Warm romantic & detailed


Good morning Gentlemen & ladies... 

I'm just starting to toy with idea of replacing my Focal 1038's... No matter how I treat my room, or what equipment I throw at it I just can't seem to tame the harsh highs on this speaker. 

I'd like to stay in the same price range of the Electra's (7/8k), I don't mind buying used, the musts for me at this point are: Warm, romantic, yet detailed... It would be beautiful to just sit and listen and not have ear fatigue after 15 minutes of listening. 

Can you please recommend something? 
jeffinnh76
I would recommend as a speaker builder, hobbiest to stay away from metal / plastic drivers if your ears are sensitive to harshness.  The less harsh silk dome tweeters you can listen for hours. Some cone drivers can also be very smooth but can have picky resonaces not associated with metal. The cross over points are very important. Drivers have specific design ranges they operate best at. I have found a harsh sounding speaker ca be tamed down if the driver frequency limits are not pushed but made consevative within their design limits.
Your best option is to get your mask on and compare sound on the music you know as harsh on your system at a dealer showroom.  My built speakers have aluminum dome midrange and compression titanium tweeter. I found a world of difference just changing the DAC from my network player to a Shiit Bifrost. Smoothed out to velvet voices. With metal drivers I enjoy dynamics and detail  but have to be careful they dont bite on older badly EQd music. 
As much as the Focals might appear to be the culprit may I suggest looking at a couple areas. 

One: Interconnect cables. They have an across the board contribution to the system's sound. When you find an interconnect that is a good sonic match for your system it will be easy to hear. If your system is bright you may want to try some interconnects that are known for midrange. Sometimes a lack of midrange makes the system sound bright when in reality it is missing some midrange.

Two: Speaker cables. These go as a pairing with interconnects. This one is really tricky because there is a bunch of opinions out there on what speaker cables "sound good." My own experience using many of the more famous and most expensive cables is that cost has no connection with performance in YOUR system. 

The biggest factor with nearly all cable designs is distortion from skin effect. This takes a toll on the highs and makes the presentation sound rough in the highs. This sounds bright to most people's ears. When you use some cables that do not have skin effect the sonic results are like a new world of sound. The highs are still present but they are clear in a way that sounds smooth and organic. They sound natural and blend with the midrange that gives the best of both worlds. Detail AND warmth. 

How do I know all this? By trying a lot of cables and getting frustrated. So I made my own! They have almost zero skin effect and I love them.

Three: Some amplifiers can lean towards a bright sound. I am not an amp designer so I cannot explain the why of it. But some amps just sound strained. I know you are not looking to change amps but its worth mentioning.

Luke Zitterkopf
Aluminous Audio


There's so much knowledge and expert suggestions here, I couldn't possibly say I have a better option. But at my price point, I would say warm detailed and romantic was my goal as well, and a combo of Sonus Faber Signums, a Lumin D1 and a Heaven 11 Billie integrated amp have moved me into a decent level of high fidelity. I've just received a REL T5 so get a better blended lower end, but have yet to add it to the system. 
I used to have the same problem until I tried Proac, Response line. No more listening fatigue and as a bonus, they are very forgiving speakers. Unless I was listening too jazz, audiophile recordings or the odd popular album that happened to be well recorded, mostly sounded terrible. Now virtually every album sounds at least 'very good' all the way to spectacular. 
The forgiving nature of the response line does not affect the great transparency... 

Bass is very surprising for size of speakers. Powerful and tight. To me the whole response line are really fun speakers to listen too. The studio range is good, but there's a huge gap in quality and they don't have the same "warmish" sound.

The description of what you're looking for sounds a lot like what I had been looking for, for years. I haven't bought a non-ProAc speaker since. They're are plenty of good choices out there but all ProAc Response speakers sound perfect to my ears.

I also like the higher end Dali speakers but they don't correspond to what you're looking for as much as the ProAc's.

Good luck!
I second the guy who suggested digital processing ala Room EQ Wizzard.  I'm a renter who's had to deal with all sorts of terrible-sounding rooms, and room correction is an absolute lifesaver.

I currently use MathAudioRoomEQ via Foobar2000, but there are hardware-based solutions that are a better fit if you have analog sources.