Damian Ware wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:48 pm:I would point out the fact that PA have high efficiency but they loose sound quality to achieve. And yes they are specifically designed to do so for live bands, night clubs and such.
Yep, that’s what I just said!
Damian Ware wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:48 pm:
As a general rule of thumb a good quality speaker will have a higher efficiency than a poor quality speaker.
Why?
Damian Ware wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:48 pm:
Forward and bright, depends which ones, the Kevlars are as they are designed to do so. The big thing is though that most people are comparing speakers vs other speakers which is always tough. What you need to do is compare speaker vs the real thing.
Their entire range with a slight exception for the Utopias have a bright nature. You can tame them with the electronics and cables you use in the system but that is the Focal sound, I have sold many pairs of them across all of their home audio ranges and they all carried the trait of being forward in the treble. Many people mistake that for clarity and a higher level of detail but once you get to hear a wide range of high end speakers you realise that that isn’t the case. You say you need to compare them versus the real thing, fair enough too. Have you ever conducted any blind test between the real thing and the speakers?
Damian Ware wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:48 pm:
Focal speakers from what I have seen is one of the best most accurate speakers in the world. They have a subtansially flatter frequency response than can be heard by the human ear. If anything you shouldn't be able to hear a difference between them and the real thing.
A flat frequency response is only a small piece of the puzzle. What plays the biggest part in achieving great sound is not the speaker, it’s the room. You can have a ruler flat response but if it is in a poor acoustical environment you will never achieve accurate sound. Add to that this such as cabinet design, resonance control, speaker placement, crossover design, associated electronics, cables and source material and all of a sudden you realise how small a piece of the pie a flat response actually is. It certainly helps, no doubt but it is not the be all and end all of top SQ.
Damian Ware wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:48 pm:
Most speakers while they do a good job for bass they don't have the top end clarity.
This is possibly a result of listening to Focal a lot. When you hear another speaker it will probably sound flat to you in the treble. This is NOT a result of the other speaker not having “top-end clarity”, you may just be expecting the bright nature of the focal to be there and when it is not you perceive it as being flat.
Damian Ware wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:48 pm:
Try some silver RCA's if you get the chance and that will totally change the sound. It is mind blowing the things that make a difference in the real world but cannot be explained by test measurement.
You see this makes my point above about the flat response speakers not being everything to audio, there are so many things that affect the sound its ridiculous and many of them can not be measured. I work in high end audio and have heard many many cables, silver, copper, platinum, rhodium plated you name it. I look at silver cables as being the focal speakers of the cable world. The poor ones add edge, glare and brightness which again people perceive as detail and clarity (but its not) and the good quality ones aren’t much better. Copper is by far the most natural sounding conductor I have heard although if you are willing to pay mega bucks for cables the platinum is very impressive too but not worth the extreme increase in price.
Damian Ware wrote on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:48 pm:
I think they are great and the only thing I can use to back it up besides the awards they recieve and amazing reports is comparing against live music such as the MSO these are the only things that come close. Yes I do think they are slightly different to every other speaker out there which is one of the reasons I think they are better.
Every speaker is different from the next, no doubt about that. Just out of interest, what other brands of speakers have you heard apart from the Focals?