There’s something really special about a high-quality bookshelf speaker.
They are the vehicle through which we experience the soundtrack to our lives, operating in the background of our homes and listening areas, providing the backbeat to parties, social events and regular old household chores, while operating as the primary playback source of the music we love and cherish. The beauty of a high quality one is that it’s a long term investment, offering pristine sound and good looks to match the curated furniture in our homes.
Enter relative newcomer Revival Audio and their awesome Atalante 3 speaker – a high quality bookshelf speaker that combines classy good looks and world-class sonics, built-in collaboration with A+A Cooren Design Studio, a Paris-based French-Japanese design studio.
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Featuring a unique belt & knot design, laser-etched Revival Audio logo, and hand-picked walnut veneer, the collaboration has clearly stunning aesthetics to a masterfully designed and constructed speaker from Revival Audio. More than just a looker, the Atalante 3 is a two-way design, powered by a 7” woofer and 28mm soft-dome tweeter, as well as Revival’s back-chamber design, intended to absorb 95% resonance for pristine audio largely unaffected by the speaker’s surroundings, while offering a huge sound for such a compact speaker.
With a tight knit team that boasts decades of top tier industry experience, technological innovation, product design, development and deployment, you would expect relatively new French company Revival Audio to come launching out of the gate and you’d be right. Having recently released two flagship models, the 2-way Atalante 3 (on review here) and 3-way Atalante 5 pinned for the highest level of listener and deluxe listening experience (and all at a more than accessible pricepoint for a speaker of this quality) – there is certainly a buzz in the Hi-Fi world for Revival Audio and for good reason.
With the Atalante family of speakers all being designed, engineered and assembled in France, an immediate and genuine European connection oozes from these speakers and it’s undeniable. The Atalante 3 aesthetic seems to strike the perfect balance of retro styling with the elegance of modern French design resulting in a timeless look, sure to catch even the most critical eye.
An art piece in their own right, the Atalante 3’s cabinet consists of rich walnut wood veneer, a stunning belt and knot logo design, with meticulously crafted burned logos on the corners of each cabinet. Paired with the sleek and elegant Revival Audio Stand 3, the Atalante 3’s are a world class speaker at the visual level.
This same artisanal quality also extends to the inner workings of the speakers themselves. The offset 28mm soft-dome tweeters with ARID (Anti-Reflection Inner Dome) technology and 7” Revival Audio BSC (Basalt Sandwich Construction) woofer are, like all of Revival Audio’s components, made in-house, specifically with Revival’s small but refined product range in mind.
It’s this attention to detail that really separates Revival Audio from the pack and is something that instantly bears sonic fruit, particularly in regard to the soundstage and dispersion qualities of the Atalante 3, which are a cut above what you would normally expect to hear from a bookshelf speaker of this size.
Said to outperform larger ferrite magnet systems, the ARID high-frequency driver, coupled with the specialised back-chamber design found on the Atalante 3’s, is nothing short of a masterstroke, implementing anti-resonance technology that offers a focused and detailed upper mid-range, and proving absolute magic when paired with hard panned instruments in the stereo field.
String sections pump and undulate in a way that transports you directly into the centre of the orchestral pit. Percussion instruments are textured and easily placed across the soundstage with a kind of instant directionality that is hard to replicate in other speaker setups. The immediacy of the recoil on display here is truly remarkable and holds up across a multitude of playback material, in a way that never feels strained or pushed.
You’d be hard pressed to find a more impressive debut from a loudspeaker company than Revival Audio’s Atalante 3.
In terms of LF drivers, the 7” Revival Audio BSC woofers found on the Atalante 3’s are nothing to be scoffed at either, proving the perfect running mate to the unique tweeter design and providing plenty of high quality low-end reproduction all the way down to 44Hz.
You’d be hard pressed to find a more impressive debut from a loudspeaker company than Revival Audio’s Atalante 3. The wealth of industry experience and technical nous that has clearly gone into this release, belies a company whose understanding of the industry extends far beyond their two years as a company. The Atalante 3 with its broad soundstage and attention to detail is a classy and confident release from one of the most exciting new brands in Hi-Fi.
Revival Audio are proudly distributed by Audio Marketing, for more information check out their website.
This article was made in partnership with Audio Marketing.
