New blog post: Living with Focal Speakers

Meetoo!

@erik_squires 

How did you decide on Focal's?

Bob

Good advice in there. I've personally found Sopra 3's stage best in my space with very little toe in. The same was true for the Aria 948's I ran previously. The listening room is treated, inclusive of the ceiling. It's a wonderful sounding space. Right on the money about amplification as well, 2ohm stable amps are preferred. They did sound pretty damn nice hooked to a Primaluna integrated with KT150 power tubes, at modest levels, but at my preferred listening level (75-80db) the dynamics would become squashed. 

Sorry to disappoint you all, but I haven't owned Focals in years.  I'm afraid the joy for me as an audiophile is in building speakers, not buying them anymore. The thrill of a box of parts is just far more than I'll ever get from a store bought speaker.

My last pair were Focal Profiles which I disassembled and analyzed from top to bottom, and my recommendations are based in large part on my findings there, in part on a number of other reviews online.

I'm still a fan of composite drivers however and use them exclusively except for the tweeters.  Whether it's Focal's W sandwich construction or Scan-Speak's sliced paper and resin.

You took focal speakers apart to examine them? Sounds like some of the brilliant ideas I get sometimes.

In most speakers theXover is the main weakness in lack of quality 

rebuilding it with much higher Xover parts is= to adding 50% more on your speakers in refinement imaging as well as soundstage depth 

speakers are built to a price point ,even in Wilson’s, martens, Harbeths and many others. I have been involved with capacitor and resistor upgrades 

look at humble homemade hifi capacitor reviews you can see a bit about the grading 15 being the most most are using Solen, or Mundorf cheaper Evo line 

even in $20k+ loudspeakers , sad but true. The Dynaudio I rebuilt transformed them $well over $1k in parts but thespeaker is 20% better sounding which is huge 

and = to the next more $$ expensive model $50% more monies.