This is a review written by Terry Ellis November 2025.

For my video review please see my YouTube channel link here

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Is bigger better?

Back in the day I distinctly remember asking a speaker manufacturer why they design their speakers with multiple smaller bass drivers rather than a single larger driver like what’s in the Revival Audio Atalante 7 Évo speakers. I vividly remember them telling me that they can control the bass better with multiple smaller drivers and I interpreted that as I would get better bass quality from speakers with multiple smaller drivers, that has stuck with me until now because the Atalante 7 Évo completely debunks that speaker design theory I held.  They have also debunked some of my other long thought speaker preconceptions too.

Big

The Revival Audio Atalante 7 Évo speakers might be my favourites speaker yet in their price range because it’s like someone actually listened to everything I have said positive and negative about other speakers in the last 8 years, then made these. I am sure that is not how it went but its interesting to me all the same,  it’s a speaker where I have only one negative thing to say about them and it is a big one and it might be obvious.

If your new to Revival Audio, the Atalante speakers are their flagship speaker range, with the 7 being a new addition and the largest and current best speaker in the range. The Évo moniker identifies this as their latest and greatest version of an Atalante speaker, but those who are familiar with what Revival have been doing will see a lot that is familiar with the form factor, with one huge exception. The 7 ÉVO are front ported and what a port it is, it looks like it could swallow a small child or definitely a cat. It’s a very serious port clearly for a very serious speaker, because there is no escaping the fact that the 7 Évo is physically large. It’s both very wide compared to many other modern designed HiFi speakers looking to be super slim, and its also deep, so the speaker has a big volume and footprint in the room.

To give you some size context there is an image with one 7 Évo sat next to one of my Mission 770 speakers. Hopefully this gives you an idea of the kind of speaker we are talking about here. Especially in terms of the driver compliment because they feature a 15inch bass driver and that is really quite unique for a modern domestic use high end HiFi speaker. I can think of only one high end HiFi speaker to feature a 15″ bass driver and that is the original Bowers and Wilkins 800 that was sold in the 1990s I believe but I am now questioning why there are not more?

In my video review there is a shot of the Mission in front of the 7 Évo and their side profiles and you can see the Revival is a lot deeper than the Mission too, so yes they are sat on stands but these are far and away from your typical stand mount HiFi speaker, don’t be fooled by the stands.

Drivers and more

The 15 inch bass driver cone is made using BSC and that stands for a basalt sandwich construction which is a Revival trademark material to use. They say it offers a great balance of stiffness with damping. This large bass driver has a 3 inch voice coil, fully vented motor system, oversized magnet system and 10mm of linear travel. This all sounds quite subwoofer like and is all music to my ears for a driver being used in a speaker, excuse the pun. I also like it when you get up close to the cone with the right lighting it’s almost looks like it has mini dragon scales maybe it’s a pretty cool looking driver.

I also am a big fan of soft dome mid range drivers, I don’t know why I just am.  The 7 Évo has Revival’s latest and best 3 inch soft dome mid range driver that features an improved version of their patented Arid+ technology, absorbing 96%+ of the rear sound wave into an aluminium chamber, that reduces resonances and improves cooling. The driver has a double suspension with a neodymium magnet system and other improvements, cool to know.

The 1 inch soft dome treble unit also gets an Évo make over with a custom coating being applied to the Tetoron material, with again an improved version of their Arid+ rear chamber technology now aluminium, with a pure aluminium voice coil and other improvements further still. All of the details for the Évo improvements are listed on the Revival website and are worth checking out, especially as there are photos and details for the crossover. I appreciate Revival are showing the crossover as its not something we often see with speakers but I wish there was a better visual indicator for the crossover size and scale. Revival say the crossovers use high quality air core coils, an all-pass filter topology for improved acoustic phase coherence and a few other details.

I found more interesting was looking at a cut away image of the cabinet to see how everything is laid out and how the huge port curves down into the cabinet, with a serious amount of bracing being used to control the resonances of such a large panelled speaker. Revival say this all based on the results of hundreds of hours of simulation and I did the obligatory tap test and the speaker feels pretty dead. There was a little ringing in the stands though which I didn’t expect and these are speakers designed to always live on the stands. They come attached to the stands in the box, in fact two huge 80kg + boxes so the speakers never need to come off the stands, not even for shipping. The speakers are isolated from the stands by a spike but this is certainly different to what I am used to and its an interesting way of designing such a large and heavy speaker for how its designed to be handled and lived with.

I should also mention the port has a specific design for better airflow, that is what all the grooves do, but the big thing here is the flange of the port being made from aluminium, Revival say that is very rare for a speaker at this price. I remember being at the Bowers factory and they promoted their use of aluminium in the ports of their new Signature 801 speakers that cost about £47k just for some context on this.

