Focal Grade Utopia VS Altec VOTT A5: 75 years of progress put to Epic Test! 

Indeed, the frontline of audio has turned into a sad perverted race on who can jack the prices even further. My mentor was horrified of this tendency. He said that any engineer can solve a problem or make a step by throwing more money at a problem but it takes ingenuity to really invent, that is to create something new that has real ties to audiophiles and music lovers. It seems that engineers on the front line have truly lost their aim, and are doing more harm to the world of audio than good. The only thing they truly succeed at is angering people, for making audio more and more inaccessible to those who are interested.

I can bet Altecs cost more on eBay than new Focals ;)

​@realworldaudio poor you most be a victim

​@@sc0orAs they should

I think we are talking about the same thing. (I have expanded on the size / demand in several other videos before). Speakers have become smaller, and people love that for the fact that they are smaller, more convenient and more affordable. However, we are here as audiophiles, pursuers of higher goals, and as such, the trend of ever smaller speakers brings its sonic compromises. Yet, it is still true, most audiophiles do not have the room for very large speakers. (Although hard core audiophiles still manage it - like that iconic video with a Japanese gentleman who has a tiny apartment with A5 size speakers in what must be the tiniest room in history.)

Thank you! ; )

Thank you :)

They are also quite easy to build yourself. The plans are readily available and they work well with 5/8” plywood.

Indeed, it is pretty embarrassing for us :) Although we also have a very large number of low power enthusiasts flying under the radar. Does not change the market trends though.... consumer wants big: big tv, big SUV, big wheels, big implants, big watts..... anything and everything has to be BIG. As long as it's bigger than the neighbors, dream came true.

Same as their '70 huge hungry cars! Then we all know how it ended.

Indeed, the phase shift goes down one octave below the rolloff, affecting the audible range of those super extended tweeres... I was not thinking of that before, thank you Gerhard! Correct phase is just as important as correct level. Just had an experience before yesterday, listening to an 80s record (Depeche Mode Speak and Spell album) that had 10+kHz mastered most likely around 15-20dB too hot. Cranked up only one song to very loud, but that was enough to damage my ears enough to still feel the effect days later. Now, my compression driver is level, with an additional +10dB boost on the HF that Utopia does I cannot imagine what it would have been like (+30dB yikes - although that would have rendered the album completely unlistenable...) My findings are agree with yours: tweeters with sudden steep drops do not make for a comfortable sound, even though they are very extended.

And from Dr Floyd Toole: " It turns out that, within very generous tolerances, humans are insensitive to phase shifts. Under carefully contrived circumstances, special signals auditioned in anechoic conditions, or through headphones, people have heard slight differences. So in short this “issue” is kind of created by the audio industry in order to sell more gear based on making consumers insecure!

@@klausnielsen7102 That's not at all true. It's not tough to hear differences in phase shifts. Most of the papers published on this subject had very poor testing (trust me, I've read most of them including Toole's book). Complete misinformation in those sources. They will also tell you that cables and quality of power (aside from grounding) make absolutely no differences. The only reason I'm not running a speaker company is that I don't have access to good DSP boards that provide FIR for phase correction. Plenty of options if you don't want that but if you do, it's virtually non existent. If it didn't matter, I'd be selling speakers.

My mentor has investigated the effects of phase on sound quite a bit. While we cannot really hear the relationship between two sine waves being slightly or exactly how much out of phase, the effect of drivers being out of phase (that is, gross phase errors in a narrow band) has staggering effect on the resulting sound. He taught me how to hear that, and it's quite easy to pick out an inverted channel, inverted tweeter, or woofer, midrange. The phase errors affect more the 3D perception, the tone, the body and weight to complex voices / sounds, while by themselves (as a single frequency) they are meaningless for our brains.

@@realworldaudio This is the problem with how the research has been done. In steady state (listening to continuous sine waves) no, we can't hear phase except in some very specific cases. The thing to consider is that the sound is leaving the speaker at different times. It's more about the transient response. When you only have a single cycle of different frequencies, if one is delayed more than the other then you can hear it. Think about the extreme case where one frequency comes out of the speakers a minute after another. In steady state you would not hear any problems. If you play a pulse then you will hear one sound followed by another a minute later. This is exactly what happens with the phase shift introduced by crossovers (and rooms) but on a smaller scale. When you correct it, you can gain an incredible amount of clarity. I've done A/B testing where the only difference is having phase correction (frequency response is the same) and no one in the room had any doubts that it was audible. According to the scientific literature we should have been able to hear zero difference.

