Curvaceous Revel speakers will delight discerning audiophiles

I know more than a few audiophiles and mastering engineers who love Revel speakers. That kind of loyalty is pretty rare, but hardly unique to Revel: Bowers & Wilkins and ProAc speakers also have cred with professionals and audiophiles. This much I know for sure, the Revel Concerta2 M16 sound is so pure it lets me focus on the music.

It's a two-way, stand mount design with a 6.5 inch (165mm) Micro-Ceramic Composite (MCC) woofer, and a 1 inch (28mm) aluminum dome tweeter that shares tech used in Revel's high-end Proforma3 speakers' tweeters. There's a large bass port on the M16's backside, along with sturdy speaker cable binding posts. The impedance is 6 ohms. The curved side panel cabinet is impeccably finished in automotive black or white gloss paint. The M16 measures 14.75 x 8.6 x 10.76 inches (37cm x 22cm x 27cm), the cloth grilles attach via hidden magnets, nice.

The M16 runs $900 a pair in the US, £1,000 in the UK and AU$1,599 in Australia.

Listening

The Beastie Boys mostly instrumental album The In Sound From Way Out put the M16 through its paces, especially Shambala with its chorus of chanting monks. The dense funk mixes never sounded less than clear over the M16s. The sound was controlled and accurate: There was no edge on the treble, no slop in the bass. The M16 knows where it's going.

Brian Eno's Ambient 4: On Land album unfurled a cloud of low moaning, droning and churning sounds that wafted through my living room. The M16s vanished as sound sources, which is after all the elusive goal of any great speaker.

With the Sinatra & Strings album Frank's vocals were very warm, and a little too chesty. I usually find this album too lean, but here on the M16s the tonal balance was too rich for my taste. One thing's for sure, the M16 will never "shout" at you. It's too refined for that.

The M16 doesn't have the "jump" factor of the more dynamically alive Klipsch RP 600M speakers. They're opposites in that regard. The RP 600M wins on excitement; it's a lot more alive sounding speaker. But the M16 is more accurate. I love the M16's tweeter. The treble is so pure, the tweeter never draws attention to itself. I hear a lot of "air" and spaciousness, especially on live recordings. Even harsh recordings are easy to listen to over the M16. The tweeter is very forgiving.

As an aside, in 2016 when I reviewed the Revel F36 tower speaker the sound was bright, but the M16 is definitely not.

The KEF LS50 speaker is a little more transparent, but the M16's sweet and gentle tone is more enticing. There's more midbass fullness with the M16. It is a bigger speaker, and it sounds like one. The M16s projected a much larger sound than the LS50. I can't imagine most two-channel users will feel a need to add a subwoofer.

I started working on a review of the Wharfedale Linton speakers ($1,198 a pair) just as I was finishing with the M16s. The Linton is a bigger and brawnier design. The sound was livelier and more energetic. The M16 was a more relaxed sounding speaker. They have two very different personalities, but as much as I like the Linton I doubt it'll find favor with too many mastering engineers -- it's not as smooth an operator as the Revel Concerta2 M16.