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

@donald_dac , 

Good grief dude, it looks like you are about to go down some major rabbit holes and continue resurfacing with  disgruntlement and vexation of spirit, simply because you haven't explored what you already have in its entirety. Fortunately, you have a nice piece of Yamaha gear that could deliver you and provide salvation in these times of darkness.

Step a) Unplug the eversolo and set it aside for now.

Step b) Unplug the Audiophonics Class D crap and sell it to a Class D crap lover on Audiosciencereview.

Step c) Plug your front speakers directly into your Yamaha Class AB RX-A2080. The RX-A2080 is a step lower than their former flagship receiver (RX-A3080) and would possibly have many of the feature sets in their former flagship prepro (CX-A5200). As far as your 2 channel music listening goes, that receiver is a full featured/polished up streamer+good DAC implementation+great preamp sections and.... poweramp sections which are a bit weak (as is typical of multichannel receivers). Your Eversolo and the Audiophonics crap are not gonna beat it for 2 channel listening. I don't know much about your specific Focal speaker, but Focals i've heard are generally abrasively bright with thin mids, etc (like some of the ear abusing hometheater Klipsch speakers).

The following will also be a very important exercise for you to fully study/understand the type of sound signature you like...the signature that pleases you most without spending money...

Step d) Run YPAO calibration correctly for your hometheater. First mic location with tripod will be at your primarily listening position/sweetspot. Set additional positions within 1 foot of this primary location (your sweet spot is all that matters). At the end of the cal, disable "YPAO volume" and "enhancer".

Step e) Go into your configuration, YPAO would have have set your EQ to "YPAO flat", "YPAO natual", etc. That is for entry level users. You would go into MANUAL PEQ.

Step f) Use the manual PEQ to warm things up and improve spatial qualities without contributing to shoutiness, reducing brightness, etc. The perception of warm, chunky, chocolatey, delicious, etc can vary in frequency band for different types of guys....So try the following as a starting point, an example....
~99hz, Q=0.5, +2 dB
~198hz, Q=0.79, +1db
1khz, Q=0.79, +2.5
8k, Q=0.5, -1db
16k, Q=0.5, -1 db

If it is still shouty, pull the 8k band a bit lower with low Q's still....You see this type of utility? Sky is the limit on how you change the sound of a speaker with full featured PEQ and examining the sound you like.

Step g) Moving on....You will have "pattern settings" (saving all your specific settings) in your receiver. Set pattern 1 for specific hometheater settings and pattern 2 for 2 channel stereo. In 2 channel stereo (if you wanna be more of a purist), don't setup a subwoofer crossover in its bass management module. Run the 2 fronts "LARGE" and turn on "extra bass", which will dovetail your subs in where your mains drop off. Manually set the subwoofer crossover knob on sub to around 60hz or so. The Yamaha will do the rest/do a seamless blend.

Step h) After you get satisfactory results from your PEQ experiments and the full featureset/utility level of your receiver, you will also have a much better understanding of the type of sound you like. Now, get meaty Class AB or Class A power amps for your receiver's preouts into your 2 front speakers for music.  I would recommend preouts to a pair of the Schiit TYR monoblocks for your fronts, i.e., a weird type of Class Aish topology with gobs of power that sounds exquisite.

After you fully read your Yamaha's manual cover to cover and understand the insanity levels of its feature set and utility, you may never be able to let it go. At the least, it is a very good experimentation tool. At that point, upgrade to a Yamaha prepro, either get a used CX-A5200 or wait a minute for the upcoming flagship prepro (CX-A5300 or whatever else they may plan to name it).

When you go into purist gear, you will lose all such flexibility and just keep diving from rabbit hole to rabbit hole like most dudes around here...unless you've fully experimented with what type of sound signature you really like and become surgical with the type of purist gear you get.

 Good luck.

@deep_333 So, a $1700 AVR has a great preamp section??? I beg to differ, and a good stereo preamp is absolutely critical. I’m a fan of Yammy AVRs, but no $1700 AVR has a “great” preamp section. Period.

Every dude has to start somewhere...But, as expected, @soix didn’t read the full post or even understood what it was about.... and assumes that a 1700 Yamaha AVR that he never played with has an abyssmal preamp section. He also didn’t read the part where i mentioned that the dude’s upgrade path should go to a Yamaha flagship prepro (since he has a hybrid stereo/multichannel setup), which holds its own against any preamp out there. It is indeed a possibility that soix knows nothing about the performance/value offered in Yamaha gear.

For reference, I have Yamaha’s flagship prepro, a 10k purist preamp (Yamaha C5000) and a 20k preamp (Luxman C900) currently. I have had the Gryphons and the Esoterics and the whatever else in the past...I sure as sht am not gonna suggest to a guy with a Focal Kanta that he should get a 20k preamp.

What cream preamp were you gonna suggest to a dude with a Focal Kanta soix? 40k? 80k? Gryphon? Boulder? Do you even know what his budget is soix?

Hey guys, is there any way on this forum to put one clueless barking bozo (who follows me around on threads like a rabid creature)  in a permanent ignore blackhole?

Well that’s just utter crap. If a mass market prepro incorporated anywhere near the level of parts quality of a good stereo preamp its price would go up several times, which is exactly why the better prepros out there that actually do a decent job as a stereo preamp cost multiples of what mass market units go for.

@soix , Sure, spend 60k on a Trinnov prepro. You will also pay/get a lifetime of free customer support anytime (US labor rates). I highly doubt a dude like you will still get anywhere with it without hiring a system integrator who knows what he is doing.

@donald_dac , On the same note, don't be fooled by the misinformation and the fact that  some of these insanely featured high quality prepros are still offered at "relatively affordable" prices (compared to purist gear). They are heavily subsidized for you by the motherload of hometheater people around the world and the system integrators who deploy them in houses. Yes, they come big with learning curves and its typically system integrators who deploy them for a pretty penny. 

If these things were marketed to purist audiophiles alone, they would cost magnitudes more. If cars weren't subsidized for you by the market scale, i.e., every other guy buying a car out there with a loan....a lotta guys couldn't afford cars and would walk everywhere...similar concept.... 

You can block anyone by going to your settings page

Good grief, i found it, thanks...Now, i can only hope that I am isolated from this one dude (either a genuine barking imbecile or peddler for some brands/paid pied piper, whatever he may be).

@deep_333 You never got a chance to post those pics of your two channel system that incorporates Bache, Id still love to see that setup, thanks in advance.

@bikeboy52 The virtual systems module has been broken for months. I can neither upload my system nor view anyone's system. IT guy around here must be on a permanent vacation.

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