For some other basic specs these are 6 ohms speakers, with a 4.4ohm minimum impedance and a 90db sensitivity ,so they are fairly easy to drive for an amplifier and I tested this and think that is great. In the UK the retail price is £9,390 for the pair so that is a lot of money for HiFi speakers, however when we look at the overall market the KEF Reference 5 or Bowers 803, or 802 all cost double and then some so the price is not outrageous. Looking for a speaker that better matches this kind of form factor and design I could only think of the ATC SCM100 and they cost double or maybe the PMC MB2SE but they cost triple, so look I think we have the potential for a hell of a lot of speaker here for the money.

Set up in the room

When I first unboxed the 7 Évo I will admit I thought they seemed huge, maybe even ridiculously big for my small room, however what has happened to me I would equate to what happens when you buy a bigger TV. I bet loads of you have upgraded from a 50″ or 55″ to a 65″ TV and thought it looked crazy massive for about 5 minutes until it’s just normal and you wished you had bought a bigger one. That is how I look at the 7 Évo now, why are they not dual 15” with one above as well, I am kidding of course, but I adapted to their size in my room very quickly.

I was very aware that a 15” bass driver might push the limits of what my very acoustically treated, but still small room could handle and I thought I might have to take some measures to get around that, but I didn’t need to at all. Positioning wise you might have seen blue tape on my floor marking the “normal” or what I deem optimal speaker position for the room. The 7 Évo worked perfectly on that spot in my room, well just forward of it to be exact and that meant they are not bass monsters at all but did take more overall setting up than I am used to.

I have become familiar with moving big heavy speakers around so it wasn’t related to their weight or size, it was more related to their general sound and how much toe in they needed.  This caught me out at first and took me about a day of tweaking their position to get it just right. My memory of the Atalante 5 speakers I reviewed a year or so ago meant I expected the 7 Évo to be a little “lively” in the treble so I set them up initially facing straight forwards and they did not sound good at all. They actually sounded like a badly integrated speaker and subwoofer setup, with disjointed mids and highs from the bass and I knew that couldn’t be right. I found they needed a reasonable amount of toe to sound balanced, which makes me think they have quite a tight directivity which can be a very good thing. I heard the mid bass very clearly “fill in” with more toe in and the mid bass presence is one this speakers best strengths and it’s vitally important as is knits the whole sound together. So think about this when you home demo these speakers, positioning in the room always matters but also toe in is very important.

I could also hear how big the sound stage they wanted to create was.  I tried to position them as far apart in my room as I could and I placed them closer to the side walls than I normally would but that worked out better in the main, with some compromise of course, but there is always compromises in a smaller room and audio is always a mixture of compromises anyway, lets be real about it. I listened to them for several days setup like this to make sure I was happy before I removed the bolts that secure the speakers to the stands for transit and setup. I was stunned by how much better they sounded after the bolts were removed and essentially the speaker being better isolated from the stands, so make sure you don’t forget to remove the bolts otherwise your leaving performance on the table.  I was impressed by this as it showed to me the fine levels of attention to detail that has gone into this speakers design.

Sound quality

I think when you look at a speaker like the Atalante 7 Évo you would be forgiven for assuming they would sound like a Cerwin Vega, a huge bass, slow and thick sounding speaker but they are not that at all. Yes setup right they do deliver a big bass, but these are really refined, very clean, very transparent speakers and that is probably the biggest surprise with them. Yes they do big scale and dynamics with a lovely graceful ease, you expect that, but they also image and create a clear sound stage fantastically well, without ever being too hard or harsh on the music. There is a fine balance here of audiophile desired qualities with some fun and overall music enjoyment and I think this balance is outstandingly good.

I think a lot of this is thanks to the speaker never having to work hard to deliver everything you want from it and they are probably the best speakers I have had here in some time for lower volume listening. This is not really my thing but I didn’t need to chase the volume for them to sound big and full as a lot of speakers need and that is exactly what you want for lower volume listening. A bigger speaker now makes more sense to me for low volume listening and you might assume it would be the opposite, but then crank the volume and the 7 Évo take it all in their stride. I was not able to get any sign of hardness of harshness from them even at Terry loud volumes, it’s not that kind of speaker, they always sound like they are just cruising along. That makes a big difference at loud volumes, when the music is not being shouted at you it’s less fatiguing so you want to listen again and again and louder is good.

