Tannoy Revolution XT 6 Speaker Review

[ROOSKIE]

What an interesting review and grateful to see some additional tests being developed/toyed with.
This speaker always interested me, at least in concept. Glad I did not buy one --- or maybe I should have as it would be a good one to listen for the HD on.
While I personally have not yet fallen in love with a KEF speaker,my big takeaway is that my hat is off for KEF. If one wants a well designed speaker with coaxial drivers, then KEF is really putting in the efforts to make a well engineered system.
Additionally they seem to be the British company that must be using a similar design philosophy to the Harman "standard" & putting a lot of weight on the science/measurements. Plus they look great (IMHO).
Anyway I thought this Tannoy looks great as well but geez it doesn't measure well for $1.2K USD.

 

[amirm]

Great review. May I suggest to run the multitone test to get a visual of the IMD? Sound&Recording do this, using 60 tones resulting in a test signal similar to noise with a crest factor of 12 dB, played at 85 dB SPL A-weighted at 2m (near field speaker) or 4m (mid field speaker) distance.

I actually created that template and ran it. Room noise makes it much less pretty than DAC tests. When I get a chance, I will post it.

 

[hardisj]

I have read all of their ap notes and tried their modules (multiple times actually). They simply do not work as well as AP software and harder to use as well. Don't agree on presentation either.

I don't have experience with the AP software so I will take your word for it.

As for presentation, I much prefer a single graphic showing all the various drive levels overlaid together rather than eyeballing back and forth. I had to make scripts myself to do that. But it is extremely easy to read and understand in a quick look.

 

[Southall-1998]

The master of audio hustle on this speaker

Kevin Deal = Snake-oil bullshitter.

S.

 

[amirm]

The longer the window time, the more reflections "get in" to the measurement and they are just another form of distortion. Klippel even discusses it in this document (image attached below). I'm just trying to get an understanding of the setup conditions so I know how to interpret the results going forward.

First important note: some of the measurements I am posting are using stepped sine which avoid some of the issues with swept sine that Klippel uses.

Measurements are the same as my Klippel distortion. Mic is placed at 0.33 meters. This improves signal to noise ratio. At the same time, it is not too close to the speaker to cause boundary effect.

Frequencies were picked specifically to avoid some of the issues in room. 200 Hz for example is both low enough to emphasize distortion, but high enough to not be too modal. I also use 100 Hz and I have confirmed that it is not in very modal range.

Same location is used for the speaker and microphone. Therefore, the room stays invariant. To the extent we test similar sized speakers with roughly similar low frequency response, we should be OK.

Klippel is able to convert distortion measurements into anechoic. I have done that a lot and while that makes some difference, it does not change the overall picture much.

As we test more, we will see what trends come out of it and what may need fixing.

 

[ROOSKIE]

"What HiFi" gave this speaker 4/5 stars which for a British speaker is kind of a spanking from this British biased mag.
https://www.whathifi.com/us/tannoy/revolution-xt-6/review

By the way I love What HiFi reviews as I love all audio reviews but man they get creative with the reviews sometimes in order not to bash. Other times I have to say they seem to really nail a review and I ought to mention the rating is a panel not a solo reviewer. Whatever....

 

[amirm]

As for presentation, I much prefer a single graphic showing all the various drive levels overlaid together rather than eyeballing back and forth. I had to make scripts myself to do that. But it is extremely easy to read and understand in a quick look.

If you mean this, then no scripting is necessary with AP software:

 

[Xulonn]

I'm British and am sorry about our speakers. One day we'll get one right

Perhaps I shouldn't continue hoping that Amir will someday test my Wharfedale D320's.

Not surprised these are a mess, I'd love to know how their massive old world ones measure.

I've joked before about Amir hoisting a 304 lb Westminster Royal up onto his Klippel platform.

 

[LTig]

I'm not so sure about the informative value of the linearity test. Looking at typical distortion test results published by Neumann and Genelec there is a quite high dependency on frequency, and not only in the low bass where distortion naturally increases dramatically. Therefore I would not know at which frequency the linearity tests should be done, and one would not know how the speaker may behave at lower or higher frequencies.

