anybody in here have FOCAL speakers in therir cars?

[inkacola]

how do they sound? are they worth the money? thanks.

[Mless5]

I had a chance to audition them in my friend's car. While they are great for one kind of music, they absolutely no go for my music. That's all I have on that issue.

[el.duderino]

THey are well made... not appealing to me, though...

[inkacola]

so in short, you guys are saying that they are'nt worth all that much money. specially if they cant perform to all kinds of music.

[Mless5]

I think it depends from what musci you listen to. I won't work for me, but works for my friend and I understand why.

[el.duderino]

Focal are considered by many to be some of the best drivers available.

I personally think they're overrated, especailly as you go down the line and get lower and lower in cost.

I prefer the Dynaudio/Morel/DLS sound.

[RSPDiver]

I listened to two types of Focal components at Tweeter. One was the high-end version, with the bullet center post and attached center cone (KP?). I tested all the speakers that day with John Mayer's Heavier Things CD.

I honestly thought (and the sales dude confirmed) that Polk MOMO separates sounded almost as good as them, and superior to pretty much all other components they had. I'm not a huge Polk fan, but that was a strong testament for me.

[n3wbie]

cdt?

[teasley]

i have the focal polyglass three way component setup in my e36. They are not the best speakers that i have ever heard, but they are not bad by any means. I do agree that they sound much better with some music than with others, as do most speakers, so find someone who has them and listen to them with your favorite cd. also i am running them with an eclipse 5ch amp and a pioneer deh660 deck.

[bfowler]

They are French.
They have metal dome tweeters

I despise both

that is all

[el.duderino]

They are French.
They have metal dome tweeters

I despise both

that is all

LMAO...

[Benny Z]

LMAO...

x2

[drmcdave]

the tweeters are harsh as can be. If you are looking at polyglass 3 ways the only way i could get mine to sound what i consider good was to take the 6.5 off the 3 way crossover and run it off its own channel. I also changed tweeters to CDT eurosports which are very nice (silk dome) to prevent my ears from bleeding. I'd say you can find better stuff for the money. I don't really plan on keeping my focal stuff but it does sound quite good after all the modificiations i made. Just an fyi this setup is in an e30 not an e36.

[slomofo]

i have heard sets i like and sets i don't. the set i loved were the utopia's from about 5 years ago. they sounded amazing. it depends on what you like. i can say this though, Focal makes an amazing 5.25" sub that sound phenomenal when you get 4 of them in a car, say under the dash or in front floor enclosures. some other great sounding seperates that are in the same price range are:
Boston Accoustics Z-series components.
Soundstream Exact Components ( I don't know if they even make them anymore but they are like butter)
Eclipse Components (the top dollar ones though, not the cheapies)
I still have a set of Soundstream Reference 5.25's that are going in my E39 because they just sound that good. they are 8 years old, but they are just that good.
someone else said morel/macrom. those are pretty nice as well but i would consider running them bi-amped with a nice electronic crossover because the passive crossovers they come with are pretty cheesy, but they sound great, very open
with that said, i had custom kick panels in my E30 IX with Soundstream Exact 6.5" 2ways and they were amazing. i would recommend the custom kick panel idea just for the simple fact that when you put the 5.25's in the stock location, the sound seems to get lost a little. if you want pics of my kick panels i can take pics for you. i don't have the car anymore but i have the kickpanels still and would take a pic if you want any ideas.

[inkacola]

slomofo, when you can please take pictures of your kick panels so that i can see what they look like. by the way, are you interested in selling them?

[exmaxima1]

the tweeters are harsh as can be.

More accurately, your amplifier or head unit is very harsh and the tweeter is too revealing of this for your tastes.

Basically, you need a soft tweeter that changes the character of the electrical signals. A warm sort of distortion that is pleasing to the ear. Or get a better amplifier such as a Zapco Reference, Tru Technology, or Tubeworks (Butler design).

One of my heroes was EJ Jordan, a speaker designer from the 50's/60's. He made a comment about soft dome tweeters that has always stuck with me, to the effect that "soft dome tweeters sound wonderful, assuming you never heard live music".

Matthew

[EEEEeeee36]

More accurately, your amplifier or head unit is very harsh and the tweeter is too revealing of this for your tastes.

Basically, you need a soft tweeter that changes the character of the electrical signals. A warm sort of distortion that is pleasing to the ear. Or get a better amplifier such as a Zapco Reference, Tru Technology, or Tubeworks (Butler design).

One of my heroes was EJ Jordan, a speaker designer from the 50's/60's. He made a comment about soft dome tweeters that has always stuck with me, to the effect that "soft dome tweeters sound wonderful, assuming you never heard live music".

