Looking for Advice on Focal Speakers


Hey everyone, so currently I have a 9.1 Klipsch RP system. I’m looking to upgrade big time with new towers and a center channel. I was able to audition some Focal 936s last week and was really impressed. The store offered me a pretty good deal on them and also a good deal on the Kantas which I love the look of, but haven’t been able to audition them. Are they worth slightly over double the price? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

These will be used in a living room, open floor plan. I have a Marantz Receiver and a Parasound Halo for the tower speakers. I am mostly upgrading for music listening, but of course I would also appreciate the extra quality for movies/tv.

I’m drawn to focal for the aesthetics and sound quality. I also like Sonus Faber but all of their speakers have leather on them which is a non starter for me. I only mention these so you can get an idea of the style I like. I dislike the more futuristic plastic looking speakers out there. I’m open to suggestions. I did audition some Paradigms and I did not like them (too bright for me).

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Showing 2 responses by hilde45

I found the 936's Be tweeter too bright. I love my Ascend Acoustics towers because the RAAL tweeter is (a) not at the top of the speaker and this helps with first reflections from my ceiling and (b) the dispersion is kinder and gentler. I think the Ascends are a great value -- engineer lead, smaller US based company. FWIW. (Here's decent amateur review of these two speakers with great pictures.)

My mistake -- thanks for the correction. The 936 is not a Be tweeter, it's a  Al/Mg TNF inverted dome tweeter. It's bright in my space, as the Be tweeters are. That's why I conflated them. Ribbon tweeters work better for me, but YMMV.