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How to make the Focal Kanta No. 2 speakers sing?

Hi!

My first post here and I would like to hear your thoughts and tips for "warming up" my Focal Kanta 2 speakers.

 

TLDR

The sound from my Focal Kanta 2 speakers in my room is a bit shouty, bright and thin sounding, clearly lacking level and emotion in the lower mid range. Bass is good, quick and quite deep though.

Any tips for getting more "vocal warmth" into the system? Tube preamp, Dirac, ...? I see that many use old school power hungry amps that can heat your house during winter to drive Focal speakers. Is that really needed or can I get away with a modern amp that doesn’t cost a fortune.

 

More in depth information

In my living room (5.3 x 4.1 x 2.4m) I have a setup with both 2 channel and a multi channel setup. They share the same front speakers and front speaker amp.

2 channel setup:

 

5.2 channel setup:

 

I focus mainly on the two channel setup here. Multichannel is used quite much also for streaming movies, but is ok.

So the main issue for me is that the sound in in the two channel setup is thin sounding with mids clearly lacking in the lower end. It can be fatiguing to listen for a few hours. Bass though is enjoyable, fast and fairly deep.

Earlier I had the Focal Aria 936 speakers as front speakers in the same room (connected to the Yamaha AVR at that time). I liked them but wanted to upgrade to the next level after a few years 😄 The Arias were more forgiving than the Kantas, had more enjoyable warmth in the mids and were a bit rolled off in the top compared to the Kantas. Not fatiguing at all. But everything else the Kantas do better.

I have also had some other speakers, up to half Kanta price range, in the same room where all have had fuller mids and a more forgiving sound: Dynaudio, Totem and Triangle floor standers as well as Buchardt and my really old B&W 602s3 (super full mids but super rolled off in the top) stand speakers. The Kantas are different animals to all these and seem to require the a more delicate and correct chain of components to perform.

I have messed around with speaker positioning quite a lot. It’s mainly the bass region that is affected. Mids not very much.

Options I’m considering:

  • Upgrading the Yamaha AVR to a Marantz Cinema 50 for example to get Dirac room tuning, and run the 2 channel system through this also. The quality of the Marantz might not be the best here to use as a 2 channel pre amp/processor.
  • Use a dedicated pre amp for the 2 channel system. Budget up to 2000€. Not sure what to look for? Used equipment is fine.
  • Tubes? Never really listened to tubes but from what I understand you generally get a more warm sound from them. Tube preamp? Not very modern but might do the trick. Schiit Freya + seems to be within the budget range for example.
  • Other 2 channel amplifier. As mentioned I have tried to avoid the nuclear power plants of amps. I see people recommending amps from manufacturers like Musical Fidelity, Sim Audio, McIntosh, Accuphase etc. But these are really costly and I feel they generally belong in an older age that we are moving away from. But it might be what is needed, I don’t know, haven’t really heard them play.
  • Treat the room more. I have a big sofa, a really big carpet and a few acoustic panels in the room (no real science behind them now). The room in itself is a bit "bright" so here I can make a better effort of course, regardless of other taken measures.
  • Get other speakers. I can also just face it that the Kantas are what they are, sounding thin in the midrange and lacking emotion in voices. Getting other speakers might be the easiest upgrade. But it’s not that easy to find and test speakers in your room either...

 

Long story. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

donald_dac
christianb5s4
237 posts
 

@pennfootball71 100% agree that the Parasound JC5 is a great match, that's what powers my Kanta 3s. And there's plenty of lowend. Getting speaker placement dialed in with basic room treatment is crucial but that's far from unique to Kantas.

donald_dac OP
8 posts
 

Good input from everyone.

It seems that the Class D amp I have now is not really recommended at all in this setup. Noted. 😁 Also a few Parasound amp recommendations have come in. That might very well be a way forward. A used one seems to be possible to get here in Sweden too. The positive here is also that the sound when watching movies is affected when using the Yamaha as Pre and a Parasound as front speaker amp.

Also trying out a tube preamp would be a interesting. I will see if I can get hold of one for testing.

I'm not using Roon, but the "canned convolution filters" that you mention @mapman is worth some more reading up on. Never heard of these filters.

And as mentioned more room treatment is on the list. I will fire away an email to GIK and see what they have to recommend that is not too obtrusive and has a medium WAF at least. A level up is needed. I have sometimes put up some temporary generic absorbing panels (I have 12 pieces of 0,5m x 0,5m standard "ceiling absorbing panels" lying around for testing) for first reflections and center stage and it makes a difference. With correct positioning and tailored panels here the effect should be more noticeable.

Also the digital path for "treating the room" is interesting with all the kinds of devices out there. YPAO / Dirac / MiniDSP:s/ ...

ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,497 posts
 

I owned the Focal Sopra 2’s for several years and I thought they sounded great!

I used Bob Carver M350 tube amps with them and had the room treated with Stillpoint Apertures and ASC Tube traps. I also selected cabling that matched the sound I liked with that set-up.

Think of it as a complete system that needs to mesh together to get the sound you like.

With My Sopra’s it was easy.

P.S I also thought the Townshend podiums helped make the Focal's "sing".

ozzy

deep_333
1,461 posts
 

Last thing I will note in defense of the tweeter in your Focal Kantas is that they will deliver superb detail... it seems as though many audiophiles like calling this ’bright’.

No one doubts Focal’s capabilites (going the whole nine yards, building drivers from scratch, etc) as a manufacturer. Their speakers also look good and address WAF issues. The "bright" is a voicing they seem to go for...Maybe, they wanna be the European Klipsch and please the V-curve+recessed mids/holed mids crowd. Well, to be fair, that’s where the biggest market share is perhaps.... when dudes forged in the flames of V-curve lifestyle products get into "audiophile grade" items. Such a dude can’t be rehabilitated from the V that easy! (better cater to them 😁)...

Making them bright has always been a way of fooling the crowd that the sht’s "detailed". Typically, high detail/resolution/clarity can be achieved more easily with a capable tweeter that can play very low, 1800 to 2000Hz or lower....i.e, a small driver ( assoc. improved impulse response, etc) covering that range and up, when speakers are built to a price point, etc, etc

 

christianb5s4
237 posts
 

@ozzy Definitely agree on footers, I tried and am still on Herbies gliders and it made a noticeable improvement in bass and bringing more midrange out. 

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