Intro and all review links are gathered in this thread.
[/COLOR]http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/loudspeakers/87531-intro-speaker-store-reviews-marshall.html
--The Store--
I found myself in Portland in the middle of a weekday, so I took the opportunity to spend an afternoon trying to whittle down my speaker choices some more. A call to Jeff at Encore Audio/Video didn’t net me the Revel M105 that I was looking for, but he did have the bigger brother M106 in store for demo. Well, maybe a more appropriate term would be “display”, because although Jeff and Andy greeted me warmly, their faces quickly dropped when I produced my demo CD. “Um,” Jeff said. “We don’t really do CDs with many of our systems.”
Huh?
The store was open, bright and clean, but the Revel display was crammed into a corner by the large glass entrance doors. It featured a large equipment cabinet, with only a turntable and tube amp sitting atop it, along with a crate of worn vinyl warped from the sun. “I do have an Apple TV, so I could play you some songs off my phone, but I’m not sure our network is working.” Fiddling in the recesses of the furniture proved exactly that, so I never had the opportunity to use the cell phone as my source. Left with only the turntable, I found a copy of The Police’s Synchronicity and had Jeff cue up “King of Pain”. As the needle bobbed up and down over the damaged disc, I did my best to find an ideal listening position in an office chair in front of the entrance to the store by an inexplicably present water feature. In the future, less landscaping and more working source devices would be recommended.
--The Speaker--
Given the limitations of available source material, I thought the Revels sounded very nice. I’m a self-proclaimed Harmon fanboy, and in an industry sometimes filled with a seeming lack of understanding of the most basic principles of physics and scientific inquiry, JBL’s research and development is beyondreproach. So, doing my best to put aside psychological bias, I thought the M106 did an excellent job of keeping the most natural response of all the speakers I’ve heard so far. The over-emphasized low-mid response of many bookshelves, used to create the illusion of a much larger speaker to the detriment of accuracy, was not present. There was plenty of detail, with both The Police and the pops and hiss coming through loud and clear. I’d say dynamics were very good, but I didn’t really crank the system, and both the recording and medium aren’t known for their dynamic range.
In the end, I was happy with what I heard, but I’d never make a purchase decision on the M106 based only on the subpar demo I was able to achieve in the store. To be brutally honest, I’m looking for a back up demo location, and if I were looking to make a purchase at Encore A/V, I would insist that the speakers be demoed in a more ideal placement with a CD player.
--The Takeaway--
Having gone back since (a post on the follow-up visit is pending), I actually like the staff a ton, and the store has a number of nice systems on display, but the Revel wasn’t one of them. The speakers sounded fine with what I had to work with, but when the number one rule of choosing speakers is “bring your own music”, I’m sorry, but the lack of a CD player is simply inexcusable. You carry Oppo; put one in that big cabinet by the Revels.
Visit Encore Audio/Video If: You want to work with some really friendly folks who are pretty down to earth and not at all high-pressure, but can still sell you a $500 cable if you want. Also, if you like a bright, uncluttered shopping experience.
Avoid If: You're looking to demo the M106 with a CD.
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