[jonbee]

I got my first experience with Selah speakers with my Tempestas, which continually delight me and the many audiophiles who have heard them in the nearly two years I've had them.
Since I got them I've bought several more good standmounts, mostly to play with in my office. (Merlin TSM-MME, Aurum Cantus Leisure 3 SE  and Escalante Junipers to name a few from the last year or so).
When a used pair of sealed cabinet SSRs showed up for sale cheap, I couldn't resist giving them a try.
In short, after an hour or so with them I think they are wonderful. The Revelator woofers and Fountek ribbons are detailed, very smooth, wonderfully well integrated, with excellent balance and a great soundstage. The bass is very clean and defined to below 50hz. I'm very impressed with the dynamics- for a two-way with Revelators they are explosive, which I had not expected. Nothing stands out in the soundstage, just the seamless musical events served up in a convincing way.
The Tempestas are somewhat more transparent overall, have a tighter focus, and go deeper in the bass than these sealed SSRs, but the SSRs have the same overall signature. They exceed my expectations for them. I'm very pleased. I will use them in my office system. 
I'll write up a more detailed review when I get to A/B them with my Volent VL-2s and hear more music.
Wonderful job, Rick!

[ricardojoa]

when you tightet focus, im assuming you mean a more pinpoint image?
I waiting for Rick response on my transfer and things can get moving.
I choose the tempesta for its off axis performance. It seems to me that the mid and upper mid are more consistent over the other monitor and it has a slight high roll off.
I still dont know what to pair these, i will hear them to see if they would benifit with a slight warmth from tubes.

[jonbee]

when you tightet focus, im assuming you mean a more pinpoint image?
I waiting for Rick response on my transfer and things can get moving.
I choose the tempesta for its off axis performance. It seems to me that the mid and upper mid are more consistent over the other monitor and it has a slight high roll off.

Yes, the midrange images are somewhat sharper with the Tempesta, due to the Accuton/Illuminator pairing. The SSRs are great in this regard, but the Tempesta goes one better.
Off-axis the Tempestas are amazing. At listening sessions here (I've had 6 or 7, with a couple dozen listeners) I seat listeners 5 abreast, 8 feet from the speakers, and there are no bad seats. There is no scramble for the sweet spot.
I'm not sure I would characterize the highs as rolled off; you just are not aware of the tweeters. Then sound simply blends together, as it does with instruments themselves. Very high instruments, such as small bells, shimmer as they should.
I'm sure you will find trying different matchups rewarding. The Selahs show differences in everything very clearly.

[cstory]

Nice report on the SSR's. It was reading all the positive comments about them that led me to ask Rick to combine the Revelator woofer with the Raal tweeter. The results of that marriage were all I could have hoped for.

Part of me is always hoping at some point to be able to play the Granduer's side by side with the SSR's to see how much difference the tweeters make.

To further address what ricardojoa was saying about the top end of the Tempesta's with my experience with the same tweeter in my Granduer's, they may appear to sound rolled off at first, but what I believe people are hearing is the absense of distortion from the tweeter. The top end in my Granduer doesn't grab your attention, but cymbal's, tambourines sound like real pieces of metal being struck. I certainly would not go shopping for tubes until after you've given the speakers a good long listen.

Certainly the Granduer's don't need additional warmth. If I were to go with tubes I would probably be looking for soemthing like Audio Research, but in the end I'm more likely to be tempted by good solid state gear like some used Pass Labs, Ayre, Marantz, stuff like that.

Chuck

[ricardojoa]

oh let me clarify. i didnt mean the tempesta highs sounded roll off, what i meant is that off axis the raal 70-10 roll off later then the 70-20. Also, if you look at Rick graph for the monitors, the off axis is very consistent and remains flat. Thats the reason i choose the tempesta. Hope that was a good reason.

[Jeff K]

In short, after an hour or so with them I think they are wonderful. The Revelator woofers and Fountek ribbons are detailed, very smooth, wonderfully well integrated, with excellent balance and a great soundstage. The bass is very clean and defined to below 50hz. I'm very impressed with the dynamics- for a two-way with Revelators they are explosive, which I had not expected. Nothing stands out in the soundstage, just the seamless musical events served up in a convincing way.

I appreciate your assessment, as I don't know of anyone that has owned as many speakers as you have. I own the no longer available Galenas which are essentially SSR's in a 3-way tower where the Revelators hand off to a 10 in Aura at about 350hz (I'm guessing). They're down 3db at 30hz and I absolutely love them. I was looking for my last set of speakers and feel that I found them.

[Rick Craig]

oh let me clarify. i didnt mean the tempesta highs sounded roll off, what i meant is that off axis the raal 70-10 roll off later then the 70-20. Also, if you look at Rick graph for the monitors, the off axis is very consistent and remains flat. Thats the reason i choose the tempesta. Hope that was a good reason.

That's one of the benefits of a 3-way because you have more flexibility in driver choices. The 70-10 reigns supreme in the top octave!

[jonbee]

I had time yesterday and I brought out all 4 of my current quality monitors for a comparison. Tempestas, SSR, Volent VL-2, and Escalante Junipers. These models had been the winners among the standmounts I've owned in the 45 year long speaker round robin I call home.
 I listened in my main system, anchored by an NCore NC400 dual mono amp, Audio-GD c-3 preamp, a Windows 7 dedicated music server running Jriver, a MF VLink 192 feeding an eastern Electric Plus DAC with Dexa op-amps, with power from a PS Audio Power Plant Premier. Cables have been carefully selected.

