New blog post: Living with Focal Speakers

I didn't know that you had Focal speakers Erik, I thought that you always built your own. 

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.

@erik_squires curious if the newer Focal's have that same edge I've heard from the tweeters as the older models you had back in the day? At a friend's we have tried firing them straight out and then toeing them in 1/2 " at a time but still found the highs not to my liking. Personally I've always preferred soft dome tweeters but YMMV it's really such a subjective issue, we all hear things so differently.

Nice write up Erik. I only have an older pair from when they were called JM Labs, a pair of Tantal 509s and yes, the tweeter is very bright and sometimes fatiguing. They are in a 3rd system so no biggie.

my Focal experience is in the car, and those titanium inverted dome tweeters in the front pillars sing and ring!  About as good a reproduction as one can get of the live sound of a drummer riding a cymbal, might well be fatiguing in the home, but you need some extra signal in the car when giving consideration to the noise floor.  In my experience, soft domes go tink tink and decay too fast.  one of life's tradeoffs- ie. cannot expect silk or a polymer to sound like metal.  works for me as I listen to rock and electric blues in the car, more variety at home .

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

@audioman58

While I definitely found that better caps in the Focals were a significant improvement to the overall smoothness, not all speakers should be treated this way. The Focal Profiles, for instance, needed a complete woofer crossover re-think. Old Infinity speakers often had terribly poorly designed crossovers, and B&W speakers of old can also sometimes benefit from rethinking the entire design with modern approaches and tools.

@rsf507 Not all Focal speakers have that same edge, I think the later versions softened this a little, but I also tried felt around the tweeter. Used PSA backed felt and got a hobby ring cutter. Worked really well.

@frankmc195

You took focal speakers apart to examine them?

Actually originally I was just going to do some cap mods. Once I got the crossover out in my hands though my curiosity got the better of me so I ended up doing a complete speaker analysis using OmniMic, DATS and XSim. At some point I discovered a broken inductor lead, as well as curiously excessive resistors. This all led me to realize that part swapping was the wrong approach to them and they needed a new bass crossover. Eventually however I decided I would rather build my own speaker than continue that project.

@brianh902 

Worth measuring their output.  If it's reasonably good a cap swap may really help. Otherwise perhaps padding the tweeter would.  Old speakers are the perfect way to experiment.

@erik_squires I’m SOOO glad you have brought the DIY mindset to this forum! So many believe that the wrong things are responsible for how a speaker sounds like tweeter material, rather than the true contributing factor, the Xover. The tweeter material can have an affect, but it’s usually in how low the distortion is and how easily it is to integrate with the mid (Xover point). If Focal’s (of old) were perceived as being bright, it was because of the xover design and not the tweeter itself. If they measured as ‘bright’ it’s because that is what Focal was going for, it wasn’t unintentional. Please continue to educate the group on the measurement tools you employ and why they matter sooo much to tuning a speaker to what ‘you’ prefer (which might not be a totally flat response cure). 

This is a great read. I've always wondered how upgrading crossover components would align with Kanta / Sopra level Focals, not that many would be willing to try but can only imagine the benefits. 

@christianb5s4 You don’t have to destroy the speakers to experiment with a different Xover. Testing with an outboard xover board is pretty simple. Examining the stock boards also gives you an idea where the manufacturer cut corners (in components) and where you might be able to find some improvements. 

You don’t have to destroy the speakers to experiment with a different Xover. Testing with an outboard xover board is pretty simple.

Especially when the speaker is ported! :)

I really encourage modders to either A) Keep it simple and swap maybe the tweeter or mid range caps or B) Think about the entire crossover design.

The Focal profiles for instance had many resistors and caps in the bass section which could have been swapped, but what they needed was to remove all the resistors and add an inductor to raise up the impedance while keeping the frequency response constant.

My point is, if you start thinking of doing much more than simple cap swapping you should step back and consider starting from a blank sheet.

@erik_squires 

I admire your knowledge and abilities, but I am guessing that, like myself, 90% or more of the members here would have no idea whatsoever of how to modify a crossover, and if they did, they would need to have the measuring equipment to do so like you do. 

I've done simple part-swapping and wire replacement on several speakers, but I think that even that is beyond the comfort zone of most here.

@roxy54 It was a very small part of my blog post, but ss you can see here it is a popular topic of discussion

@erik_squires 

I think that your blog is very interesting, even though I have never owned Focal speakers. I was only commenting on that specific aspect. I apologize if my comments were taken in the wrong way. 

@roxy54  No worries, not everyone enjoys the hobby the same way.  Some parts are for some folks.

 

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.

It’s easy to understand why some would come to this conclusion given the crossover BOM we find in most speakers under $10K/pair.

IME, however, it’s not actually the bottleneck of most speakers, even if the given speaker uses really cheap Xover parts, such as Dayton or Bennic. Nine times out of ten, a speaker’s primary weakness is in fact the quality of the drivers or the crossover points/slope—either the drivers are poorly behaved because they’re of low quality or the crossover doesn’t sufficiently filter out the break up resonances. Often times, it’s both.

This is one reason I’m not a fan of Focal speakers, because many of their drivers are not that good despite what the marketing would have us believe. Take their inverted Al/Mg domes for example. When they are measured in free air they exhibit nasty break-up modes, and a narrow usable bandwidth. If anything, they actually need a low-pass crossover because they’re so poorly behaved in the upper most octave. The SB Acoustics tweeter used in Revels similarly priced Performa3 range is far superior, and it’s only a $55 unit on the OEM market. So in essence, with the Focal Arias, you get tweeters that can’t remotely compete with those which cost a DIY builder $110/pair.

All this isn’t to single out Focal though, these sort of quality discrepancies are very common in retail audio. Most such brands use inexpensive drivers, but what sets the better ones apart (especially in the <$10K category), is which inexpensive drivers are chosen and how they’re implemented. That aspect is way more critical than the choice of crossover brands/cost. Even cheap Xover parts contribute hardly any measurable distortion (if implemented appropriately) relative to the speaker’s drivers. That is the reason for which we see $6K/pair speakers that might have $800 worth of drivers but as little as $20 total in crossover parts. It’s because these manufacturers have performed the measurements and listening tests required to determine what actually matters, and of course, the large builders are going to cut costs anywhere they can.

But it’s amusing to me when I see guys obsess over crossover part quality when their speakers employ drivers under the $100/each range (the vast majority). Rather than spend $200 additional dollars on better caps/resistors, that person is better off saving that $200 toward better speakers built by competent designers.

@helomech  While not perfect,  I think the modern Focal tweets have improved significantly since you remember.

@erik_squires

I suppose that depends on the specific tweeter in question. But the modern ones I was referring to, as used in the Aria line, are actually a regression from the old JM Labs designs.

When a manufacturer offers six performance tiers of speaker, they can put only so good of drivers in the middle range products without impeding sales of their flagship designs. It’s a marketing strategy that works for Focal but ultimately results in a rather poor value for the end customer.

Not that modern, but ultrasonic resonances like that could be euphonicnd, when pointed in the direction I suggest, quite pleasant.