How lazy are you that you didn't even take the time to read what the woofer (flax cone) and the tweeter (aluminum/magnesium) are made of when it is right there on their site? Very disappointing.
Not really, he showed you the measurements and heard what they sound like. As I said above, I don't think Focal is winning any awards with that Radio Shack tweeter they have in there. A tweeter that is constructed like that, with it's problems, shouldn't be in a $2200 cabinet. But I guess you are feeling the burn for paying so much for a speaker that just shouldn't cost $2200, but rather $500 at best. It is mark up and greed. Now, of course, I am not faulting you as you probably didn't know. Many don't know what is really inside a speaker until they take it apart. This is why I tend to avoid high priced audio components because you really don't know what company is going to take you to the cleaners and "clean" you out of your money. Some companies, such as McIntosh are legit, but it is not like I can afford them anyway. Still there is Law of Diminishing Returns too. Do I really NEED a McIntosh or Focal speakers? No, I don't. I feel there are good sound components out there that can be had for far less. I like guys like Danny and Erin that have the proper test equipment to find flaws in speakers and in Danny's case, he takes the speaker apart and lets you know how well it is built. So I tip my hat off to him for offering that service to us audiophiles here on You Tube. Further, he offers a fix for them too. Granted, the sting is worse having to spend more to correct the problems of the cabinet and cross over which shouldn't have to be in the first place...not at that price level. But educating the people is what I am for, exposing the crooks of the audio industry for what they are. Things have been getting out of hand in the audio industry and really, people just have to stop feeding the trolls.
The tweeter is a joke. It has a ridiculously small damping chamber and a high free air resonance. Probably costs Focal $3 ea. Even if you can get these speakers for $1000, you’re getting ripped off.
Pretty sad that this is what we get from so many manufacturers these days. Meanwhile, they’ve been making ridiculous price increases. Thank you for exposing these companies.
@@tchernob The same goes for Focal and Hertz car audio gear sold in the UK. The comparative price hike makes enthusiasts in the U.S. are getting a higher grade/series product, than they actually are!
Focal is extremely overpriced in North America. If you look at the European prices for the same model its far less. I think this speaker goes for about $800-900 in most of Europe. Also Focal was taken over by a private equity firm who has raised prices 3 times since the takeover. So they might have had value at one point it doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
You can see in the original graph that the on-axis has a broad dip centered at 6khz BUT that dip on axis is balanced by broader dispersion in that frequency range (this is the Focal house sound). This gives the speaker an in-room response that is balanced. Your new “flat on axis” crossover just unbalances that. See 9:46 for the most important graph (that you quickly blow by) while shows how badly you destroyed this carefully-engineered balance and how much excess energy you now have around 6kHz. You are in no position to criticize Focal’s engineering. This is like taking a family car, slamming it with new super-stiff springs then patting yourself on the back about how much less it leans in corners while criticizing the OEM despite the fact that you’ve destroyed the overall appeal.
You can't just look at the horizontal off axis. You have to look at the vertical off axis too. So in this case our upgrade will give the speaker a much more even total in room response than it had from the factory. Also, the stock parts, wire, and binding posts are garbage. Our upgrade improves clarity and detail levels significantly.
I have these speakers at home and they are not bright as they say ... at least it seems so to me. I am very happy with them and in our country they cost exactly 769 € a pair.
That is a bit disappointing. With all these cheesy parts I wonder if the tweeter is up to scratch after the upgrade. I mean if the cross over is only worth $10,- I can hardly imagine the tweeter costing more than $20,-
The price is stupid in the USA as these can be had between £400-£700 in the UK and Europe ( I had 2 pairs new for £400 a pair) and for that price the speaker is very good value so for Europe and the UK the upgrade would be a great upgrade for the USA I would just pass on the speakers period as the price makes them very poor value
I knew there was a bad disconnect in the consumer audio world when Danny tested and upgraded a Dynaudio Special 40 and found it terribly not so "special" lacking in sound and quality crossover parts - at $3600/pair for a bookshelf speaker...Jeez. There too often seems to be no correlation between price and quality. Heck, my pair of $600 Wharfedale Diamond 12.2 has better measurements that that. I guess you are paying $600 for a speaker and $3000 in pretty wood grain from some of these companies...Ugh.
To be fair, flat frequency response does not necessarily make a good sounding speaker. Do your Diamond 12.2 speakers have lower distortion, lower compression, faster attack, more detail, better decay tails, wider dispersion, higher power handling, more bass extension etc ?