I think both of these factors are massively helped by the bass, because when you have the right amount of bass all music sounds better because there is a better overall sonic balance. I firmly believe you need more bass than you think for a truly correctly balanced sound in a room, based on theories of equal loudness and my own listening experiences. My first positive bass impression was listening to an electronic track, I don’t remember which track sadly but at some point I could feel the bass almost turn my stomach. I have never had a speaker do that to me before. It wasn’t chest pounding it was just a smooth deep pressure feeling that I didn’t really hear but I felt it, that is what good quality clean bass is supposed to be like, it doesn’t smother your ears like a pillow, your not actively aware of it, but you know its there because your feeling it on your body. There is a distinct difference and that stood out to me.

I have had a number of speakers deliver lots of bass, one stand out speaker being the SVS Evolution Titan that I would say probably delivered audibly more bass in my room than the Atalante have been. It’s not the same bass and not delivered in the same way. I loved the SVS for their bass, however I was always very aware of it, it was very forceful in its nature and I did enjoy that a lot for modern music, however I think the larger driver in the 7 Évo means the bass was delivered more effortlessly, so cleaner and smoother sounding.  I assume this is because the 15″ driver doesn’t have to work as hard to deliver the output and that sounds better to me for bass quality, especially in the upper bass regions where forceful bass can muffle the vocals some if you’re not careful. I said this as a positive for the Atalante 5 in my review of them as they feature a 12″ bass driver, some of this is true with them too, but it wasn’t quite so obvious with them.  It’s very obviously a benefit with the 7 ÉVO and there are some notes in music I am uber familiar with that just hit differently, they had more presence about them which made that music sound more interesting, more authentic maybe or just more fun and what is wrong with that.

One HiFi system I used for testing, the bass from the 7 Évo was crazy fast and articulate, as fast and articulate as any bass I have had in this room ever before which is saying something, but it still always sounded full and substantial and that is an important distinction for this speaker, it’s balance. With another HiFi system, using a tube amplifier the bass was slightly bloomed but still always really pleasing and always full scale showing you do get out what you put in with these speakers and that is important to note, but they maintain their nice full balance of sound even with different amplifiers. Right at the end of the review I tested them with the Eversolo DMP-A10 streaming DAC and dual bridged mono F10 power amplifiers and I played a track that features a pipe organ in a church. This is such an audiophile cliché I feel almost embarrassed mentioning this, but I really love this test CD overall, it’s a good listen and I use it to test gear all the time so know the tracks very well. The pipe organ sounded massive, much bigger and more full and realistic maybe than any other speakers I have had in this room to date, it was immense. I could hear where my small room was killing how big of an overall stage the 7 ÉVO wanted to create and that is a shame but I heard the potential for it and it was amazing to hear this track sound this way in my room. I have never heard it sound like this before from just speakers on their own.

Doing much more

I think a 15” bass driver in a large cabinet we can kind of expect a lot of this but what about the treble and I was shocked at myself because the treble was the thing I paid the least attention to. That to me means there had to be enough of it otherwise I would have missed it but also not too much because it would have grabbed my attention. You could maybe argue the treble did not not grab my attention for any stand out positive reason either and that would be a fair comment. I am looking at this in hindsight as there was a lot of detail in the treble, otherwise I would have missed it and its definitely smooth and cleanly delivered otherwise I would have heard that it’s not. There was plenty of height and scale in the sound stage otherwise I would have noticed,  maybe the treble is just bang on balanced just right with the rest of the music so you just think about the music and not how its made up from individual parts, but maybe it’s also just a little play it safe side too. Not as obviously so as the Canton Reference 2 speakers I had here earlier in the year.

I think the 7 ÉVO’s treble sits about in the middle between the very smooth Canton Reference 2 speakers and the more treble lively Audio Solutions Figaro M2 and that is a pretty good place to be I think. I think a lot of people would call it a nicely balanced treble for a wide selection of music and different HiFi systems. I think you could get away with HiFi gear that is a little brighter with these speakers but do watch out as they are very transparent sounding so a lack of quality in the system and you are going to hear it.

The mid range and vocals I found to be balanced about perfect for me, the upper bass is such a strong character with these speakers and it creates the perfect foundation for a big full warm vocal who doesn’t enjoy that. Especially as its delivered lightning fast, clean and clear with the right system and never hard or harsh or overly analytical sounding and that matters more to me. One track with one system that really took me back for the vocals quality was Lady Blackbird, I am what I am.  I have listened to this track at least a hundred times with different of speakers in this room and wow, the way the 7 ÉVO could bring out a stunning amount of clarity, emotion and detail in her voice, with such power and presence in my room, it was really something to hear this track presented this way

In contrast with the Galion Audio TS34 tube integrated fully loaded with Ray Tubes all vocals in all music sounded really sweet, lush and silky. Divine would be the best way to describe them. Some other things sounded less good compared to other amplifiers I tested but man the vocals were very good here, adding a bit of very good quality EL34 tube magic to the vocals came come through with these speakers in a such a way I can some people loving this setup.

