Shortly thereafter reviews flooded the web singing the speakers praises, particularly their bang for your buck.
I chose theReserve R200, the $700/pair bookshelf model with a 6.5-inch woofer.
Unfortunately, sound quality and price barely have any correlation.
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You wont find crazy newfangled technology or materials here, just carefully thought out engineering.
This isnt going to be your typical speaker review.
Still, I should give you a summary of my thoughts before we jump in.
What does it sound like?
It may be the most neutral 6.5-inch bookshelf speaker Ive heard under $1,000.
They also have a solid bass extension for their size, and their soundstage is pretty great too.
Its just a really good speaker.
Sound aside, I also appreciate the understated, fairly minimalistic design.
Keep in mind the speaker is quite deeper than it looks in photos, about 14 inches.
What, thats it?
Yep, thats pretty much all you’re gonna wanna know.
The R200 has very few flaws that I could hear in my setup.
But sure, I can nitpick a bit.
But again, thats all quite nitpicky.
Alright, get to the graphs already.
I know you want to.
We can figure all that stuff out by creating a graph called a spinorama.
See the white and green lines above?
Here the R200 shines: it isridiculouslyflat.
Next, we can look at the purple line.
This is the predicted in-room response.
The R200 performs almost as good as any speaker Ive measured on this metric as well.
These would ideally be a smooth rising line, so they are not exactly great on the R200.
However, they consider both a speakers vertical and horizontal response.
The spinorama gives us the big picture, but we can get a bit more granular using.
On the other hand, it also means you could tune the speakers brightness to your taste with positioning.
Theres usually a trade-off between soundstage width and precision, and the R200 toes the line expertly.
Among wider directivity speakers Ive tested, only the Focal Chora 806 performs better.
First, we can see that the speaker is quite sensitive to being at the perfect ear height.
Ideally, the tweeter should be at just about ear height, within 5 degrees.
Being 10 degrees above or below the tweeter may noticeably alter the sound.
Next we can look at the estimated vertical reflections.
We can see some vertical dips, as is typical for speakers with separate tweeters and woofers.
This is the portion that messes up the speakers response the most.
Whhile hear the presence bump as forward vocals, you might hear a recession where the response dips.
While the vertical response is a notable flaw, its unlikely to be a major issue in most setups.
Its refreshing to see such thoughtful engineering on a speaker in this price range.
And yes, Id bet that you probablywilllike it.
It has my fullest recommendation especially considering it probably wont burn a hole in your wallet.
