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

TLDR indeed.

First, thanks for all the good info — most helpful and appreciated as most people asking for advice here don’t provide nearly enough to go on (dig ur handle here BTW)! Agree with treating the room no matter what else you decide to do. IMHO you have a bit of a mismatch with the EverSolo as a pre and Audiophonics class D driving the Kantas and not surprised at all that you’re hearing what you do, so I’d either change the speakers or the electronics. The simplest solution might be a hybrid integrated amp from the likes of Unison Research Unico, Pathos, etc., which at your budget is what I’d do if you don’t want to change the speakers. That way you stop using the streamer as a pre and get the benefits of tubes in the preamp stage that don’t require much maintenance and give you the flexibility to “tune” your system by swapping tubes. Or, as you mention, you could just add a tube preamp and also get much better results. I’d also upgrade to a better standalone DAC when budget allows.  BTW, I forbid you from inserting an AVR into your 2-channel signal path so please just take that option off the table.

If you’re open to changing speakers Joseph Audio, ProAc, and Usher are a few I’d recommend hearing as they have great detail but they don’t deliver it as starkly as the Kantas and likely have some more warmth in the mids as well. Ok, just throwing’ some stuff out there FWIW and hope it’s somewhat useful. Best of luck in getting the sound more to your liking however you decide to get there.

Simple fact: Kanta's are bright sounding and thin as you hear. Don't waste your money on room improvements. If you want more drive and warmth in the system, it will be your amp. I would dump your speakers prior to spending that kind of cash, it will take a lot of money to make those speakers warm. 

Thanks for the welcoming tone and also your suggestions here! I will look them all up and see what they are about.

The room serves as a family living room and not a man cave, sadly. So the acoustic treatment can't be too obtrusive. I only have absorbing panels on the front wall behind the speakers ATM. But I will walk further down this path. I've thought about contacting GIK acoustics and hear what they recommend through their "free acoustic advice", with the risk of getting just generic tips. Perhaps there are other goto providers that aren't too fancy/pricey but do the job? I live in Sweden/Europe BTW.

I also believe as you point out, soix, that a middle priced AVR probably is not really the way to go for a 2 channel system.

The sound characteristics of the Kantas when using the Yamaha AVR as amp is quite the same compared to the Purifi Class D amp and also a cheaper XTZ Class D amp I borrowed from a friend for a period. When using the Yamaha AVR asm amp the differences were more lower base (too much), less mid range (too weak) and a bit harsher sound overall. So I mean something more drastic has to be done.

Roxy, I'll try to remember to write a shorter TLDR section for you next time.

@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.