Any in depth Reactor reviews or users here?

[RMK]

I love the bass!

Me too ! If you listen to modern music, from jazz to pop, rap or reggae, it is the bass that makes the music exciting, that makes you tap your feet and dance, because the rythm section of a band is all about the bass line...If you listen to classical music, chamber music, baroque music, of course you don't need a lot of bass... Just go to any rock, pop or jazz live concert and compare to what you hear at home on most small speakers the size of the reactors: the difference in "excitement" is huge because small speakers don't do justice to the bass line...except for the reactors of course   .   People have adjusted to and have get used to the lack of bass in their home set up (except those that can afford huge speakers with several big woofers).  When they hear the kind of bass of a live concert at home (even when listening at low volume) they are shocked (and  their neighbors are shocked too ).
Go to this spotify  playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/user/21tt2txesm...hqwQk7nx_Q

Love the playlist!

[eniriop]

That's why I said that it depends on your personal preferences regarding the SQ

I just don't happen to like bass boosted frequency response because I have got used to having a flat frequency response in the bass. It has nothing to do with how low the speakers can go. The Reactor's bass response is not flat in real rooms as we can see from @eniriop 's measurements and that is completely as expected since there is no room correction feature in the Reactors. That is totally fine if you happen to like that kind of response. It's just not my cup of tea and therefore I'm trying to figure out some way to get a flat response.

I guess I didn't expect that the Reactors would have this much power in the bass. So much power but no way to control it.

I think that what your ears have been used to is not a flat frequency response but rather a rolled off frequency response under 300 Hz (see link below and also hifi plus review below). There is nothing wrong with this !  

https://www.alpha-audio.nl/review/review...usel-73449

But maybe after a while you might get used to the flat bass response down to 20hz...and ultimately find that the Wilson Benesch Vertex lack that kind of low bass response... 
It mainly depends on the kind of music you listen to and how large or small is your listening room. 
I bet if you go to any kind of live concert playing modern jazz, rock or pop music you'll hear much more of this kind of low bass ...and you'll probably love it...

Here is a (very favorable) review  of the Wilson Benesch Vertex in Hifi Plus:
" It delivers good bass for a loudspeaker of that kind of design, and is ideally suited to work in small rooms of mostly brick; the sort we British pay far too much money for. In a bigger space, or a room that doesn’t have the same construction methods, the bass rolls off honestly and accurately. But it rolls off. In truth, I would rather have a loudspeaker like the Vertex that rolls off predictably than a speaker that introduces its own distinct sub-100Hz booms to make the speaker seem bigger than it really is."
http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/wilson-...-hi-fi-88/

[petrik]

That's why I said that it depends on your personal preferences regarding the SQ

I just don't happen to like bass boosted frequency response because I have got used to having a flat frequency response in the bass. It has nothing to do with how low the speakers can go. The Reactor's bass response is not flat in real rooms as we can see from @eniriop 's measurements and that is completely as expected since there is no room correction feature in the Reactors. That is totally fine if you happen to like that kind of response. It's just not my cup of tea and therefore I'm trying to figure out some way to get a flat response.

I guess I didn't expect that the Reactors would have this much power in the bass. So much power but no way to control it.

I think that what your ears have been used to is not a flat frequency response but rather a rolled off frequency response under 100 Hz (see review below). There is nothing wrong with this !  
But maybe after a while you might get used to the flat bass response down to 20hz...and ultimately find that the Wilson Benesch Vertex lack that kind of low bass response... 
It mainly depends on the kind of music you listen to and how large or small is your listening room. 
I bet if you go to any kind of live concert playing modern jazz, rock or pop music you'll hear much more of this kind of low bass ...and you'll probably love it...

Here is a (very favorable) review  of the Wilson Benesch Vertex in Hifi Plus:
" It delivers good bass for a loudspeaker of that kind of design, and is ideally suited to work in small rooms of mostly brick; the sort we British pay far too much money for. In a bigger space, or a room that doesn’t have the same construction methods, the bass rolls off honestly and accurately. But it rolls off. In truth, I would rather have a loudspeaker like the Vertex that rolls off predictably than a speaker that introduces its own distinct sub-100Hz booms to make the speaker seem bigger than it really is."
http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/wilson-...-hi-fi-88/

I think you are making a totally incorrect assumption based on the speakers that you can find on my signature and the review that you copy-pasted here. You probably have no idea how Vertex works in real rooms, especially when using Devialet SAM. Or do you happen to own Vertex speakers?