@@carlosoliveira-rc2xt they sound good to me, and that is all that matters. And I don't have to EQ the shit out of them, in fact, I don't have to EQ at all, and that precisely is the reason I LIKE a flat frequency response speaker. I want no coloration at all or if anything, a very slightly warm midrange. At this crazy price point they are just screwing clueless people over who have more dollars than cents, er sense....LOL...
@@rosswarren436I'm not disputing whether or not they sound good and yes usually flat frequency is desirable. You said their measurements were better than the Focals and I was only pointing out the many measurements and criteria that are available in order to make that claim. Cheers!
@@carlosoliveira-rc2xt , hi, I have searched extensively, but can not find any measurements on 12.2, I only found measurements on 12.1, the measurements on 12.1 are very decent though.
If you left you nose alone and read focals descriptions and droppes The talking down of The standard products: Just to be able to say, see, i Can make this cheesy stuff to Sound better. Thats disgusting and manipulation
Poor job, Focal, once the pride of France. It's the same old story. As a company gets larger, it gets more greedy and destroys it's own reputation and becomes more image than substance. You'd have to pay the megabucks to get into the professional Focal stuff now. Poor value for money for the ordinary guy.
These are not 2200,- !! These will sell in the EU and US for 900,- a pair. For 2 years back you had deals in the US for 5-600 a pair but with the inflation prices has going up. So what is this review all about if I may ask? They are good value for money.
I actually have these speakers. they are beautiful. and with the right equipment, which i learned by trial and error....sound fantastic. You noobs and boomers can go pound sand until you do some research.🤣. Specks and components are only half of the production that goes into a speaker. And dude, the tweeter is aluminum and magnesium. and the woofer is a proprietary plant based material. Amateurs.
My stock 906’s are set up with an all Rega system…Elex-R, Aria Phono Stage, P6 with Exact-2 MM, and Audioquest Rocket 33 cable sitting atop Solid Steel stands. Bass duties sent to a REL T5x. It sounds fantastic with 80% of the vinyl I run through it. Highly recommended.
That's one way to fix them. Vinyl is intentionally mastered to roll up High freq around 15k which is a good thing for these speakers and of course sending the bass to the sub is good too. Thing is that combo you have will make any decent speaker much nicer to listen too.
I went from this focal arya line to Revel Be line. Noticably better dispersion when moving around the room. I also prefer the harman freq curve apparently. Still using these focal 906 for sides until I decide between bookshelves vs more floorstanders. Rel subs look so good. I wish I could a and b the Rel 31 with some other big brands in my space.
@@nsdesilva Sweet! Great system and I’m sure you’re enjoying it 🔥🔥. I’ve since upgraded. LoL. Now running Rega Aethos into KEF R3. Everything else is the same. It’s got some more juice now. I think I need to move to the T7x sub or another T5x. It’s an addicting hobby! LoLoL
GREAT JOB 👍... I used to have a hobby of building loudspeakers and subwoofers... Everything you stated is true... In the upgrade that you did to those top quality parts is outstanding. The difference that those parts will make is dramatic... And the price that you charge for all those parts and for all the work and for all the engineering and for all the measurements... It's a very good deal 😉
I'm confused now - why are you calling poly caps "cheesy"? I can understand electrolytic caps should not be ideally used in a crossover, but poly caps?? So what's not "cheesy" then, something you sell?
Danny, I’m always curious: Do you ever have manufacturers reach out to you after breakdowns like this and express anger or frustration around you calling them out?
Why would they call him out He is only stating the facts. What are the speaker manufacturer's going to say... It's there in Black and White for everyone to see...If anything they should be embarrassed for the inferior trash that is mass produced.
I doubt it...his channel is small and the views aren't that high yet...if this channel had a million subs and was getting 300-600k views on average per video, every manufacturer would be contacting him trying to either buy him off or threaten litigation...it's happened to many people before on RU-vid once they started gaining traction...but most large companies have learned it's not beneficial to go after content creators as it always backfires on them. They would try to "work" with him and make promises to change products, etc.
@Gumshoe Beaumont ha, I've never eaten fish pakoras. For me it's always been the veggie pakoras...and where you get them makes all the difference. I could hand you two identical pakoras made by two different chefs and they would taste completely different from one another.
