Revival Audio Sprint 4 Floorstanding Loudspeakers Review

Posted on 24th January, 2025
Revival Audio Sprint 4 Floorstanding Loudspeakers Review

Peter Katsoolis enjoys his time with this feisty-sounding French floorstander…

Revival Audio

Sprint 4 Floorstanding Loudspeakers

AUD $3,300Pair | GBP £1,790Pair | EUR €1.799Pair

Bold move, launching a loudspeaker company in the dark days of a global pandemic. In 2021, nonetheless, Revival Audio hit the ground running with its tight line Atalante series loudspeakers. Combining retro wide-baffle cool with state-of-the-art technology, the Alsace-based company managed to flourish where established names began to flounder.

Company co-founder, CEO and marketing guru Jacky Lee, says:

COVID-19 provided a unique opportunity for us. During the pandemic, people began prioritising quality audio experience in the home. We focused on bringing a fresh perspective, creating accessible high end performance speakers.

About a year ago, Revival Audio hatched the even more accessible and affordable Sprint line, of which the 2.5-way Sprint 4 is the sole current floorstander. Boasting a radically different slim profile, the task at hand is to determine whether this go-getting company falls foul of what us rockers call the 'difficult second album' syndrome…

What is Revival Audio reviving in the modern Sprint 4? Unlike many contemporary loudspeaker brands, the company has adopted the antiquated notion of designing and manufacturing "all vital components", including its driver units, in-house. The French company certainly has the claimed savoir-faire. Before co-founding Revival Audio, CTO and master engineer, Daniel Emonts, clocked up over thirty years designing for top-tier brands like Altec-Lansing and Focal-JMLab, and latterly as senior acoustician at Dynaudio. This brand hit the scene fully formed, then.

The speaker uses the same 28mm RASC soft-dome tweeter as seen in the Atalante series. It is constructed using the same asymmetric suspension system for improved dispersion, with an oversized, high-efficiency ferrite magnet. However, Jacky Lee points out that, "the magnetic force and voice coil length are optimised for the Sprint range". RASC is a patented coating developed by Revival Audio to control dome break-up for "accurate, smooth sound reproduction".

Because the space behind the tweeter dome creates standing waves which impact its behaviour, the Sprint 4 features Revival's ingenious ARID (Anti-Resonance Inner Dome) technology inserted immediately behind the acoustic dome. The standing waves are guided into a plastic yoke and absorbed in a back chamber artificial cavity, again with its own asymmetric 'Back Chamber Resonance Free Damping' design that's said to have a low resonance frequency of 560Hz. Revival Audio says almost all internal resonances in the tweeter cavity are suppressed.

The twin woofers are 175mm in diameter and employ Basalt Sandwich Construction for the first time in high-end audio applications. The sandwich is tri-layered with a felt inner applied to the back of the interlaced basalt membrane, for better damping. This novel design is said to offer strength and lightness, as well as being significantly stronger than glass fibre, and much stronger than Kevlar.

The operational frequency ranges of the two woofers significantly overlap, and the unusual, single-board 2.5-way crossover is designed to maximise performance with an accurate phase and low-frequency response. Jacky Lee opines, "our crossovers follow a philosophy of simplicity and precision. We use high quality components and careful tuning to ensure seamless integration between drivers while maintaining their natural tonality".

This speaker is designed in France, and made in China. Weighing 20.6kg, the cabinet design is twin-ported (bungs are supplied) and incorporates a twin-chambered structure of "premium MDF". Lee advises that each chamber is "carefully calibrated and differs in volume to ensure precise tuning of each driver, and to maximise the cabinet's acoustic potential to achieve a cleaner sound profile". The golden-ratio proportioned cabinet sits on metal outrigger-style footers and is non-bi-wirable. Whereas the Atalantes get real wood, the textured finish on the Sprint 4 is touch-and-trick-me, multi-layer vinyl. You get the choice of walnut or oak veneer or satin black paint.

