Part of the what is going on with the Revel's and in-room placement is that their drivers are matched speaker to speaker to very tight tolerances. So it is relatively easy to put them in your room and just sort of eyeball the placement and they will sound good/acceptable but I have found, owning the Studio2's, that very small changes in position are audible. So when set-up right you can hear really deeply into the recording.
When I worked at Legacy Audio we would get a pallet of Eton mid-range drivers in and they would be tested for voice-coil alignment issues but prior to Legacy's purchase by Allen Organ their freq. resp. was not tested. The crossovers would be adjusted individually so that a 'pair' of speaker gave relatively the same response. That method works 'ok' unless you need to replace a driver, it is really impossible to reach the same level of precision as the bigger mfg'ers.
I started matching the mid-range drivers as it made my job easier (less adjustments needed) when it came time to adjust the crossover and match a pair of speaker to one another, (one of the things I did when employed at the Allen Organ plant in Macungie PA to every Legacy speaker that came out of PA at the time).
Anyhow sorry going off on a tangent but with firms like Revel or KEF or B&W or JM Labs that make their own drivers they have a significant advantage as they really can match drivers with in fractions of db instead of being in the 2,3,4 db off at a given frequency. Wilson does not have that benefit even though they work closely I sure with their vendors it is not the same thing. This was part of what drove Dunlavy, their rejection rate of drivers from Vifa that didn't cut the mustard was something crazy like 60-80% per pallet. Legacy was more of the 'use every part of the animal' mentality. I have no idea what their current practice is but that is what was happing in 1999.
There is a reason for the cost of some speakers, tight tolerances cost a lot of $$$
When I worked at Legacy Audio we would get a pallet of Eton mid-range drivers in and they would be tested for voice-coil alignment issues but prior to Legacy's purchase by Allen Organ their freq. resp. was not tested. The crossovers would be adjusted individually so that a 'pair' of speaker gave relatively the same response. That method works 'ok' unless you need to replace a driver, it is really impossible to reach the same level of precision as the bigger mfg'ers.
I started matching the mid-range drivers as it made my job easier (less adjustments needed) when it came time to adjust the crossover and match a pair of speaker to one another, (one of the things I did when employed at the Allen Organ plant in Macungie PA to every Legacy speaker that came out of PA at the time).
Anyhow sorry going off on a tangent but with firms like Revel or KEF or B&W or JM Labs that make their own drivers they have a significant advantage as they really can match drivers with in fractions of db instead of being in the 2,3,4 db off at a given frequency. Wilson does not have that benefit even though they work closely I sure with their vendors it is not the same thing. This was part of what drove Dunlavy, their rejection rate of drivers from Vifa that didn't cut the mustard was something crazy like 60-80% per pallet. Legacy was more of the 'use every part of the animal' mentality. I have no idea what their current practice is but that is what was happing in 1999.
There is a reason for the cost of some speakers, tight tolerances cost a lot of $$$