Focal these speakers have cheap parts and they are over 2200 Dollars? Look at the cross over and cheap tweeter I agree with Danny about these speakers after seeing this I wouldn’t spend 2200 on these speakers I would put my 1800 dollar 2.7 magnepan over these any day and they still sound as great as they did back in 1994
I own a pair of those and believe you me, they are NOT bright. I have them paired to a Simaudio W3 and NAD M52 DAC. I have an older pair of Chorus speakers (also Focal) which are much brighter and airier; I prefer them to the Arias, frankly. However, I got the Aria's for $1100 Cdn new. They took weeks to break in, but overall I'm not displeased.
2,200 USD? Well not here in Europe. Focal Aria 906 costs around 700 Euros. The quality in sound and build is just about right. Of course you're looking for problem because you want people to upgrade the components.😅
I don't understand what you are talking about. Your review looks like someone paid you to talk bad about this speakers. The Focal Aria 906s are very comfortable, respectable speakers. If you appreciate a stand with scale, strength and refinement, you won't find better for the money.
For most of the upgraded loudspeakers you would call that impulse chart great ;) After the upgrade of this crossover it looks simply ideal by the way. But to call it “terrible” from a beginning is not fair. The vertical dispersion and that dip on a FR curve might be intended to prevent reflections from a ceiling/floor in this frequency range, that makes a “family sound”. That would be expected from such manufacturer. The cabinet sounds like a stone after a knocking. These are the best loudspeakers in about €1000 price range. PS I think you should review your price for the upgrade. A worse from s beginning Dynaudio upgrade is about 50% cheaper. These are €1000 pair, not $2200. A $500+ upgrade makes no sense for good sounding loudspeakers in this case.
I am surprised he doesn't know it is a flax cone driver. It is pretty well marketed by Focal themselves. Interesting video, I knew the brand but not your channel. Focal Studio speakers seem to be a better value than their Hi-Fi line-up. The studio speakers are cheaper for comparable drivers plus they include the built-in amplifier. Cheers
Yeah, claimed he worked for/with Focal and didn't even know the bass driver was made from a plant material called Flax, then calls them bright, these speakers are not bright, the older models maybe but not these, they actually have quite a smooth sound which makes me wonder if he even bothered to listen to them before tearing them apart. This video should be called how to blow $300 and ruin a perfectly good sounding pair of speakers. Pretty sure Focal with all their years of Knowledge and experience know what they are doing, I mean it's not like they knocked them up in their backyard with a few scraps. Cheap build x-over sure, but perfectly adequate.
@@techsamurai11 Firstly it isn't a $10 crossover, this is pretty standard across the industry not just Focal, they all have cost constraints and the crossover is where they can save money and sometimes do depending on the speaker's design.Using cheaper components doesn't always mean it sounds bad because it doesn't. Some speakers like Epos used a single capacitor on the weeter, does that make it rubbish? NO. By today's standards the F Aria is not a particular high end speaker and the crossover inside it does the job it supposed to and quite well. It's a pretty nicely balanced and great sounding speaker so no real need to mess with it, and certainly not by spending over $350 on modding it. That money would be better spent by just buying a better speaker.
@@mgsamps I think Danny called it a $10 crossover and he buys those parts - Focal may get a better deal so it might be less. The speaker costs $2,200 for a standmount which is in competition with Arendal Towers, Polk R700s and close in price to the Q Acoustics Concept 50. For a $800 speaker that apparently is what folks pay in Europe, it may not be bad but for a $2,200 speaker it deserves a $300 crossover, if not more. The problem with buying a better speaker is what speaker will you buy and how much will you spend. I think only Zu Audio allows people to upgrade the internal components for a nominal fee and get a much better speaker than what you pay for. From what we've seen very few companies have decent electronics even though you're paying $8,000 for the speaker. You can't see the electronics inside a speaker so the manufacturer puts an integrated video card inside a performance computer. This is a practice that needs to stop. When you pay $3,000 for a computer, it needs to have a RTX 3080 or 3090 GPU in it, not an integrated video card. Imagine how much better this speaker would have been after adding all the mid-range components, removing interference.
@@techsamurai11 Yeah I suppose I might be a little disappointed If I'd paid $2200 for them, I bought mine on special offer for 600 quid UK, no complaints with the sound apart from the bass being a little odd, not sure spending $300 on X-over parts would have helped tho. Moved on now.
