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Amps-Cables for Focal 1007 BE

I have a pair of Focal 1007 BE speakers, which after the ridiculous break in time, have some rather incredible attributes I have only heard from other planner speakers in the past. However, I am getting a bit of hardness and edge to the lower treble, upper midrange which is affecting the vocal and making the speaker sometimes very strident. Any Focal fans listeners or people in the know that may help with an amp and speaker cable selection. I am using a Classe Cp-50 pre amp and highly modified Marantz amplifier and cd player, along with Ocos speaker cable. Would love to hear any feedback! Thanks greatly in advance.
wofford
jond's avatar
jond
5,794 posts
 
JMlabs are quite easy to drive and love tubes. Tubes should help tame any glare and brightness. I am currently running a pair of original Micro-Utopias with a 24 watt tube amp and they sound fantastic. A quality tube amp from 10-50 watts should be a great match for your speakers. Happy listening!
wofford OP
1 posts
 
Thank you all for your responses! I will look at some tube gear as suggested before I consider abandoning these speakers, and will them take the info on cables. Thanks again.
steveallen
54 posts
 
Good idea, try the tube route first. Cables will only give a very small change and it sounds like you need more than a very small tweek.

Cary and Quicksilver tube amps tend to be more forgiving in the midrange. Audio Research and CJ's tend to be a little more analytical. These are just generalizations.
mikeduke
59 posts
 
Agree with the tube idea. You might want to look into Pathos. I know it was under show conditions but the the big pathos amps sounded great with the JM Labs 1027's. I have the 1027's BTW. I am sure that the lower models would still be very good.
genkides
27 posts
 
I'm running 1027be's with SimAudio i7. Great synergy, no need to tame any hf problems. Cables are Analysis Plus speaker cable and Acoustic Zen Matrix Balanced Interconnects. Also auditioned extensively at home with: Pass Labs 150.5 (almost got this over the Sim), Spectron Musician III (no synergy, flabby bass with the 1027be), MasterSound 845 Integrated(great pairing with the Focals but too hot in my climate). MF KW550 (lots of power but no emotion paired with the 1027be's), Cary CAD 200 (cant even remember now what it sounded like but didnt do anything for me obviously!), Sim W7 (excellent but more than I wanted to pay). Preamps listened to were a combination of Cary SLP 98/SLP03/SLP05, Herron, Sim P7 and Pass X1. After all of that, the i7 came out on top for ease of use, great tonal balance, power and grace when paired with the Focal 1027be. Good luck!
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