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Focal Kanta No.2

Focal introduced a new line today beginning with the Kanta No.2. It looks like they're positioning it between the W cone equipped 1000 series and the Sopra. It's got the shape of the older Utopia products before they went segmented. Any thoughts? Curious what people will think when they hear them. 
kosst_amojan
kosst_amojan OP
2,095 posts
 
Virtually every review I've read of ant GE with active subs has commented on how they require constant fiddling between recordings to sound right. 

Most of my gripes with GE's are opinion and preference. The reason I liked them was that tweeter. The reason I didn't buy them was that tweeter. Kinda had enough of the quirky ribbon tweeter dispersion challenge. They were among the brightest speakers I listened to as well. 

Bottom line is real simple: the towering, enveloping soundstage the Focals projected combined with their transparency and ability to be as aggressive as the material commanded sold me. Golden Ear hadn't sorted that jazz out when I bought my 936's in anything they made. 
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
2,766 posts
 

@kosst_amojan

From all the reviews I have read, once the bass was dialed in, that was pretty much it.  That's the way it worked with my Triton Ones and my Triton References.  I am very picky about the treble extension (bright) and I was very wary of the folded ribbon tweeter, but I found that it wasn't bright at all.  I am running both sets of speakers in 2 different systems with McIntosh so that may account for that.  My only gripe is that people who never heard them dismiss them as home theater speakers and won't even think they could be wrong.

I have been into high end audio since it's infancy back in the early 70's and have owned probably 15 different pairs of speakers since then.  The Golden Ear speakers and a pair of Odyssey Kismet speakers are the only ones that have stood the test of time in my systems.  I heard the Focal Kantra at the RMAF and I thought they sounded superb.  It is the first time I could actually listen to a Beryllium  tweeter without wanting to rip my ears off.

We all hear different and that is what makes this hobby so much fun.

gdhal's avatar
gdhal
1,641 posts
 
We all hear different and that is what makes this hobby so much fun.

Right. And lets not forget that there are those on the forum with supernatural hearing; able to distinguish when an ordinary speaker wires cable direction (not polarity) is switched from speaker to amp and vice versa :)
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
2,766 posts
 
+1 gdhal
mmeysarosh
124 posts
 
Bass integration will always have room dependency no matter the speaker,  and some setups aren't easily solved. In one scenario it will be set and forget with others being laborious.

The AMT to mid integration which had been an issue on earlier some GE designs has been mostly resolved in the Triton One and + series. Looking at figures from the Reference One. At most there is a small vertical response dip at the extremities, so maybe sitting rather low might have an impact. The upper treble is just a tad bit elevated when listening directly pointed at you, but that is the designed intent and mainly done to compensate for in room response when setting a wider toe in. In room, it can measure well and the dispersion below the upper treble is decently linear and even through wide range. It shouldn't be that hard to dial in the treble. If you like your treble shelved a bit down, it may sound a bit brash with a recordings that are bit hot themselves. I also wouldn't pair this speaker with amps with a forward or lean sounding. Prior models did have some of the same design for the tweeter response (a bit more from what I can read), but the added suck out they had in the mid-treble hand off made getting setup right a tougher job. Not so much with latest stuff. I find the worst offenders are those that have a mid treble flair since our hearing is more sensitive to it than the upper treble. 

From a measured perspective, only have gripes with some low level mid range distortion and some AMT linearity at high volume. Still, these are some very good figures.
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