• Astounding soundstaging
• Great all-rounders
• Lovely finish & details
• Grilles not so pretty
• No biwiring option
$4,000
Anyone launching a new speaker brand these days faces a Herculean task of differentiation. With so many loudspeakers in the world of every shape and size, using materials traditional and exotic, how can a newbie make a dent in such a densely populated market?
Enter Revival Audio, from France, although very close to the German and Swiss borders in picturesque Mulhouse, Alsace. It is an entirely new operation, but co-founded by industry stalwarts who have significant experience — what they call “nearly four decades of ‘savoirfaire’ behind many well-known flagship models among top tier brands”.
Revival has now released its first two models, both fully designed, engineered and assembled in France using all ‘in-house manufactured’ components, the company declaring firmly that "we DO NOT buy off the shelves!”.
And both feature new technologies which go a long way to explaining the company’s belief that it can find a place among so many global speaker brands. I am listening here to the smaller (though hardly petite) of the two models, the Atalante 3. So what’s the story, and how’s the sound?
SPEAKERS FROM SPAM
Firstly, the French speakers are being brought to Australia by Audio Marketing in Sydney, and we asked the company's Tim Wallis what persuaded them to take on a new and as-yet-unknown speaker brand.
"Brave?”, we suggested. Wallis laughed.
“One of the things that appealed is that this is such a small, focused offering,” he told us. “That’s refreshing, given some of the trends at the moment are to offer so many SKUs and so many colours and so many prices.
“So that was one of the attractions. And we
