Introduction

CEDIA 2005 is now long gone, but during my visit to the Harman Specialty booth at the show I saw from a distance what I thought looked like the F50, but there was something different. A closer look did confirm that this was a new design and the placard on the floor had its name on it: F52. Sitting next to it was its center-channel companion, the C52.

While the shape and size of the F52 resembled that of the F50, the C52 was noticeably different from the C50. The woofers were larger, requiring a larger cabinet. About three years had passed since the F50/C50 loudspeakers were introduced, so I guess it was time for their successors to make their debut.

When I talked to Kevin Voecks about these new models (part of their Performa Series), he sounded very enthusiastic about the new transducer designs and the waveguide. I still have fond memories of my time reviewing the F50/C50 system, so I made a request to review their replacements.

The Pieces

The F52 is a reflex design featuring three 6 ½" woofers, a 5 ¼" midrange driver, and a 1" tweeter. The mid-range driver is housed in its own sub-enclosure. All three drivers are new designs. Newly developed Organic Ceramic Composite diaphragm material is used on the woofer and midrange drivers.

These drivers utilize dual-Neodymium magnet systems which are placed inside the voice coil. An aluminum flux stabilization ring is used to provide a consistent magnetic field, as the voice coil moves through the gap. This is said to lower distortion. In addition, the use of copper rings inside each motor gap is said to reduce the unpleasant (dissonant) 3rd order harmonic distortion.

A new Constant Acoustic Impedance waveguide has been incorporated into the tweeter design. The waveguide provides optimized horizontal/vertical dispersion, along with optimum acoustic loading. The result is an integration of the tweeter and midrange,, where sound appears to originate from a point-source, much like what one would get from a coaxial driver mounting. (See the Q/A with Kevin Voecks - coming shortly - to read about the new transducer innovations).

The use of high-order crossovers to optimize both on- and off-axis response has been a Revel tradition, and the F52 is no exception. The crossover points of the F52 are stated to be 200 Hz and 2.3 kHz. Separate filter boards are used for the tweeter, midrange, and woofer to prevent interference between the different filter network components. Acoustic controls are provided on the back-panel to tailor the in-room frequency response in the treble and bass regions. A tweeter level control allows you to increase or decrease the high-frequency output up to ± 1 dB in 0.5 dB increments. This control has been present in previous Revel designs.

The photos below show the F52 and the individual drivers.

Here is a diagram of the F52 and C52 midrange driver cross-section.

 

Click Here to Go to Part II.