After the first round, it was clear that there was one outlier- the Tempestas. They outperformed all of the others in their areas of strength, and really have no areas where they underperformed any of the others. They also sound much larger, although they are  not that much larger physically. In particular, the uniformity of the tonality from top to bottom, the space and separation between instruments, and the way the music appears free from the outlines of the speakers surpassed all the others.
My goal in this exercise was to pick the best of the smaller speakers for my office, so the other 3 took most of the attention.
 The Volents are very detailed and with very good spatial rendering. Detail is as good as the Tempestas, but they don't open up the soundstage as well. Bass is deep and very defined, but there is a bit of midbass emphasis. The highs from the LCY ribbons are very detailed, but there is a slightly dry and analytical quality in comparison to the RAAL.
The SSR has one quality in particular that makes them stand out, which is a beautifully rendered midrange. All of these speakers have very good midrange clarity and detail, but the SSR presents the body of the mids, in voice, piano, or horns, in a richer, fuller way. It is not coloration, IMO, but it is very engaging balance. The Fountek ribbon is  also very detailed, but not as smooth and sonically invisible as the RAAL. Driver integration is very good, and better than I would expect mating a ribbon with a paper cone in a 2-way. Nice.
The SSRs I have are sealed. Bass is strong to below 50 hz., but the DIY cabinets on my pair are not very robust, and panel talk intrudes in the low bass clarity.  I will open them up and add panel damping. If I was to buy a pair from Rick I would get the ported version with the rounded cabinets as in the Tempestas, and No-Rez installed, in any case. I hear no panel talk from these cabinets in the Tempesta that impedes the bass clarity. All in all, the SSRs are very competitive with the other non-Tempesta standmounts in this comparison, at much less $.
The Escalante are a somewhat different animal. They don't offer extension at the extremes, not are they quite as transparent as the Volent or Tempesta, but they focus on a completely seamless presentation of the range they do cover, with excellent separation of instruments. They have a natural ease to them that is hard to describe, yet easy to recognize. Very comfortable to listen to. Violins are to die for.  A real "music lover's" speaker.
It was a difficult choice between the Escalante and the SSR for my office, but I went with the SSR. I think I can improve the cabinets, and as a detail junky I like the extra top end transparency the SSR offers.
So- in summary- the SSR compares favorably with a couple of very good $5000 retail speakers here. I prefer it to other less expensive speakers, such as the Merlin TSM-MME, Thiel PCS, AAD2001, and the many other standmounts I've tried. YMMV, of course. And as I said earlier- nice job, Rick!

[jonbee]

I just finished my upgrades to my SSRs. This pair has Rick's upgraded crossovers, with Alphacore ribbon inductors and ClarityCap SA caps. The sealed DIY cabinets on these are well constructed, with good bracing. Finish quality is so-so.
My only initial reservations about the sound was the fatness and lack of clarity in the bass range, and a slight crispness to the high end. This is in comparison to my Tempestas, which are true reference standards in all respects except very low bass extension.
The cabinets were vibrating noticeably on bass passages, so I addressed that first. I added 1/4" felt panels to the cabinet walls in addition to the upholstery foam and vinyl floor tile lining already in place. I doubled the amount of dacron stuffing in stages, so the cabinets are now about 80% full. These changes were the most significant to the sound, as the midbass is now very flat and tight. While still not quite as defined or as deep as the ported Tempestas, the overall balance is very good, and they have a similar overall signature, but with a touch of warmth that provides more body to the mids.
I then re-wired the speakers, using 10 ga. Alphacore ribbon wire for the crossover feed and woofers and 18 ga. high purity long crystal solid core copper wire for the tweeters. I experimented with tweeter padding, and ended up adding 1/4 ohm resistors in series with the tweeters.
Now the highs smoothed out very nicely, the soundstage opened up, and they sing like very fine instruments. They have sweet, natural listenability and a midrange to top end with excellent body and detail, things that often are exclusive. There is a slightly warm, rich tonality to the lower mids that is also engaging.
 They now easily better the $5000 Escalante Junipers which they replaced. Compared to my Volent VL-2s, while they don't quite have the transparency, focus or the bass extension of the ported VL-2s, they make up for that with better balance, warm tonal integration and easy listenability. Overall, it is hard to choose between them, as they are both very fine but with some different strengths. Of course, there is a huge price difference-$1.7k vs. $5k. In my case I'm keeping both.
If I didn't want to employ a sub, I would opt for the larger, ported SSR, I think. With a sub, these sealed models offer a big complete sound. No miniature performers here!
Now compared to the Tempestas, they offer the balance, smoothness and ease of listening, but giving up some overall transparency and bottom end extension.
Overall, this is a speaker I could live with for a long time. These are true thoroughbreds, not "stepping-stone" models. Many music lovers could buy these and call it good for a very long time, something that occurs a lot with Rick's customers, I think. The speakers get out of the way of the music remarkably well- my ultimate test, which is not often passed.
At ~$1700 assembled from Rick, I can't think of a better, more refined speaker for the $. As a  $795 kit, the clarity and high resolution of the design rewards attention to detail in materials and construction, and the result can be stunning.