CES 2018 • Hot Product

Revel previously debuted its Performa3 Be speakers, but this was our first time seeing them -- and hearing them, sort of. The floorstanding Performa3 F228Be ($10,000/pair) uses a beryllium tweeter mated to a cast-aluminum wave guide, along with a 5 1/4" DCC midrange and a pair of 8" DCC woofers. Revel's Deep Ceramic Composite (DCC) transducer technology is said to "yield a durable ceramic surface to the aluminum cones and results in an ideal stiffness-to-weight ratio." If $10,000 is your speaker budget, this one sure looked like one that should be on your list. It's a lot of speaker for the money.

Also a lot of speaker, though in a much smaller package, is the Performa3 M106Be ($4000/pair), which was on silent display. It uses the same beryllium tweeter and waveguide as its larger brother, along with a 6 1/2" DCC woofer.

Harman International's sprawling complex at the Hard Rock Hotel was less than idea for judging sound, but we heard enough to know that these speakers were uncolored and finely detailed -- deserving of a much closer listen, in other words.