Performa3 F208BE

[Pampero]

Pio, I think the biggest issue for the Ultima line is that it's 8 years old. It's not really performance related, but the audiophile press just doesn't seem to respect anything that isn't new, new, new.

Speaker and amplifier technology is wheel and axle stuff. None of the fundamental operating principles have changed for decades. Materials are improved (often only incrementally) and measurement and design techniques get enhanced. But even in those areas, things like FFT analyzers and finite area analysis have been around for decades as has CNC machinery.

Nothing fundamental has changed, but we still see outrageously priced products with modest incremental gains being sold as the latest must haves, and the press doesn't acknowledge or write about anything that's two years old. The industry has to make new stuff if it wants to sell product on but the reality is that in most cases the more things change, the more they remain the same.

New products resulting from these creeping developments certainly can represent improvements but the cost vs. benefits are frequently diminished beyond all sensibility and the technologies would be recognizable to Western Electric engineers.

Revel (Voecks) has said they will not replace the Salon2 until they can introduce a product that is both substantially better and is not overshadowed by existing competition. Their blind testing methods at Harman's labs are, I believe, the best way to go about it.

I suspect that new products they are now introducing or teasing with (like Lexicon's omnis) have been in the pipeline long before the Samsung buyout. It will be interesting to see how, if any, the new structure affects the product lineup. Regardless, I plan to keep my Salon2s for an extended and indefinite period of time.

I would expect if a wholly new line is launched that it would include room adaption (correction) capabilities and possibly some form of integrated amplification. That makes sense to me given Harman's commitment to those approaches in the pro world, but as far as the current Salon2 goes, all I'd really want is a bit more sensitivity and the "passive" Salon2s would be almost perfect for me as they stand.

The audio press, well, they need something different to fill the pages, so new stuff is covered asap yet anything a year or two old gets the cold shoulder. I'm not saying new and improved stuff doesn't come to the table, but in the elevated, rarified, esoteric and frequently outlandish world of the high end a lot of it is done with smoke and mirrors and pricing? Hah!

Genuine quantum leaps and technical breakthroughs are rare. I'm confident Revel will be forced to introduce a new apex product in the not too distant future whatever they say because it's the only way to make a splash. If it will be better value than the Ultima series is TBD but if it's a play on the existing theme it will likely be a bit better. If it's really new, it will be more adaptable than previous all passive efforts. The room/system interaction has been the focus of Harman's approach for over a decade and I don't see that changing.

Good, bad or indifferent, the press will rave about the differences as if comparing chalk and cheese.