Russell,
The review David Clark was refering to was the one Victor Chavira wrote and PFO posted here:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/sptech.htmIt's posted elswhere here on our circle as well.
Oh, as far as the bass goes and the Timepiece vs. the Revelations, it's only partially a matter of extension. The TP 2.1" are -3dB @ 29Hz vs. the Continuum 2.5's and Revelation MR-1's which are both -3dB @ 25Hz. If you need extension below 30Hz then those larger two models are the way to go.
But there's more to it than that. The Revelations are a special case wherein, due to their transmission-line loading, their rolloff below 25Hz is only 12dB/oct. as opposed to the 24dB/oct. rolloff due to the bass-reflex loading of the other models.
Besides providing significant infrasonic output below 20Hz, the lower slope of the Revelations is essentially the same as that of a sealed box design. This means that they introduce only 1/2 the amount of group-delay/phase shift at the lowest frequencies that the other models do - or that of any other ported speaker with the same -3dB corner frequency(25Hz).
Many years ago Lorri Fincham (sp?) of KEF fame showed that large amounts of low frequency group-delay/phase shift causes the ear/brain mechanism to interpret such as "more bass." This is true irrespective of the actual frequency extension. To the experienced listener, the effect also imparts a certain "overhang" or even "boominess" to the sound. That's why many audiophiles don't like bass-reflex designs.
The effect can be mitigated to a large degree by simply extending the frequency response/tunning frequency of a bass-reflex design to as low of a frequency as possible. That's why all of the products in our
Millennial Reference Series are tunned to below 35Hz. If a bass-reflex design is tunned much higher than that, the "boomy" effect really starts rearing its ugly head.
All bass-reflex systems are a compromise to some degree, but those darn laws of physics just won't budge and mandate compromise in the real world. If you're willing to let size not be a factor, well...then you can get much closer to "perfection." But in many applications size is an issue and we're left with little more than the good ol' bass-reflex solution. Our goal has always been to accept that compromise in our smaller models, but then do all we can to minimize the negative consequences.
Any engineer that has a clue will tell you that good engineering virtually always dictates some compromise. What separates the "men from the boys" is that good engineers find creative ways to juggle the parameters and use the laws of physics to their benefit in order to produce truly optimized designs. The rest just stand around scratching their heads and wishing they could change the laws.
Well...that's my $0.02 worth on the subject. Hope this helps.
-Bob