Revival Audio Atalante 7 Évo speakers
We are used to seeing small and medium sized speakers from Revival but the Atalante 7 Évo is a whole other kettle of drive units. There must be some other three-ways around that run a 15 inch bass driver but the only one that comes to mind is the JBL whose K2 S9900 combines one with a compression driver mid and costs five times as much as the 7 Évo. Big bass drivers went out of fashion when slim floor standers became the norm back in the 21st century, so what is Revival playing at apart from living up to its name?
According to Revival’s Jacky Lee “large bass drivers have always been part of the Atalante DNA. We started the series with the Atalante 3 and 5, and even the 5 already featured a 12-inch woofer. We personally love the effortless scale, dynamics, and natural ease that larger drivers can bring.”
The 7 Évo is a very retro loudspeaker all round, it has a four square veneered cabinet that makes no concessions to the modern fashion for post formed corners or for that matter standing on the floor. This is a substantial 115 litre box that is supplied with a stand in the box, it resembles the bigger Wharfedales of yesteryear but Revival have put considerable effort into all aspects of the design, not least the drive units.
That bass driver has a sandwich cone with woven basalt skins, a material made from lava stone that offers rigidity and low mass, it is literally made of rock yet moves with considerable speed, so not stone as we know it. It has a three inch voice coil for high power handling and control and a roll surround that allows 10mm of excursion should you want to get the party moving. The motor system consists of an oversize ferrite magnet fixed to a substantial ventilated aluminium chassis.
The midrange has something of the pro monitor about it as it’s a three inch dome with double suspension and the ARID internal reflection damping system that stops energy bouncing off the back of the internal space and hitting the back of the dome. The mid has a high power neodymium magnet and an aluminium back chamber to provide rigidity and cooling.
The Évo tweeter is very similar to the midrange but smaller at 28mm and using a polyester fibre called Tetoron in the dome rather than the unspecified fabric of the larger driver. This has the ARID anti-reflection system, a neo magnet and aluminium back chamber but adds an aluminium voice coil for low inductance and weight. The final element on the front of this bluff box is the 100mm diameter reflex port which is not insubstantial itself, this has an aluminium flange with a pattern of fluting around it that was developed to reduce turbulence and port noise.
It’s quite an extreme example of the art and probably needed more turbulence management than usual to stop it being audible. The benefit of having a port on the front of the cabinet is that you are less likely to get bass problems in a room, the drawback is that a port this size is likely to make itself heard if efforts aren’t made to avoid this.
The material used for the 7 Évo cabinet is not specified which suggests that it’s probably MDF as is the case with 99% of loudspeakers, even at this price level, Revival make the point that they use enhanced bracing internally to minimise cabinet vibration and developed the box through “hundreds of hours of simulation and testing”. French design agency A+A Cooren have done a nice job of detailing the 7 Évo with Revival’s logo and inlaid lines of veneer that break up the large expanse of front baffle. The veneer is apparently walnut but in a lighter shade than usual, something that enhances its retro appeal.
Putting the 54 kilo plus 7 Évo on a stand would be a two man job so Revival pack both speaker and stand in the box with instructions on how to remove the whole thing in one go. This is not the easiest task if your ceiling is less than three metres high but with a bit grunting and cursing I was able to do it single handedly. The stand is held onto the speaker with transit bolts and these need to be removed once the preferred placement has been found, fortunately this is a matter of undoing four wing nuts underneath which leaves the speaker sitting on cones in the stand. Revival supply larger cones and receptors for the feet. The stands themselves are hollow steel that would ideally be fillable with stand or some other damping material but this might be tricky to achieve via the M8 threaded holes in the bottom.
The crossover is second order for the woofer and tweeter while the mid has a first order filter, it incorporates air cored inductors and Van den Hul Skyline internal wiring is used for connections to the drivers which is a rare touch, few speaker makers use branded cable inside their creations. The 7 Évo presents the amplifier with a nominal 6 ohm impedance (4.4 ohm minimum) and its sensitivity is specified as 90dB, which makes it more efficient than average but not particularly so given the size of the box. I suspect that it has been tuned to cope with high power handling as the recommended amplification is stated as 300 Watts, which is high. You don’t need that much power but it should be able to cope with it, the 7 Évos are clearly suitable for those who like to party hard.