Matthew

I have Focal 6-way components and I love them. I've found in the past that silk dome tweeters are a little too "muffled/muted" for my tastes and don't have good articulation (as briefly well explained by 'exmaxima1'), but then again back then I was competing with an electronic Dynamic EQ with crossovers at 36db slopes, AND a HU that had dual 20bit DA converters (uncommon except to competition back when I used to compete, 7-8 years ago), so I had a little more control over what came out of my system. The Titanium inverted dome tweeters that came in my Focal system are not too harsh, and they have great articulation. The h/k system is clean enough (with CDs anyways) and has enough power that they can use these tweeters to their potential. I miss the instrumentation that I used to get with my previous deck, but it still sounds really good. Very good sound staging (with how I have them aimed using the baffle boards I built) and very even/full sound. I have the 165V3Es which are not their top of the line, but they are a good system. Another factor is that I got them on sale and so I only paid about $500 for them (retail $700), so the quality was of course MUCH higher than other speakers I could get at that time for $500! I would normally go for something a little more high fidelity, but I don't compete anymore, and now go-fast mods (and budget) are more my concern. I also built custom baffle boards from 1/4" MDF in my door panels and kickpanels to handle the transient response better, and to get fuller mid/bass from my kickpanels (not to mention so that they would fit in the kickpanel). I am driving them off the stock h/k system now and they work very well...the system is simple and clean and I don't have the need to crank it up until my ears bleed so I enjoy it. To compare, I used to compete in IASCA <600w Pro Street class and I used to use Diamond 4-way components. I also used to have a much more serious HU/Elec EQ/Amp set-up, so considering the $5000 I HAVEN'T spent on my system I would say they sound AWESOME!

After I have my performance goals in-line and met, I may think about a higher quality system, but compared to most my system right now kicks arse.

EDIT: To compare, a buddy of mine has about $4000 into his Lexus in sound with some really good isht and he says my system sounds way better. I think it has to do with how mine is engineered, but all he knows is I spent about 1/5th of what he did .

[el.duderino]

Since no driver is perfect, speaker selection is always a decision of what tradeoffs you'll accept.

It's as incorrect to say that problems with metal tweeters are always in the upstream gear as it is to say that metal tweeters can never sound good. Neither statement is true.

I've heard metal dome tweeters sound great in home speakers. I beleive that they SHOULD be able to sound similar in car speakers. I don't beleive that most of the metal dome tweeters available today are benefiting from the crossover or manufacturing technology that those home speakers benefited from.

Also, even though I don't carry any metal dome tweeter speakers at present, it's not because I am totally against them - but I am against what I've been offered and heard so far. (I also have an approach regarding crossover point and tweeter location that we use in our store that most metal-tweeter components can't support due to their limited lower-end response). If I hear a set that sound good in a car I will happily consider carrying them.

We have a customer who brought in a McIntosh 406, a Sinfoni 80x2 and a big PPI older amp, a pair of ID subs, Ixos Gamma Geometry RCAs, and 2-year-old Focal 6/tweet components. (edited to add "Utopia components")

Many people would say that while you could get a better front end, there shouldn't be any glaring deficiencies with his amp/HU combo.

We installed them in custom kick panel enclosures, and got a nice eye-level image.

I found his metal Focal tweeters to consistently sound bright, strident, and irritating. I was surprised - given their reputation, I expected them to be better. Maybe the ones with the big honking tweeter would have been... but these were irritating with music that didn't have any stridency in it.

I regularly play COwboy Junkie's The Trinity Sessions album to listen for how well a system can play those highs. There are indeed some silk domes that overly soften or dull the notes on this album and remove information that should be there.

Which is worse in audio - omission, or emphasis?

I temd towards the school that, all other things being equal, I'd rather leave something out than add something in...

[EEEEeeee36]

We have a customer who brought in a McIntosh 406, a Sinfoni 80x2 and a big PPI older amp, a pair of ID subs, Ixos Gamma Geometry RCAs, and 2-year-old Focal 6/tweet components.

Yup yup, gotta love those McIntosh - that's what I used to run. Expensive as all hell but man they're worth it. Just gotta make sure your car doesn't draw attention so that people don't look to see what deck you have - no removeable faceplate!

[exmaxima1]

I regularly play COwboy Junkie's The Trinity Sessions album to listen for how well a system can play those highs.

I LOVE that album but haven't played it in years since I only have it on vinyl and my Merrill turntable (SME type III arm) has been packed away for at least 5 years now. The footsteps in the church will give you goosebumps if your speakers can go below 20 hz. It's an awesome recording of an outstanding female vocalist.

Matthew

[el.duderino]

I LOVE that album but haven't played it in years since I only have it on vinyl and my Merrill turntable (SME type III arm) has been packed away for at least 5 years now. The footsteps in the church will give you goosebumps if your speakers can go below 20 hz. It's an awesome recording of an outstanding female vocalist.

Matthew

I have the black-and-white photo, bilingual French-and-English Canadian poster for the album (the one with the Lou Reed quote calling their version of Sweet Jane the most authentic version he ever heard) framed and hanging over my audio rack in the living room. My wife suggested when we moved in together into a new house that it not go up.

