GRADIENT REVOLUTION
‘ The Gradient Revolution is a wonderful speaker for those listeners who want their speakers to organize the musical signal as complete, coherent whole, yet who themselves view listening as an activity that requires effort and engagement if one is to extract the value of it. The speaker is honest and fair and represents a distinctive and meritorious approach to reproducing music in the home. One can spend a great deal more and find oneself experiencing a good deal less musicality and honesty. The Gradient should appear on every list of faithful and honest reproducers of music. It's certainly high on my list and thus highly recommended for the active listener. ’
- Jules Coleman, 6moons (Nov 2004)
‘ Meanwhile, the Gradient Revolutions, which feature open-baffle dipolar bass, proved their design merit by producing some of the finest bass I heard at the show, and in the smallest hotel room. ‘
-Michael Fremer, Frankfurt Show Report, Stereophile (Sept 2000)
‘ Viva la revolution! exhorted DO. He found the Revolution, designed to be less room-dependent than ordinary speakers, "quite endearing," although not spectacular in conventional audiophile terms. He decided their greatest strengths were organic wholeness, solid imaging, excellent microdynamic expression, and convincing rhythmic drive. Original review samples turned out to have a broken crossover. JA's Follow-up endorsed DO's enthusiasm for this unprepossessing-looking but neutrally balanced speaker, and he adds that the bass quality and extension are both simply excellent. MF also agrees, adding that the Revolutions work great as rear-channel speakers in a Dolby AC-3 system ‘
-Recommended Components 2000, Stereophile (April 2000)
‘ As it turned out, a superb speaker, the Gradient Revolution, was designed so that in one of its configurations it could work against the wall. How much were they? When told $ 4000 a pair, I may have felt dizzy. But only a little. My decision was helped because I had heard the Gradients at CES. In fact, I had been so impressed with their neutral, transparent sound that I had gone back several times to listen to them. ’ ‘ Soon a pair arrived at my house, and my good-natured wife couldn’t resist making jokes along the lines of ‘ It would have been cheaper if you’d gone to Vegas and just gambled. ‘ The Gradients spoke for themselves, however. After I hooked them up and played more of those LPs and some CDs, my wife settled into a chair, spellbound. The musicians seemed to be spread out before us. Each note was amazingly distinct. ‘ -David Morrell, The Absolute Sound (Dec 1999)
‘ The Signatures also made my Gradient Revolutions sit up and take notice. Gradient’s designer Jorma Salmi says that given the open-baffle design of the woofers, the Revolutions prefer solid state to tube, and they need an amplifier capable of exerting firm control on the bottom end. In my over 3,150-cubic-foot living room I could not overdrive either the speakers or the amplifier at any level I could stand. A good friend of mine who owns Gradient Revolutions loves Nineteenth Century orchestral and organ music. He bought the Gradients for their neutrality and their (just about peerless) imaging. ‘ -Paul Seydor, The Absolute Sound (Oct/Nov 1999)
‘ As well as the flatness - presumably due to its dipolar design and the effectiveness of its crossover, it meets astonishing +/-1.3 dB limits in-room, from the 32 Hz 1/3-octave band to the 10 kHz band - note the excellent extension, the speakers not starting to roll off until below 30 Hz in my listening room! ‘ ‘ My auditioning of the revised samples of the Revolution confirms Dick Olsher's excellent opinion of this speaker. Its modest appearance and size belie a sophisticated, superbly engineered, high-performance design. Highly recommended. ‘
-John Atkinson, Stereophile (March 1997)
‘ The Gradient Revolutions finally provide an alternative to panel and ordinary box speakers. ‘ ‘ The stereo image of the Revolutions is exceptionally accurate with diffused air around the instruments. ‘ ‘ The Gradient Revolutions are always highly musical in all listening environments! ‘
-Patrick Vercher & Jacques Vallienne, Prestige Audio Video (Oct 1995)
‘ Gradient's research into the final frontier of loudspeaker art - i.e., room/speaker integration - has yielded a speaker that I find quite endearing in musical terms. "The Revolution's greatest strengths are an organic wholeness, solid imaging, excellent microdynamic expression, and a convincing rhythmic drive born out of a pure and quick bass range." "My advice is to give this Finnish delight a serious audition. Its inherent musicality may move you to rise and join the Revolution!
‘ -Dick Olsher, Stereophile (May 1995)
‘ Andre Previn's Richard Strauss recording of the Alpensinfonie (Telarc CD-80211) and Mariss Jansons' recording of Rachmaninov's third symphony (EMI CDC 7 54877 2) belong to the absolute highest top when we are talking about natural concert hall acoustics. Listening to these recordings through Gradient Revolutions is of a fantastic experience. The walls simply vanish and your living room turns into the Vienna Musikverein Hall and the Philharmonic Hall of St. Petersburg. ‘
-Peter Johnson & Michael Madsen, High Fidelity, 2/1995
‘ Tangible is the term that most accurately describes the sound staging. The Gradients could paint a more convincing picture of an orchestra playing in real space than any other speakers I have heard. ‘ ‘ I recommend them highly. ‘
-
-Ken M. Duke, The Sensible Sound, No 54, 1995.
‘ The Gradient Revolution is a remarkable, and remarkably successful attempt to design a speaker that is as free as possible from fundamental defects and that can be expected to perform well in real listening environments. ‘ ‘ But what separates the speaker from the usual High End product is the sheer creativity and originality of its acoustic design. ‘ ‘The result is almost a nonspeaker speaker...And naturally recorded music acquires with the Revolutions a musical realism that is startling. For example, the Rutter Requiem (Reference Recordings RR-57) sounds convincing tonally and spatially to the point of almost dissolving the walls of one's listening room. ‘ ‘ Certainly, they would be on the short list of those that I would consider were I required to give up the Quads. Speakers like this reassure one that there is real progress and creativity in speaker design. ‘ -Robert E. Greene, The Absolute Sound (Nov 1994)
Product reviews
