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In Reply to: RE: Your source is your most important piece in the audio chain posted by airtime on April 27, 2017 at 08:09:39
Thank you for your suggestions. I managed to exchange them for some B&W CM1s that sound more neutral and are also more convenient for my small room and creaky body. The dealer very kindly set up the Focals alongside the B&Ws and played them on his rig which featured pretty high-end stuff. Only this demo was in a different room. We used the dealer's source material filtered through my preferences.
On his equipment in the different room they sounded harsher than ever and the B&Ws sounded warm by contrast. If you feed the Focals high voltage symphonic material, like the end of the Firebird, they can produce some breathtaking resolution, but they tend to sound too peaky on everyday fare.
Focal has a very fast tweeter in the 706 but I think they have a problem with smoothness and neutrality. Great tweet, woofer only meh.
As for breaking in, I don't see why they can't be broken in at the factory. Why try to sell a speaker that isn't working up to its potential? Why not hook all units up to white noise for a few days? Break-in sounds to me like a convenient excuse when a speaker doesn't sound good.
I will say that the Focals are absolutely beautiful in the white gloss with black grills and have great connectors. Manual is totally minimal though.
It's never too late to turn back the clock.
Follow Ups:
It's great you were able to exchange them so easily for the B&W's. EXCELLENT choice. I've found over the years that if it doesn't sound right the first few minutes it most likely never will.
I always felt a speaker faithfully reproduce what is sent to it without it's "own" interpretation. I think that's the big reason I can't stand horns.
Post more on how you like them - enjoy!!!!
charles
Thank you for your post! I have white BWs with gray grills which I like the look of and the size and weight are convenient for my arthritic bones. As for the sound, I find them just about as bright as you can get without sounding too bright like the Focals. The sound is clear and sweet with good solidity and impact on rock despite their size. They are solid all through the mids and the bass is nicely full without the port plugs. There is a double port plug so you can close the hole half-way or completely. In both cases you lose a little warmth so I prefer them without the plugs for most material. I did think Tony Williams' tight bass drum shots sounded a little deeper with the port half-plugged, which gives you a little more extension without losing too much volume. This trade-off is of course what subwoofers are meant to eliminate for music listeners, apart from their function rendering explosions or earthquakes.
To steal a line, I would say that where the Focals sin by commission the BWs sin more by omission. They might not give you quite as dramatic a rendering of certain orchestral climaxes as the Focals, but they are more reliable in that they sound good on just about everything. Listened to some live Hendrix today Hear My Train a Comin on youtube. Best Hendrix I've ever heard! Super stuff if you like Hendrix at all. But I also was surprised at how good some violin and harpsichord works sounded. As for Coltrane Plays the Blues, one of my all-time favorites, it sounded like a dated recording of some very great music. The BWs didn't enhance it at all but they didn't seem to be messing up or missing anything. Interesting comparison with the 1990s CM1 that was sealed matrix speaker of approximately same size and spec. The 1990s version as I recall was more colored (relatively - both are mostly uncolored) but tighter in the bass at the cost of sounding a bit lightweight. They had optional woofer columns that served as bases but were enjoyable as is. Anyway, no buyer's remorse from ME.
It's never too late to turn back the clock.
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