The 7 ÉVO sound staging I have mentioned was very restricted by my room size, especially for the left to right width and that is always the case for me so I cannot comment on how good they are there in that regard. For a front to back sound stage, especially going back behind the speakers they imaged as good as any other speakers I have had in here and you might not expect that from such a large and wide speaker in a small room, I thought that might be their achilles heel but no its not.

I think what Revival have created here is a really high performance speaker that does everything you would want from a modern speaker around it’s price, but because its big with such a larger bass driver it can do it all grander and probably more important is it does it all more effortlessly and you can do hear it.

Amplifiers

What about amplifiers, I did 95% of the review using my biggest amplifier the Esoteric S03 that doubles its power from 8 down to 2 ohms, so a muscle type of solid state power amplifier and that gave me the best results overall. However even with 25 class a watts from the Galion Audio TS34 it was enough to get a very dynamic grandiose sound from the 7 Évo with a nicer vocal actually and nicer flow to the music too.

The bass quality was a little worse though and the sound was a little thicker but I was more than ok with that. It was interesting because up until this point I wasn’t sure about the Galion TS34, I thought it might be my least favourite product from Galion but loaded with the excellent Ray Tubes and playing through such a good set of speakers it gave me a new appreciation not only for the amplifier, but also for the EL34 tube, which is not my favourite but they make more sense to me now.

The take away here is the 7 Évo are seemingly not as difficult speakers to drive for power as you might assume they would be featuring such a big bass driver however amplifier quality definitely matters..

Comparison

Doing any kind of comparison with the speakers I have here felt very unfair. Comparing to the Mission 770 would be totally unfair, so that meant comparing to the Figaro M2 but even that comparison felt unfair. The 7 ÉVO are so much larger it didn’t feel like for like, but price wise they are similar so it is a fair comparison really. What we have here is a different speaker for a different person, the Figaro are better suited to a smaller room where you need to place the speaker closer to the front wall. The 7 Évo are more of a do it all speaker that is designed for larger spaces of course so I had to factor this difference into my assessment.

The Figaro sound very obviously livelier, snappier and faster overall with a crisper top end but they also sound a little grittier at the same time. The vocals come across nice and clear and with a good tonality in the main so you could argue they match the Revivals for mids and highs but they are just doing it all differently which is more than fair enough. Where the big difference is and its obvious is in the bass and the scale of the sound and as a result there is no comparison between the speakers. It’s not about the revival rattling your teeth it’s about how the room pressure gives the music more presence, scale and warmth, especially in the upper and mid bass regions and how that makes the vocals and treble sound richer, sweeter and nicer overall to listen to.

Now interestingly you can get that kind of bass from the Figaro M2 with the right system and careful setup, I have done a number of times but it takes more to get it and you have push the speaker harder to get it too. The Revivals I think do this important aspect of music more easily but the trade off is, well you have seen it, it’s in the size of the speakers.

Now I have heard the Revival I would want definitely to add subwoofers to the Figaro M2 to try and better match what the 7 Évos offer and that is fine because adding subwoofers has its own distinct benefits but it also has a cost involved. Looking at it from a pure cost / value for money perspective the Revival might be the best value for money high end speaker available in 2025 because they really can do it all, with no compromises I have been able to hear.

Final thoughts

Closing out this long review Revival told me some months ago that the Atalante 7 Évo were designed to be the best sounding speakers under 20 grand, for under 10 grand. At the time that seemed like marketing language and I don’t blame any manufacturer for using it. I am in no position to confirm that statement as my experience with speakers in the £20k price region is limited to around a dozen pairs in this room. From that dozen the only speakers I can think of that get close to Revival for their overall sound scale capability under £20k is the Canton Reference 2 that cost about double. I do need to clarify this statement with the caveat that not all high end speakers are designed to be what the Canton and 7 Évo are, big speakers with a big sound, that is not for everyone’s home, I appreciate not everyone can accommodate them.

In saying that, as I explained in the intro I have always thought that big speakers with big drivers wouldn’t work for me in my small room and my room is small dont let the images I take fool you. I was wrong, I think there is something special about how good big speakers sound, even in a small room, I am hooked on it now as its more of what I have been looking for personally, so do take that into account for how I have delivered this review.

I have nothing stand out negative to say about the Revival Audio Atalante 7 Évo speakers, not for how they look, or for how they are built or for how they sound, I think they are exceptionally good speakers that feel like they were made for me and how I like music to be delivered, what more can I say than that.

A Special Performer Award is Pursuit Perfect Systems highest accolade and is in recognition of exceptional product performance regardless of price.

For the full specification of the Revival Audio website here