They are charging $400.00 per letter. F O C A L. Those parts look more like a $200 pair. B&W charges lots for their letters too... I know. I have seven. None are as good as my TWO Elac Reference speakers. Live and learn, if you have a brain 😊.
Exactly! I have only listened to the Focal Electra 1038Be and the Kanta 2 both on McIntosh electronics. Probably have to go to New York city and make an appointment to see and/or listen to Utopias. I have heard several Utopia setups in car audio though.
Obviously you don’t know much about the Focal brand. Those are flax drivers. As a Focal owner I can say the company knows what it is doing and you picking apart the components of the speaker means nothing. Do some research so you can speak intelligently about a great audio company like Focal.
@@johnsmith-i5j7i No, he puts down and makes generalizations about one model, and he disrespects several well known brands of speakers because he is promoting his stuff which is of course wonderful. I know Focal is a great brand and my speakers are great, and I certainly don’t doubt them because of a guy who has a vendetta against the brand.
When i started being interested in hi-fi again 5 to 10 years ago i was shocked at the prices how can a pair of speakers be expensive?Did they put gold and diamonds in them🤔
In France where there made there around 500 euros for the pair so its not bad part quality at all for that price and if it creates a neutral response thats all that matters. Theres no point in a manufacturer spending more money on parts if its not necessary in fact Focal even says because everything is done in house it has enabled them to use cheaper parts because they are designed to work with each other. Danny is not wrong in saying there can be improved but when it comes down to 2-3db changes youd be surprised how hard most will have it to tell the sound apart from stock. Also music can sometimes sound better with a dip between 2-4khz because a lot of recordings are too hot there.
In my country the price of Aria 906 is under 1000 dollars a pair. Your USA distributors increases tha price . I like the sound of this speakers and i will never upgrade them.
Some of the Focal high end tweeters were (maybe still are?) beryllium. I built a pair of small speakers based on Focal units, a D'Apolitto configuration with Kevalar bass/mids and beryllium tweeter.
That is correct. There are even different versions of beryllium tweeters from Focal. The tweeters in these speakers are among the cheapest they make. Still sound better than most cheap stuff but not as good as any revered by audiophiles. Focal manufactures some of the best "cones and domes" on the planet, but they aren't available to diy'ers and not many have even seen them much less heard them.
Until end of '90s most of Focal drivers were available to DIY, then Focal and Dynaudio pulled out drivers distribution. As for the quality or technicalities behind Focal, Dynaudio and other manufacturers, there's nothing special about them these days. Scan, SB, and a few others make more advanced spkr drivers and better made.
The more of these talks I watch, the more disillusioned about hi-fi I get. In this example, Focal has spent less than half a percent of the purchase price on the crossover. Their thinking must be, ‘X million spent on elegant and moody advertising will allow us to save 2X millions by cutting corners.’ If this is how they operate, it’s disgraceful. No credit to the buyers, either, who are more interested in price than quality.
The Yamaha NS-5000 Trouces the Focal Utopia big floor stand at a fifth of the price, but in the high Fi world, Nothing really makes sense. The market gets what they want.
@@BastianUllr I must be looking at the smaller version of the Utopia. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing either speaker in question, but those yamaha's look gorgeous.
@@taylorhickman84 They are utterly impressive. It won't supposedly please none of those audiophiles who say that an inert box sounds dead and not like music. The Yamaha doesn't sound. There is no speaker, period. All you hear is free sound, side to side, behind, and the punch is impressive. They can handle a lot of power and remain composed. Very admirable, extremely well built. A complete bargain if you score them for around 10-12.5k. There is NO WAY you can get drivers as such, crossovers as such, the room to make them, and to paint them as they are for such price and great finish. We should feel fortunate to things as the Yamaha NS-5000. It is a speaker that in spite of its price, makes sense! Top tech, top R&D, top finish. With Focal you also get bling, a lot of bling. You have Focal speakers on Expensive cars. You also get a life style, a social status badge. I do not thing High end is about music anymore.
Wow, in Germany, these speakers are in a significantly lower price range of 700 to 1000 Euros. This might explain the cheap parts in the crossover and the tweeter looks disappointing too.
@@DYNABLASTERTUNERS Actually I doubted my wording, I thought it might be misinterpreted as being rude. But then I saw your comment and understood that in most crowds there is a total tool. And you are it. ;-)
The price for those loudspeakers Is 799 Pounds Sterling so approx $1000 Dollars, so the cheesy crossover seems to be in the right price ball park for those speakers as you suggest In your video.