The Sprint 4's singular piece-de-resistance is the Elytron front baffle, which is said to be inspired by 'natural forms'. The poly-waveguide baffle structure incorporates the speaker grills and attaches magnetically. It works to enhance directivity while reducing diffraction; according to Revival Audio, it's an essential element of the speaker's sound. Sensitivity is rated at a decent 89dB/2.83V/1 metre with a nominal impedance of 4 ohms dropping to a respectable 3.8 ohms at 200Hz. Frequency response is quoted at 45Hz to 22kHz (-3dB). Notwithstanding the claimed power handling of 180 watts, I had no problems pressurising a 50m2 room with my classic 50-watt Luxman L-80V integrated amplifier.

THE LISTENING

The Sprint 4 impresses with a colourful yet consistent sound that is capable of great differentiation, focus and insight. The frequency extremes are a little restrained, but its lively and inviting character makes for extended fatigue-free listening. It has unstinting pitch accuracy, plus that special kind of living, breathing physical presence – tangibility that many more expensive loudspeakers lack, regardless of price. It is both enjoyably musical and highly revealing in terms of detail and spatiality. Soundstaging is deep and tall, with unshakeable imaging. For all of its engineering innovations, this speaker gets out of the way of the music and captivates, immerses and emotes.

None of these qualities are diminished when the going gets tough musically. Take a dense, teetering live mix such as Captain Beefheart's I'm Going to Do What I Wanna Do, for example. This music is a caterwauling intersection of Howlin Wolf, free jazz and free speech – actualised with slide guitar, synths, trombone and oral whistling. The Sprint 4 tracks the varied instrumental lines and shifting time signatures with ease. Even at high listening levels, instrumental separation is expertly maintained, and the sound never hardens up. Removing the speaker's 'beetle-baffle' renders the sound brighter and less organic, to my ears.

It's also a consummate pro when it comes to conveying low-level micro-dynamics, capturing as it does the music's inflections and nuances with ease. Thanks to its open and intimate midband, listening to Joe Henderson's Inner Urge is an emotional experience. The acoustic space is finely resolved, with a lifelike piano sound that has a great sense of weight and scale. Ivories zing laterally on a palpable cushion of harmonic air. Drums are visceral, with real substance and timbre. Every beat and strike bears a subtly different potency and resonant decay, which is a testament to the seamless coherence of the drivers. These loudspeakers really disappear into the listening room – there are eerie moments when the leader stands blowing alone, sax keys clacking on metal, with the slightest waver of an off-key note.

I imagine that many would buy this speaker for its class-leading handling of rhythm and dynamics alone. The Richter Audio Wizard S6SE, for example, goes deeper, but the Revival has more refined and agile nether regions. Its bass arrives on time and without bloat or smearing, again with that incredible inner harmonic detail that characterises the latter's house sound. The redemptive power of poorly recorded rock'n'roll? In spite of – or perhaps even because of – the Sprint 4's slight lack of top-end air and sparkle, I can drop the needle on the classic Radical Histery from Les Thugs and jump around like the first time I heard it.

THE VERDICT

Like Revival Audio, the Sprint 4 floorstander has arrived seemingly fully formed. This loudspeaker vastly exceeds expectations, given its modest pricing and intermediate size. Both technically and sonically, it's something of a tour-de-force, which I suspect many more established brands would sell for a whole lot more. So, if you're looking for a great value floorstander, you'd be crazy not to add this to your audition list.

For more information visit Revival Audio

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Peter Katsoolis's avatar
Peter Katsoolis

Buys records, sees bands. Peter was never the same after hearing stacked Quads in the 1970s. He is a contributing editor to Resistor Magazine, worships the 12-string Richenbacker, and in between times, is one of Australia’s most successful criminal defence lawyers.

Posted in: Applause Awards | 2025 | Loudspeakers | Floorstanding | Hi-Fi

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