inner wall of the port is contoured so that the pressure gradient or change in pressure along the longitudinal axis of the port from its inlet duct to outlet duct is substantially constant.  The Performa3 and Ultima2 speakers do not use this port design.

All Revel Ultima2  and the larger Performa3 (F208 and C208) models have contour controls.  None of the Concerta2 speakers have this feature.  The contour switch allows you to adjust the speaker’s bass response depending on room placement with respect to the proximity to nearby walls. Because most AVRs today handle this type bass adjustment with some kind of built-in room correction, Revel chose to omit this feature so that they could stay within the Concerta2’s target price point.

Revel F36 Loudspeaker Sound Quality Tests

Most consumers will be connecting the F36s with either a flagship-level receiver, an integrated amp, or separates. I chose to do my testing with all three. Associated equipment for this review consisted of:

1. Separates: An Anthem AVM 60 pre-pro (in for a forthcoming review) with a pair of Emotiva XPA-1L 200 W monoblocks.
2. AV Receiver: Denon X7200WA AV Receiver
   
3. Integrated Tube Amplifier: Yaqin MC-13s 45w tube amp

All source material to the Anthem AVM 60 and Denon X7200WA was fed from either a server running iTunes with Bitperfect and the Yaquin MC-13s was fed from an Astelle&Kern A70 hi-res audio player. A mix of hi-res music FLAC and ALAC source files, ripped CDs, and lossy encoded AAC downloads were used.

While Revel spent some time making the Concerta2s easier to drive (even recommending 30W amps), my previous experience with Revel speakers has shown that the more power you feed them the better they will respond. I will say that regardless of which amplification I used, the Concertas responded very well. Even the 45W tube amp was able to pump out over 95db out of the Revels with plenty of headroom to spare.  My ears were waving a white flag before the amp was.

Powering Revels with tubes amps?

You bet, the Concertas sounded great when powered by a Yaqin 45W tube amplifier.

Downside

Revel F36 loudspeaker Conclusion

Revel’s F36 just may be the permanent cure for audiophile upgraditis

If you have to spend two plus months with a set of speakers for review, this is the kind of speaker you want—one that brings enjoyment each time to you fire it up. Simply put, Revel’s Concerta2 F36 loudspeaker is a spectacular achievement and time will tell if it becomes a classic. While it won’t reach the deep netherworld of bass notes, the range it covers is a masterpiece. If you’re the type of audiophile who suffers from constantly needing to upgrade your speaker, I have news for you: Revel’s F36 just may be the permanent cure for audiophile upgraditis.

The speaker’s presentation is an absolutely enthralling. It will captivate you and—regardless of the genre—command and conduct every note with the utmost finesse or the force of a blacksmith’s stroke. To dial in that perfect bass, however, you'll want to have some sort of room correction to help with the low end since the F36s don't have the contour compensation switch that the more expensive lines do.

At $2,000/pair there are other speakers that may play deeper, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find many better overall performers at this price-point. Just one word to the wise, I recommend using the F36s in a large space. If you have a small room, the F36s may simply be too much speaker for that room and you might be better off looking at the bookshelf model.

If you’re lucky enough to own a home theater anchored by the F36s, you’ll be the most popular guy in town for movie night. In fact, to surpass the F36’s performance substantively you’ll likely need to spend thousands more.  Yes, the F36 is that good. The F36 is the kind of speaker you could live with for a lifetime of musical bliss and represents a worthy (though substantive) investment. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Revel’s Concerta2 F36 loudspeaker is a no-brainer, recommended with high marks, and will be on our shortlist of hot picks for speakers under $2,000/pair.

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Imaging
Soundstage
Dynamic Range
Fit and Finish
Performance
Value