For 2200 dollars I will make you a few sets that sound better. Focal have some nice drivers but it seems they can't find their place between car audio and Hi-Fi. The iron core coil is ok-ish for mid-woofer duty, but again 2200 dollars! Electrolytic has no place in a crossover of that magnitude imo. At least they managed to orient the coils in the X-O 90 degrees of each other, give them some points there. Honestly I would encourage everyone to take up DIY speaker building, but it's a long process. The box is generic, cheap fiber-board laminated in something.....same effect can be achieved with vinyl. Most times a passive XO is more expensive than the whole box+drivers, but I understand the need for profit. I have actually been looking at those particular drivers for a while now, 400 euros for car-audio, same flax cones, diff impedance. Nice speakers overall, but 2200.....hell no!
Im a previous Focal installer and retailer. Yes, it is markedup very high. And crossover parts are very cheap. In a fully active system we would actually tune Focal not to sound like Focal and it would be beautiful. There is a way to tame the drivers, Danny knows best about this from first hand experience. Great work Danny.
I have never liked the sound of Focals, I bought the highest end car speakers they make and tuned them forever with a JL Audio parametric EQ/AMP and the tweeter ear fatigue could not be overcome. I listened to their most expensive home speakers and they are just junk to my ears. I knew it, this validates it.
I bought Focal Sopra No1s - these were tested by audioholics and are as linear as can be. No idea what XO is in thel but they sound marvelous paired woth a sub. They weigh 50kg with stands! No ringing at all. Hope you can get your hands on one and show us their XO.
First of all, in Europe this speakers is around 1200/pair. Second, i see you have a xoverfreq. of 1,7-1,8khz for this tweeter with an fs of around 1200-1400hz? There is a reason why Focal cut it high up, because it doesn't sound good at all so low. Not even the old TC120TD5/TXD did... so i'm not sure what you were thinking here Danny. Even with a 3rd order filter it will struggle. Perhaps it sound good now but not if you turn it up.. I have done upgrade to the less expensive 706V model and except the woofer they look identical. (even xover) I choose in the end not to mess with the xover design, because here it measured really flat it just had a little hot tweeter..i damped tweeter about 1db. Replaced all caps To Jantzen Superior-Z, resistors to MILLS, Litz-wire coils etc and added lot of bitumen plus new non magnetic terminals. ohh yes new internal cabling from Neotech too. This speaker sounds now really, really good. I wonder how much i have tp pay to get anything better... Anyway despite this time i had something to say that was negative i usually like your videos a lot.
That would far to logical. Far better to let them 'calibrated ears' just guess instead. Funny how every speaker he wants to sell you upgrade parts for is poor and needs improvement. Unless he was a business man of course, in which case you would never admit something was fine as is. If people like drinking snake oil, let them buy all they want I say!
@@titntin5178 Did you NOT see the cheap original crossover parts and the obvious improvements in ALL the measurements after he totally redesigned the crossover?? That's called "value added" and better sound. Definitely NOT "snake oil". SMH...
@@dmark2639 you don't expect people to actually watch the whole video and understand it before they slag it off do you ? They are too busy off to the next thing they haven't understood to slag that off!
Danny, just for the info. That is called a FLAX CONE MATERIAL. These sound more musical than the kevlars. And the tweeter if I am not mistaken is magnesium. They use both for Car Audio.
I have owned the flax car line before and liked them. Have the new K2 line now which are aramid. Similar enough to Kevlar. They are "aggressive" sounding; good for competing with road noise. The K2's sound best ran actively (no passive crossovers) on LOTS of Mosconi class AB power along with good tuning. My next upgrade will be a Mosconi DSP.
I just bought a set of the Focal Aria 906's and they sound pretty darn good. Yeah they might sound a bit fuller with a small subwoofer but I'm using them in the kitchen. Have other rooms for the bigger stuff. LOL.
it has probably been said here, but these speakers in Europe cost approx. 1000 euro per pair, often in so called French days it can be found for 750 € now. Great speakers for that price. For 2200 I am not so sure
A friend of mine has a set of these and i tried them in our studio and they were very disappointing they sounded awful and when I found out the price I was shocked i thought they were a £100 pair of crappy speakers.