Hah

[slomofo]

slomofo, when you can please take pictures of your kick panels so that i can see what they look like. by the way, are you interested in selling them?

i'll post up some pics when i can for ya. i would sell them as well but we'll talk about that later they aren't anything super spectacular, just some fiberglass pods covered in carpet that mount over the existing kick panel. just a little something that i whipped up at work when there were no customer cars to work on.
EEEEEEeeeeeee36 and el duderino make a great point here as well. your speakers are only going to reproduce what you have going to them. if you have a Pioneer deck and a low buck Rockford amp, nothing will sound great. If you have a deck with some real preout voltage and a great processor plugged into a real clean amp, you could buy some Boston Accoustics 2way coax's and sound great. speakers only reproduce what they are given, if you give them crap, you will get crap.
btw, to EEEEEEEEeeeeee36, you mentioned you had a deck that had dual 20bit processors so i would guess either the Sony CDX-C910 or either of those Clarion pieces. it's really funny if you put those up against a newer deck, how they now pale in comparison. i had the processor for my cdx-c910 and everything and when i put in my 8v eclipse with the time allignment and full built in x-over it stomped the crap out of it. weird how time changes things

[EEEEeeee36]

i'll post up some pics when i can for ya. i would sell them as well but we'll talk about that later they aren't anything super spectacular, just some fiberglass pods covered in carpet that mount over the existing kick panel. just a little something that i whipped up at work when there were no customer cars to work on.
EEEEEEeeeeeee36 and el duderino make a great point here as well. your speakers are only going to reproduce what you have going to them. if you have a Pioneer deck and a low buck Rockford amp, nothing will sound great. If you have a deck with some real preout voltage and a great processor plugged into a real clean amp, you could buy some Boston Accoustics 2way coax's and sound great. speakers only reproduce what they are given, if you give them crap, you will get crap.
btw, to EEEEEEEEeeeeee36, you mentioned you had a deck that had dual 20bit processors so i would guess either the Sony CDX-C910 or either of those Clarion pieces. it's really funny if you put those up against a newer deck, how they now pale in comparison. i had the processor for my cdx-c910 and everything and when i put in my 8v eclipse with the time allignment and full built in x-over it stomped the crap out of it. weird how time changes things

Actually see post #19 - I used to compete with a Mcintosh. It was one of the first decks to come out with dual 20bit DACs that could reproduce DAT quality sound... it also had a really cool feature that you could use the DACs in the HU for your CD Changer...so instead of using the CD Changers dual 1bit DACs the changer would read right to the deck. It was $2000 in 1997 - I got it for about $1400 if I remember right (I knew some Car Toys dope heads... they used to smoke reefer in the employee break room!). I kept it hidden in my car - I actually kept my OE deck in the dash for appearances and had my Mcintosh mounted in my center console with a cover over it. I also had a Clifford Alarm, but I'd rather have no one get the urge to break into my car then try to test the effectiveness of my alarm .

I ran it to a 15 channel 3-way active processor/crossover by Clarion, and then to my Soundstream 3 Channel amp. I also had an Epicenter to add super sub-bass just for the hell of it! (I wish I still had that Epicenter... man those things are DOPE!) I had one JL audio 12" in the back (which I think now was too big, but I was young and still had to be heard from blocks away... ) in a bandpass box with a very tight Q in the sealed half and ports tuned to about 38hz. I had my front components crossed over above 200hz, my rear deck speakers tuned between 80hz and 200hz, and my sub only played below 80hz. All of these crossover points had a 36db slope for minimal/no harmonic distortion. My front components were Diamond 4-ways with 6-1/2 woofers, and my rear speakers were 6x9 one way kicker competition. All of this was in a 92 Honda Accord EX-L (great passenger cabin shape). Nice ride for a 19 y/o - only mods were tint, springs/shocks, and some modest 5-spoke rims (again, trying to keep the jackers away).

Man, all those years/dollars wasted on a Honda.. j/k but I'll probably get back into IASCA once my daughters are both walking by themselves and old enough to do chores... They are only 1 and 4 right now.

[exmaxima1]

I had one JL audio 12" in the back (which I think now was too big, but I was young and still had to be heard from blocks away... ) in a bandpass box with a very tight Q in the sealed half and ports tuned to about 38hz. I had my front components crossed over above 200hz, my rear deck speakers tuned between 80hz and 200hz, and my sub only played below 80hz.

If the BP was built to go to 80 hz, and had a 38 hz tuning, it covered 2 octaves and had to be an extremely tiny box. How did you manage a 38 hz tuning with only a tiny fraction of FT3 volume?? Did it have a passive radiator?

I've designed a few BP boxes, and am extremely interested in how you achieved this. Do you recall??

Matthew

[Benny Z]

thanks for the cowboy junkies recommendation.

i just purchased a used copy form amazon for $5.