Hi Lou, indeed, the field coil woofer was a pleasant surprise. I did not focus on it (yet), as it seems a little off / unbalanced with the rest of the drivers, which are not field coils. Indeed, makes little sense that the woofer is a field coil while the midrange is not..... I can't get a clear picture in my mind on why they voiced it like that. My hunch is that the bass unit requires the most current from the amp driving the field coil, that is, they could make the expenses highest by adding a huge EM.... to the name and to the price, but not really to the overall sound. I have to say though that they could have made it cost x3 more by making all drivers EM.... ;

Should be called soft-speaker :)

Hi John, the hard suspension and weak motors on low efficiency drivers do not allow the reproduction of fine steps in dynamics. It’s like trying to drive a (current hungry) tank, it will not turn and drive as gracefully as a car. Sure, will get from point a to b, but the intricacies are lost.

Speakers could reach the efficiency if their designers tried.... Efficiency needs size, and that does not sell well for compact modern homes. High and ultra efficient speakers are doomed to be on the fringe of the audio world...

@@realworldaudio Thank you, my friends have been telling me similar things. Regardless of room I would love a even higher efficiency speaker. Through your advice and my friends I decided to take the plunge on AlNiCo speakers and they are absolutely sweet. Not sure I could escape the soft dome tweeter any time soon.

@@tomlu1816 Hi Tom, glad to hear of your positive experiences! Indeed, the soft dome can be hard to replace.

@@realworldaudio Thank you Janos. I wanted to ask you a few other questions. But I wanted to invite you to be a guest on my audiophile podcast where I shine a light on many different perspectives in audiophilia. I wouldn't want to try to promote it without your permission of course, but I can not find your contact information.

@@tomlu1816 Hi Tom, I much appreciate the opportunity to be a guest on your podcast, quite humbling! To touch base, my email is arcturus127@gmail.com Cheers, Janos

Ultimately it's the choice, what voicing is preferred. Compressed sound has its advantage: it sounds more powerful as all the bass energy is compressed higher up, and it's dominating the frequency range. The other aspect is the amplifier and source choices: for the Focal-path you basically need an arc welder for an amplifier, and a huge variety of sources will work. For the ultra-efficiency path you need a direct path amplifier, and everything in the system has to be fully optimized as it will show the slightest issue / flaw there is in the system.

is it true that dynamic range compression will not show up in THD measurement? I am just now thinking. because what if 20Hz is quieter as it struggles to play louder, but maybe that struggling should reveal itself in THD

Hi John, indeed, amplitude reproduction measurements are very much neglected. One reason can be that it's a parameter that has been massively and steadily declining during the last decades, and professional pride is not obtained from showing not-so-encouraging data. The dB variation in hearing is relative though, a function of both frequency and SPL. With very loud and low frequency sounds (eg 20Hz) we can't even tell a 5dB change above 120dB, (and cannot tell any change below hearing limit). Yet, at 2-3kHz, where our hearing is most acute, especially at low SPLs the ability to hear is much more acute. Eg when we are down to 30dB/3kHz there minute variations are detectable, compared to for example 100Hz at 70dB SPL.

@@ColocasiaCorm Indeed, it does not show up in the THD measurements, as the waveform / wave shape is not affected, it's only the amplitude. Sadly, dynamic compression is not getting any attention from reviewers in the form of showing measurements, or comparisons.

The 16kHz upper limit of music instruments has long been shown to be far surpassed, that assumption was largely from limititations of old measurements. For example, trumpet, violin, oboe produce significant energy at 40kHz and above, and 20+kHz content from instruments is rather the rule than the exemption. Deeper information: www.tnt-audio.com/casse/life_above_20khz.pdf

Indeed, that is an issue, although one that worked out for the better most of the time for me. Today there’s a tendency to add too much bass anyway, and the balance is much better for my ears with high efficiency. Although when someone comes from car stereo, the adjustment is major, and might be too much. And indeed, there are a number of recordings where I’d like higher levels of bass, but luckily it’s been an overall change for the better - much more records became optimal, and in comparison very few lost their weight in the bass department.

@@realworldaudio That's good news, as I am in the process of moving from a low efficiency system to one in the high 90db's. Still more construction work yet....

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