I've always thought that today's Focals esp. the Utopia range are noticeably inferior to the company's efforts from a decade+ ago. Speakers like the Alto Utopias were just so much easier going & enjoyable... I thought they lost something when they stopped using the solid wooden cheeks, they lost a bit of the warmth which balanced that tweeter out.
He'd have to use a really good set of mics (DPA, Schoeps), position them correctly, use an impeccable preamp and a good recorder. Then for true comparisons he'd need to offer the "before" and "after" files as high quality FLAC (losslessly compressed wav files) downloads. The lossy and crappy RU-vid audio compression routines would probably kill much of the audible differences for hearing them online. Plus the end user would need to listen on a pair of good, neutral headphones powered by a good headphone preamp. You can't listen through your own speakers and room and arrive at any objective judgement of sound. It could be done. Maybe he will one day. Be interesting for sure especially if he used a good variety of audio test tracks to better demo the sonic characteristics.
@@rosswarren436 If you can hear the difference between a track played on vinyl and cd through RU-vid, you can hear the difference with two different sets of speakers. Like I said it doesn't have to be accurate but the difference will be relative to the RU-vid limitations, so both before and after will have the same limitations. Still like I said, you can get a rough idea with any decent mic. Thomas Stereo does it at the end of his videos and that's good enough for me.
@@crtgamer2355 yes, but without context it could give you a false impression. Say Danny did as you asked, and your impression from a RU-vid compressed and lossy audio codec was that the original speaker sounded better? All you'll be able to tell is that one sounds "different" but you won't know how it really sounds. I watch Thomas & Stereo videos too (looking forward to his new tube amp but it is likely out of my price range versus a Willsenton R8) and several others here on RU-vid, but I know they come with limitations such that you really can't compare speakers using them. Ah, for more real bricks and mortar stores like Audio Advice. I need to get down to the one in Charlotte one day and hear some Vandersteen 2ce compared to Polk R700 and hear the "real" sound of each - at least in their listening rooms. Right now, those are on my short list... The we know in Q4 Andrew Jones will be unveiling his new speaker for MoFi, so that should be interesting too.
@@rosswarren436 Its not rocket science, when I listen to a vinyl record compared tp a cd on RU-vid, I can hear a difference loud and clear. You can upload over 4K these days so there is no excuse for sound quality. Well, what if and a big what if the original sounds better simply because it is better? Maybe some will like the upgrades and some won't, ever think about that? It's all subjective at the end of the day.
@@crtgamer2355 but you'd be fooling yourself since you aren't hearing the real thing, and that is my point. Lossy and who knows what else RU-vid does to their sound, especially that of uploaders like G-R Research. Anyway, whatever trips your trigger, but at the end of the day, the only way to make any objective or subjective value judgement is to hear the real deal - allowing for room treatment conditions. There are lots of other speakers played on Y-T and for instance, I can tell you from experience that Wharfedale Linton's DON'T sound like the Y-T videos I've watched. I imagine other speakers would be similarly not well represented. At least making uncompressed downloads available would be better, and knowing what mics, positioning, and preamps were used along with knowing the power of the amp and SPL being put out by the speakers before you could get an honest impression. It's like looking at a girl through a foggy lens and having to make a decision whether to ask her out or not. The less foggy that lens, the better...
Focal was a huge name in the diy speaker market. Those inverted yellow domes were famous if you use the right crossover and amplification. This $2200 is a big laugh for this cheap speakerset. For over $2600 you can buy a lot better speakers.
I miss those days as well. Didn't have the money back then but was aware and listened to several pairs. Back then my reference speaker was the Legacy Focus $4800.
Not a fan of either B&W or Focal. Too bright and unnatural. Much prefer BBC, Danish types or Wilson/Magnepan/Revel on the other side of the pond. I’m an old East Coast sound lover, though a good JBL can get my attention. Real music is never bright. ‘Nuff said.
Thing is, these speakers retail for about €1k here in Europe, often less then €990 in France. Not saying they shouldn't be built with better quality electronics, but my expectations from the manufacturer are very different then if I had to pay $2k+ for them in the US.