Sound quality
While the 7 Évo looks as if it should sound boombastic, supafantastic etc it is a rather more sophisticated beast than that. The bass is, however, more generous than many a skinny floor stander with multiple woofers, the bass driver here is clearly very well controlled for is size but it has the advantage of the breed in not having to move very far to create well defined, extended bass. Something that the gaping void that is the reflex port undoubtedly contributes to. I had expected/hoped that this Revival would be more laid back than it is, that it might sound more like the big boxes of the seventies, but this is a modern loudspeaker designed using the latest techniques and it is clean and fast, smooth and extended or powerful and dynamic when it needs to be. In other words there is not a great deal of character to latch onto, the 7 Évo is a neutral and revealing loudspeaker.
But boy do double basses and drums sound good on it, it revels in well recorded acoustic instruments, defines their timbre, bandwidth and the nature of playing with ease. The Johan Lindvall Trio is underpinned by the pianist’s chords but the bass and drums bring the dynamics and on these Revivals they sound positively visceral, as if they were physically in the room. I didn’t need 300W to achieve this, the Rega Solis power amp is only specced to produce half that, but it was enough to enjoy a strong sense of realism.
The 7 Évos are not just about dynamics however, they also have a delicate touch when it’s required and this helps to deliver good depth of image and the fine detail that’s required to flesh out the soundstage. The sound finds it hard to escape the outside of the cabinets by the standards of slimmer designs – wide baffles are good for developing energy but when combined with sharp edges they struggle to achieve the degree of dispersion available from slimmer, curvier speakers. Loudspeaker design requires choosing which compromise works for that particular model and Revival’s approach in the 7 Évo is as valid as any, it’s up to the end user to determine what he or she prefers; a cinemascope soundstage or energy and dynamics that won’t run out of steam under pressure. Few speakers offer both.
What I like about the 7 Évo is that it is both nimble and wide bandwidth without having to try, I probably didn’t push them as far as they can go but never got the sense of limitation when it came to headroom. The big Atalante can be used in anger without losing composure and is revealing with it, bass heavy tracks are dealt with in a controlled yet powerful manner that makes many speakers seem a little wayward. I didn’t find a bass line that the 7 Évo didn’t deliver in a timely and precise way, the bass driver may be large but it is composed under fire which is a major bonus when things get lively.
Image projection is strong too, vocals often being placed front and centre in substantial fashion. This was true with great recordings like Birds by Dominique Fils-Aime and less great examples such as Sarah Siskind’s Covered, the latter doesn’t have the sweetest of voices and it can become hard with less composed speakers but that wasn’t the case here where it was easier to follow the lyrics than I have found elsewhere. Other reviewers in these pages have found the smaller Revival designs to be exceptional with voices and that quality is clearly retained in the 7 Évo.
Compared to the larger and three times the price Dali Epikore 9 that has been getting a lot of use in my system of late the 7 Évo is not as relaxed but that is unsurprising as few speakers are, it does however deliver nearly as much information in a coherent fashion which is pretty good going. Given the size and finish of these speakers the sub £10k price of these Atalante 7 Évos is remarkable, this is achieved with Chinese manufacturing but there are plenty of other brands doing the same thing and not many have speakers are as resolute and powerful as these.
Conclusion
If you like the looks and have the space the Revival Atalante 7 Évo is an awful lot of beautifully finished loudspeaker for the money, it’s the sort of design that furnishes a room, a statement in fact. As mentioned at the start there are few speakers around that sport such a substantial bass driver and that element alone gives the 7 Évo capabilities that are very appealing indeed, not least deep, controlled bass and the ability to play at high levels without distress. Give it a clean, powerful amplifier and you will luxuriate in an enveloping sound that makes you want to listen louder for longer. Put on Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy, Led Zeppelin’s No Quarter or even Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and wind up the wick, it’s a dead cert that you’ll be enjoying top notch heavy entertainment long into the night.
Pros
Deep, powerful and exceptionally controlled bass
Effortless dynamics and high-volume capability
Neutral, revealing and highly detailed presentation
Superb realism with drums, bass and vocals
Striking retro styling with excellent finish quality
Strong sense of scale and headroom
Impressive value for such a large flagship design
Cons
Large cabinets demand significant room space
Wide baffle limits soundstage dispersion versus slimmer rivals
Heavy 54kg design makes setup difficult
Needs a clean, powerful amplifier to shine
Less relaxed presentation than some premium competitors