Focal Kanta No.2

I listened to 936s a few years ago, and I still remember that they had a different timbre-presentation to any of the other brands that I was auditioning.  Not precisely bright or forward, but definitely in the see-through camp; it's actually hard to put on adjective on it.  I could easily see how people would respond positively.  Personally, I preferred the presentation offered by Vienna Acoustics.

I've heard speakers with 2 dedicated 6.5" woofers go loud and reasonably deep, the Revel F32's, but they didn't have the midrange to die for that focal gives you. The 1028be sounded really, really good and I expect the Kanta2's to be an improvement at + $3000.00 per pair. Both speakers cabinets look too small to put big sound into a big room, but in an average size room with a couple hundred watts, maybe a peachtree nova 300 the bass is controlled and musical? If you like the focal house sound you'll like the Kanta2's. 

kosst,

The Focal Dealer said he was playing the Kanta 2 with $85,000 worth of amplification. His room was decked out with lots of room treatment. 
The speakers just can't handle much in the way of rock music.

ozzy

@ozzy 

Fascinating... And I'm over here with an average size room powering 936's with an amp that cost $1000 to build, getting it's signal from a refurbed 1977 Marantz, in a room treated with carpet squares and bed pad from Walmart and acoustic foam from Amazon, and there's nothing remotely discordant about the sound or imaging. I'm about 99% sure I'd get the same results from 926's as well. Or any if the 1000 series. 
Sorry folks... I'm not buying it. I know from experience that you can easily put speakers in horrible places in a room and get really ugly sound out of them. I've done it with mine. And no amount of treatment or insanely priced gear fixes that blunder. 

kosst,

What aren’t you buying? That we aren’t reporting our experiences truthfully?

I always make a point of ensuring that the speakers I audition get the best chance possible. And this involves my auditioning them from various perspectives, pulling them out from the wall if necessary, etc, to take the "room out of the equation" as much as possible. The room I auditioned the Kanta’s in was a good one, they were well away from the walls, with treated room corners. I adjusted my seating position as well to listen for differences in bass nodes, and still came away with the impression I gave.

That’s certainly not to say that the Kanta’s can not sound balanced in the right room or set up. But if I can’t get a speaker to sound balanced in my audition, it’s not a good sign to me. And feedback from others here suggest they must be a finicky speaker to set up to get the type of tonal bass quality other speakers (e.g. most that I auditioned, and including my own Thiel speakers) have less problem achieving.

The Paradigm Persona's I auditioned actually started out in a much more compromised, right near the back wall, position and they still sounded more controlled and coherent from top to bottom than the Kanta's.