I have the Focal Aria 926 speakers and they sound amazing. The tweeter is not harsh at all. If anything, they sound smooth compared to B&W's that i compared them to. The flax material is really njce. There is solid bass with great mid detail as well as front to back. We are paying for the R&D, and Focal has a tour of their factory that you can see on line which shows very higb tech machines making their gear to exact specifications. They have to compete with many other speaker companies out there and these speakers have received great reviews. Could they be tuned to a specifications that you believe is better, of course. But do they really sound better? That could be a subjective answer
I have the focal chorus 816w with the higher end drivers from the utopia range they are 13 years old might have a little look to see if it has a shitty crossover but to be honest I like how they sound glad I didn't pull the trigger on those arias think they call that speaker material flax you can buy aria towers in the uk for the price you quoted for those bookshelves looks like they are ridiculously expensive in the US
They will be cheese inside, like my 806v, if you have the skills I would say it is worth the effort, it gets tricky though because they squeeze the whole crossover on the back of the connector plate to save money in manufacturing leaving little room for better parts which tend to be bigger. Although with yours being the tower type they may have attached them to the rear panel.
Kinda makes one think "how dare they?". I think that woofer is made from some kind of flax composite (not compost!!) and is said to be a good unit but as far as the rest of the inner workings .... well, again, Danny reveals that the Emperor has no clothes. So "how dare they?" ...as long as they can I guess. What I just do not get is why in the world wouldn't a company like Focal throw a few more bucks at production cost and bring these speakers up to true potential??? I actually considered purchasing Focal at one time. Need I say more? $2800 here in Canada - ouch!!
I think Danny is the first person to do this, and they were/are getting away with it. Hopefully this will change as we become more educated about these cheesey parts. Danny is doing invaluable work for us hifi nerds.
Actually they call the wooofer membrane material Flax. It´s presumably made with resin impregnated flax fiber. Still not biodegradable bc of the resin, though. 🙃
This cable believer doesn't even know where the midrange is. Why is he even taken seriously? He called 1khz to 2khz trebble ... This scammer doesn't even look valid compared to the detailed ASR Review.
is Focal comparable to Scanspeak? I have a AOS Studio 30 (Klang+ton 1998/02) build with scanspeak units: D 2905/9300 high 18W8546 low and 18W8544 mid. I consider to buy a Focal 948 but if I see that cheap plastic terminalpart with cheap filter components it's holding me off. I have now a filter build with 1st class components from tritec, Intertechnic, Real whool, Jantzen, mox resistors etc.
In fairness you are comparing a really cheap tweeter with some rather expensive tweeters from days gone by. These aren't a replacement for the T120 and T90's of old. It's just a crap speaker. I was a Focal dealer for years even though their stuff wasn't great until you spent a lot of money on them. But you certainly didn't find those high end tweeters on their cheaps speakers back then. You found them on their big stuff, all Wilson products of the day, etc. I haven't heard this particular speaker but I'm sure it doesn't sound good, like the comparably priced B&W, etc. Industry standard is 5-1 for price of component to retail price. For many inexpensive speakers the box costs more than the tweeter. I'm sure you know all of this. Wilson used to take a T120 and mate it with a 7" Scanspeak woofer/mid. Those Focal tweeters had huge magnets but that just provided high sensitivity. The voice coils on the 1" inverted dome was 3/4" (you could see the glue line where it attached) and there was no ferrofluid. So they crossed it over at 4k, where the Scanspeak was beaming like crazy and rolling off. No wonder they were so difficult to place...
hy, considering focal aria 948. A rusian dude dismantels it, shity party from china in crosowers. Would you čare to look into that and how much would the upgrade cost? Love your expertise. Thx, rgs
Not sure I'd like that slight peaking _And_ off axis bunching around 4-5kHz in the revised version. The original had it shelved down there to balance out the response.
It looks like like same thing happens with Speakers as with cloth they are mede of same material, but has a name brand on it, am big companies reach their goals by convincing us that their products are the best, in the case of speakers that their speakers sound " Thousands " of dollars better than cheaper speakers, I just bought a pair of Klipsch RB 81 2 for less than $500 dollars brand new, with 8" woofers, I doubt this Focal speakers sound $1500 dollars better!! 😂
Maybe a little off topic but I recently heard the Focal Maestro and was blown away by the dynamics. I’ve never heard anything like it short of a really really good live PA rig. Blew away everything I thought I knew about high end audio. Price blows you away too but they charge that because it’s that good!
that Tweeter is total garbage.. there is nothing better than a simple big old school Silk tweeter with low cut 🤷 for the Mass audience that frequency range sounds great.. they hear boosted bass and high tweeter response! exactly the same thing do with Eq on all amplifiers or flat Tvs 😂😂🤣
