Straight from Focals Site.. Read This.

Polkemon

Please Read this Passage from E-mail answers on Focals site and give your two cents. I was going to get the PDX but now I am unsure since I do not like bright tweets.

Email from a customer:
I am purchasing a pair of Focal 165K2P and a pair of Focal 165CV1 for rear fill. I hear that the tweeters on the K2P are very 'bright'. Can I fix that?
I was planning on using a JL 450/4 V2 amp to drive these speakers. The K2P's would get 150 watts and the CV1's would get 75 watts. Is this sufficient or should I consider something different?



Answer:

Hi Scott

Focal use basically the same tweeters in home stereo speakers which retail in excess of $10,000 a pair. The tweeters are not bright in these home speakers. If you are hearing Focal tweeters as bright, it's probably something to do with the car installation method, or maybe the head unit, amplifier or even the RCA cables.

TN52 tweeters are perfectly linear in frequency response with much higher specifications than most every other car audio tweeter. These tweeters are capable of reproducing music so accurately that they will show the distortion and harshness imparted by some popular car audio amplifiers. We have had good results with Focal, Eclipse, Boston or Audison amplifiers. We had disappointing results from Sony, Pioneer, Alpine (surprisingly, because Alpine have a reputation for excellence). In particular the Alpine PDX amps are quite 'hard-sounding', this is probably a function of using a digital amp for these midrange and high frequencies. Digital amps are very efficient, run cool and have a small footprint, but there's a bit of development yet before they can claim a place as a hi-fi amplifier.



Most amplifier companies design their amplifiers for maximum output power because big power ratings sell amplifiers. Young guys need to know that their amplifier is bigger than their friends amplifier. There's a price for going for making output power the primary design factor in amplifier design. You'll get really high SPL's but the music gives you a headache, the sound will be bright and harsh. Focal decided to manufacture car amplifiers because they were tired of hearing their speakers played through amplifiers which impart harshness to the signal. Select an amplifier by its sound quality not the numbers on the box. Chrome plating and blue LEDs don't make the music any better.


If you can beg, borrow or steal a good amp, do a comparison test. Listen to a selection of well-recorded music and note the areas where the music sounds distorted or harsh. Temporarily wire up the replacement amplifier and repeat the test. You don't have do a TAFE course or music appreciation class to hear an improvement. Anyone who says all amplifiers sound the same needs a hearing aid.


What size amplifier should you use? Firstly consider that all Focal speakers have very high sensitivity, and your 165K2P have a sensitivity rating of 92.5db, and are rated at 100 watts RMS. In simple terms, they can withstand 100 watts RMS and are very efficient. You don't have to use 100 watts RMS to drive each speaker, your speakers will sound great on almost any good quality amplifier. They sound okay on most modern high-powered head units which are typically 20 watts RMS per channel. The power of a good head unit is quite acceptable for many people's everyday listening requirements. An amplifier will provide better dynamics; the music will be more spectacular, the bass will have impact and bass extension without the boom. In other words, the amplifier controls the drivers accurately, and you can hear the results. There are good reasons to use an amplifier, and if you are going to use one, use a good one.

The head unit also has a major effect on the sound quality of your speakers. It's no use having a great amplifier if you are amplifying a distorted signal or signal which is missing some information, some parts of the music. The best head units are quite simple, have few controls and use quality components. If your head unit is loaded with gadgetry, if the focus is on dancing dolphins on the screen rather than what it sounds like, you'd better start thinking about changing it.


Cables are also important, don't use cheap RCA cables to connect your head unit to the amplifier. You will pay in excess of $100 per pair for quality RCA's and around $30 to $60 for 'okay' RCAs. Avoid RCAs with silver coating on the conductors. Silver coating is great for transmitting high frequencies such as a video signal, but are not recommended for audio frequencies. Audio cables with silver coating give the music a 'bright 'sound, which can be interesting at first but becomes tiring after prolonged listening. Oxygen-free copper is still the best conductor. The top quality cables have superior connectors and better shielding materials than the cheaper cables. There is many design factors in a good-sounding cable which are not easily summarised into a few words, so just use the proven adage that you get what you pay for.

When it comes time to install your speakers, ask the installer to mount the crossovers somewhere you can gain access without having to remove and refit your door trims. This may cost extra installation, but you should be able to access the switches within the crossovers to make adjustments as the speakers run in. Expect forty to one hundred hours burn-in period, during which time the tweeters will progressively sound smoother and the woofers will develop more impact.

Please let me know how you go. I'd be interested in your opinion of the 'bright' tweeters when you are finished.

Toxis

great read. Nice work Focal.

exalted512

The break in period is also for the cables:rolleyes:
What a load of ****.
-Cody

Toxis

cables don't have a break in period? What's a load?

MacLeod

Pretty much all of that was a load of ****.

I love the "we kept hearing harsh sounding amps so we built some clean ones" line. What a crock. So I would love for them to tell us what frequencies they adjusted to make the sound "cleaner". Then tell us why we would want to buy an amp that colors the sound. So the amp is cleaner for Focal speakers.....what about MB Quart or JL Audio or Polk? Look at the frequency response for any amp tested in magazines. Its virtually ruler flat from 20-20KHz. How can one amp have tighter midbass or cleaner highs if its response is THE SAME AS THE NEXT AMP DOWN THE LINE?!?!

I guess somebody better tell Gary Biggs that he cant win 7 SQ world championships with entry level cables.......oh wait....he already did.

Bottom line is why would you want ANY product be it cables or amps in your signal path that color the sound??? Wouldnt you want your gear to transmit the signal from the source to the speakers as transparently as possible?