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

@donald_dac I have Focal Kanta 2s in a quite large room (3m x 5m). And am on the same journey as you. My journey, toward making the Focals sound warmer, and fuller and less fatiguing is ongoing. However, I have learned a few things along the way. The first was that adding REL subs made a big difference. They were hard to position and took quite a long time to break in, but they have made the biggest difference. I have the S/812s. But I over bought and should have bought the 510s.
Second, I moved to a Bryston 14 B3 amp from a Hegel H390. If I did it again, I would have bought the Bryston mono blocks as their input impedance is higher. Mistake!

Right now I have borrowed a tube preamp from my dealer who was exceedingly kind to lend it to me. That, combined with a tube DAC has made a difference. Even before switching from the Hegel integrated H390, the Lab 12 DAC 1 made an enormous difference. This is an inexpensive DAC from Greece that will not break the bank. Read the reviews! They are very positive.

Before my dealer lent me the DAC, I had bought an excellent sounding tube preamp from an Italian company called Synthesis, which totally brought the Focals to life. In a good way! But there was an impedance mismatch between the low input impedance on the Bryston and the slightly elevated output impedance on the Synthesis  but no doubt about it, that was the right preamp for the Focals.

My dealer has now ordered me a Pathos preamp, which I suspect will work well too.

A note on cables. They make a big difference. I upgraded my speaker cables to the DH labs Q 10. And also my amp power cable.

The Focals can sound amazing, but they need to be babied along on their journey to greatness.

As a Focal dealer, PLEASE treat your room first before you do anything else. Your room is more that 50% of what you are hearing. Once your room is treated correctly, you will be able to ascertain the differences between your components. Without treating your room, you haven't heard the Kantas yet.

There is science behind treating your room. Couches, rugs etc. don't treat the room correctly. Companies like Vicoustic will give you a package based on performance and aesthetics required. We do it all the time for our customers.

Drinking a nice wine out of a dixie cup tastes terrible. Put it in a Riedel glass and you are tasting what the wine maker created.

Chad

Some of these posts were nothing more than rehearsed diatribe about Focal speakers and the beryllium tweeter. Your speakers are fine, but they sound brand new and they will need some time to work in. In the meantime consider the following:

1. Your room acoustics have at least 50% to do with your room, treat it properly, it will make the biggest difference!
2. Try not to pair Focal speakers with Class D amplification, or at least pair them with a tube preamp. This will help with the mids and gentleness of delivery.
3. Adding 2 subs to your setup will really fill out the sound.

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’. But I will stand by the sale of my Wilson speakers on my move to Focals for the detail that was never apparent in the former.

Do you use Roon? If so, with the addition of a ~ $150 microphone and freely available software, you could probably create a convolution filter to flexibly address any issues with frequency response in the room, at least when streaming with Roon.

That is what I would do personally in order to help get speakers better tuned in a room. I use canned convolution filters with Roon for specific highly regarded headphones and the results are transformational. I have researched but have not had time to try and create my own for room correction, though I will go out on a limb and say that any system out there save those that are already professionally tuned in one way or another can be made better to various degrees using a DSP based solution like that provided with Roon.

Other similar DSP solutions are possible, but for existing Roon users, this is a very powerful and cost effective solution if you are mostly streaming with Roon these days like me. Google Roon website for more info.

Room treatments to reduce energy in problem range as indicated above earlier is the other possibility but it’s hard to know to what extent this would have to be done and what the end cost would be in order to have desired affect. Personally, I would probably not hold on to any speakers that would require me to go to extreme length for room treatment, but that just me. DSP is much more practical these days if needed.

Or rather than go to the nth degree to get the speakers tuned to the room, a simple graphic equalizer could surely at least make things better. Schitt sells one these days that is not expensive and has been very well received. Many other software based eq solutions are possible.

I would second trying a tube preamp along with tube DAC, the Lab 12 DAC 1 or something from MHDT, I had a balanced MHDT tube DAC that did make a noticeable difference. 
 

I would still stand by shifting away from your current Amp and to something that is known to drive speakers with difficult loads, impedance swings.  In my research, found a good amount of people with real world experience that echoed this, it made the biggest difference for me, gear wise.  There is also a lot of truth in room treating but I think you are in the same boat I am, it’s a shared living space and you can only room treat a certain extent before the family will shut it down.  
 

I’d also be weary of anyone making absolute statements, Focal makes amazing speakers, they are designed and built in house, likely one of the if not the top Speaker company when it comes to their ability to scale, making really high quality speakers with outstanding engineering, R&D, craftsmanship and synergy.  That said, they have a sound signature, not everyone loves Focals, if you aren’t in love with the sound signature, which does lean into the hyper detailed side of things, even with the room treated properly and the right electronics, you likely won’t love the speakers.  That’s why different speaker manufactures have varying philosophies, sound signatures.  Take Sonus Faber as a compare and contrast to Focals, in general, if you are a big Sonus Faber fan, you won’t be a big Focal fan.  Both are high end speaker manufactures in Europe with Focal likely having an edge due to their vertical integration on just about every component in their speakers but you’ll still have a decent percentage of buyer pick Sonus Faber based on a preference toward a more laid back, warmer sounding speaker. Neither is right or wrong. 
 

I think the plan around using your Yamaha receiver is a great place to start.  Do some research on room treatment, you can try some DYI things out form a temporary basis along with using the Yammy, that should give you the baseline to decide if the speakers are right for you and that is absolutely all that matters, your ears, what sounds good to you.  When I sold the Electra’s I had was to a new Audiophile, he had nothing but the speakers, I ended up hooking up an old Yammy HT receiver I had, didn’t have Room Correction, he listens to the Yammy, A/B against a Parasound A21 and Primaluna 400 Evo Integrated, he bought the Yammy from me for $ 50 and last check was still using it to power the speakers.  If you do keep them and you want to stay in your budget, I would look at used Parasound a21’s, the older version is a really good deal, jump into a used Tube Pre, that combo would work wonders for the Kanta’s and what you are trying to accomplish.  You could then upgrade the Streamer / DAC at a later date and the Pre if you got the itch.  The Parasound A21 isn’t the best Amp out there but for the $$, used, you will have a really hard time beating the value for what you are looking to accomplish, high quality parts, designed by a legend in the industry, A/B amplification that is beefy and leans slightly to the warm side of the spectrum.  I have no bias towards Parasound, I’ve cycled through a ton of gear, I don’t own any Parasound gear at the moment, I did however use an A21 with multiple Focal Towers, again, wasn’t my favorite but for the money and I bought mine new, it from a value play, beat everything else I had, hands down. 
 

Good Luck!