Avalon Eidolon Diamond vs Revel Salon 2

Hello Ptss. What is musically rewarding is subjective and will be different from person to person.

The Revels will play louder without strain and do have a fuller bottom end. If this is important to you, have a very large room, and if the the majority of the music you enjoy would benefit from these attributes you may very well find this speaker to more musically rewarding.

The Eidolon Diamond with the right associated equipment and set up properly can sonically disappear in a room in a way the Salon simply can't. For me at times they can sound scary scary real! They're more coherent, nuanced, and yes, resolving of 'real' instrumental detail. After living with these speakers for as long as I have, I now find most other speakers to sound disjointed.

best,
Tom

I thought I would weigh in here for those who may not of had a chance to hear the Eidolon and or Diamond version properly set up with the associated equipment being of commensurate quality.

For what it may be worth to the reader my opinions are also based from my experiences of being a professional musician for 40 plus years, audiophile for nearly as long, but most importantly, music lover. Yes, yet another musician!

As a few others already pointed out the Eidolon Diamond really does reflect back what is put into it. It will simply mirror the sonic character of everything that proceeds it in the chain. Hopefully if all components are up to the task the personality of the recording will come through untouched. It does not add any tonal bloat, muck, thickness or slur. I find it to be one of the most tonally correct distortion free speakers I've ever heard. Though the quality I enjoy most is the way it relates all tones, notes, timbres, etc. of the recording as a cohesive coherent whole. There is a fluid nature to the sound that I miss with other speakers. Massed strings is especially revealing of this quality. The music just seems to flow, all notes perfectly related in time, and thus the sound coming out now makes more musical sense.

When I listen to live acoustic music I never ever hear the pin-point, etched in stone, chiseled carved images that have been mentioned. Now, that's not to say with a studio recording we hear these types of recordings with images of such solidity often. But to me this is an artifact of hi-fi and has nothing to do with real live music being performed and recorded in a real acoustic space. The Eidolon/Diamond can image like crazy and totally disappear in a room when properly set up better than any speaker I've ever heard. Really!

Where this speaker does fall short for its considerable cost is in dynamic authority without any sense of strain, and a bass response that does not give the full weight of the bottom octaves. For many these attributes are very important and I could certainly understand why some would pass them by. Be forewarned though, if you live these speakers for any length of time I think their qualities that have been discussed would be impossible to do without. Well, for me at least.

all the best,
Tom

Hello Johnsonwu.

I'm using a BAT Rex preamp & mono-block amps. Violin as well as other stringed instruments sound tonally spot on. The image size and focus amazes me! Hope you find what you are looking for.

..best..