Let's have a really simple example with the Vertex. Below you can see a frequency response of the Vertex in my listening room with SAM set to 75%. It is not rolled off below 100 Hz, almost a complete opposite of that. But the thing is, this sounds bad, really bad in my opinion because of the obvious bass issue at the 40,4 Hz.


What I have done next is that I simply applied a parametric EQ (40,4 Hz, Gain -16,4, Q 3,2). This simple PEQ makes the bass response much flatter as you can see. It's not a completely flat bass response yet but you will probably get the idea. This already sounds *significantly* better in my opinion. Much more balanced. The PEQ can be easily tweaked to get even a flatter bass response.




Let's then get back to the Reactors!

How is this related to the Reactors? Well, I just would like to get a flat bass response with the Reactors as well simply because I know that the Reactors would then sound so much better. It's a real pity that Devialet has put so much (bass) power to these speakers but there is no way to control the bass.

[eniriop]

From your graphs I understand that the problem is not with the Reactors or the Wilson Benesh speakers but with your listening room. The fact that the SAM equalizer does not solve the problem tends to confirm this.
If moving the speakers away from the walls does not solve the problem, then I agree that some kind of equalization is needed. The Phantoms' Spark app provides a "night mode" to lower the bass output, so there is no reason why they could not provide the same mode in the Devialet app for the Reactors...
All I can say is that when listening to the reactors in an open space such as an outdoor terrace, there is no audible bump in the bass. In a small bedroom, the bass becomes heavier, but not in an annoying way to my hear at least.

[petrik]

From your graphs I understand that the problem is not with the Reactors or the Wilson Benesh speakers but with your listening room. The fact that the SAM equalizer does not solve the problem tends to confirm this.
If moving the speakers away from the walls does not solve the problem, then I agree that some kind of equalization is needed. The Phantoms' Spark app provides a "night mode" to lower the bass output, so there is no reason why they could not provide the same mode in the Devialet app for the Reactors...
All I can say is that when listening to the reactors in an open space such as an outdoor terrace, there is no audible bump in the bass. In a small bedroom, the bass becomes heavier, but not in an annoying way to my hear at least.

Yes, it's a room related issue. I think it's quite common that people are having room acoustic related problems and therefore it would make sense to have at least some sort of solution to that. I contacted Devialet's support about this and they said that they are not planning to implement anything like this in the new Devialet app.

[WesCrackin]

Got my reactors for a week now so I can share some impressions.
I know what people mean by recessed mids now. These do not quite sound like hifi speakers to me. No comparison to my main system in any department, especially mids and treble. Cannot compare to something like Phantom Golds but people compare Phantom Golds to high end systems and the Reactors, in turn, get compared to the Golds or other Phantoms.

For what I got them, I still love them however: As desktop speakers for fun, casual listening, watching videos and gaming, as well as for taking one of them with me on the occasional trip.

[Mr_Bill]

There are some interesting comments from some very respectable forum members, comparing Stereo Reactor vs Stereo Phantom Gold and not hearing much of any difference. The thread is from May June below.
That speaks to me as certainly high end.

Got my reactors for a week now so I can share some impressions.
I know what people mean by recessed mids now. These do not quite sound like hifi speakers to me. No comparison to my main system in any department, especially mids and treble. Cannot compare to something like Phantom Golds but people compare Phantom Golds to high end systems and the Reactors, in turn, get compared to the Golds or other Phantoms.

For what I got them, I still love them however: As desktop speakers for fun, casual listening, watching videos and gaming, as well as for taking one of them with me on the occasional trip.

[antilles]

There are some interesting comments from some very respectable forum members, comparing Stereo Reactor vs Stereo Phantom Gold and not hearing much of any difference. The thread is from May June below.
That speaks to me as certainly high end.

Gold and Silver Phantoms are physically almost identical, yet have such obviously different sonic characters, that I would question the hearing, if not the intentions, of anyone who can’t tell much of any difference between Reactors and Golds.

[Jean-Marie]

There are some interesting comments from some very respectable forum members, comparing Stereo Reactor vs Stereo Phantom Gold and not hearing much of any difference. The thread is from May June below.
That speaks to me as certainly high end.

Gold and Silver Phantoms are physically almost identical, yet have such obviously different sonic characters, that I would question the hearing, if not the intentions, of anyone who can’t tell much of any difference between Reactors and Golds.

Doing a real double blind test with level matched equipment to 0.1 dB can lead to very surprising results 

Jean-Marie

[Mr_Bill]

Right on Jean-Marie