 

[Soniclife]

I've joked before about Amir hoisting a 304 lb Westminster Royal up onto his Klippel platform.

View attachment 73059

She must be stronger than she looks if she is helping lift them.

 

[LTig]

Perhaps I shouldn't continue hoping that Amir will someday test my Wharfedale D320's.

View attachment 73055



I've joked before about Amir hoisting a 304 lb Westminster Royal up onto his Klippel platform.

View attachment 73059

At least he'd had some help. However regardless of any test results I'd prefer the right speaker of the left.

 

[Soniclife]

Perhaps I shouldn't continue hoping that Amir will someday test my Wharfedale D320's.

I'd like to see a whole bunch of wharfdale and monitor audio tested, especially from the cheaper end, in the UK these look very good value, but only if they are decent.

 

[amirm]

I've joked before about Amir hoisting a 304 lb Westminster Royal up onto his Klippel platform.

She weighs that much? And will let me hoist her up 5 feet???

 

[hardisj]

If you mean this, then no scripting is necessary with AP software:

Yes. Something like that. I was talking more about the other data but that was before I knew *for sure* that all your data would have to be taken on comparative basis alone due to the measurement in the room and no gating applied. Them being relative rather than absolute is fine as long as the baseline is always the same (and I am assuming it will be your Revel speaker)? Would be nice to put these things in to absolute numbers, though. But that's the way this kind of thing goes. Like you said, we will just see how this goes as you perform some more tests. I am trying to be forward-thinking in an effort to help you out. I spend 8+ hours testing because every-damn-thing I measure is manual. It suuuuuuuucks. I know how old it gets doing my tests and I'm simply trying to think of issues you may run in to down the line that could be resolved up front with the actual process of testing and then reporting it.

 

[hardisj]

I'm not so sure about the informative value of the linearity test. Looking at typical distortion test results published by Neumann and Genelec there is a quite high dependency on frequency, and not only in the low bass where distortion naturally increases dramatically. Therefore I would not know at which frequency the linearity tests should be done, and one would not know how the speaker may behave at lower or higher frequencies.

That's a very good point. Amir stated his linearity test was at 200Hz. But, we know compression changes vs frequency. Here's an example of a test result I ran and I didn't even push it past 100dB @ 1m (mean SPL; the HF response was +6dB above the mean; POS speaker).

From here:
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/jamo_s807/

Note: I call this compression testing. I ain't changing that terminology either.


I would imagine AP has the means to do this. Obviously it can be done manually running multiple voltage-varied sweeps. But that would get old.

 

[vkvedam]

I'm British and am sorry about our speakers. One day we'll get one right

In all honesty KEFs were quite good, subjectively Amir didn't prefer those sitting on the fence.

 

[MediumRare]

Amir stated his linearity test was at 200Hz. But, we know compression changes vs frequency. Here's an example of a test result I ran and I didn't even push it past 100dB @ 1m (mean SPL; the HF response was +6dB above the mean; POS speaker).

From here:
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/jamo_s807/

This is exactly the test I was thinking of when I asked my earlier question about linearity. It shows very clearly what to expect at normal listening levels and when the speaker is pushed. I would suggest, however, starting at 0.1 watt or lower, say in the range of 70 dB. It seems to me 85 dB is too loud to be a baseline.

 

[q3cpma]

This is exactly the test I was thinking of when I asked my earlier question about linearity. It shows very clearly what to expect at normal listening levels and when the speaker is pushed. I would suggest, however, starting at 0.1 watt or lower, say in the range of 70 dB. It seems to me 85 dB is too loud to be a baseline.

It does seem to be 85 dB at 1 m, while the spins are done at 2, though.

 

[Coffee_fan]

Hi Amir, thanks for the review. It's good to see how a speaker measures up. I personally like them, I have had them for some 4 years and yes IMO they are very finicky about room, but in the right conditions, they have a very nice mid-range. In fact I had also KEF-LS50 and in some respects, like classical music I prefer these to the LS50s.

 

[hardisj]

Oh...

Even though I took a bit of a detour with the "extra" measurements you are providing @amirm, I want to say Thank You for this dataset.