New blog post: Living with Focal Speakers

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.