Focal Aria 906 Speaker Review

[tr1ple6]

These guys tested the Focal Sopra No1, Paradigm Persona B & Kudos 505. Thought it might be of some interest here since they include in room measurements.

 

[PeteL]

6 1/2" (165 mm) - Midwoofer

Usually does not like small rooms (better 5.25").

55 Hz - 28 kHz (+/- 3 dB). I thought they were going down more.

the graph does not show that, unless I'm missing something. I see maybe -7-8 dB at 55 Hz, I guess that's alright but to me it matters, I'm not in the market for new speakers, mine have 8 inches and are more expensive (even if they are DIY), but still compact bookshelves and dig much deeper. No matter what people say, I prefer subless setups in my room and that would be too much of a compromise for me. It's not to say these are no good, obviously great measured performance, but content below 60 Hz matter to me. Also, my room is quite large, and I understand compromise is part of the game and you can't have everything.

 

[pavuol]

Nice whitepaper for Focal flax sandwich.

Flax is twice as light as fiberglass, because the fiber is hollow.

 

[maty]

the graph does not show that, unless I'm missing something. I see maybe -7-8 dB at 55 Hz, I guess that's alright but to me it matters, I'm not in the market for new speakers, mine have 8 inches and are more expensive (even if they are DIY), but still compact bookshelves and dig much deeper. No matter what people say, I prefer subless setups in my room and that would be too much of a compromise for me. It's not to say these are no good, obviously great measured performance, but content below 60 Hz matter to me. Also, my room is quite large, and I understand compromise is part of the game and you can't have everything.

True: only 65 Hz at -3 dB. Very few with 6 1/2" and bass-reflex!

 

[Kyle / MrHeeHo]

I just noticed, these appear to measure better than the JBL 705p and with this sale price you get a pair of speakers for the price of a single 705p unit. That's a steal

 

[daftcombo]

I have two pairs of those, both bought new for 440€ shipping included in France during sales.
Thanks a lot Amir!

 

[daftcombo]

@amirm what do you think of the treble rise starting at 14 kHz?
Is it worth EQing?

 

[typericey]

@amirm what do you think of the treble rise starting at 14 kHz?
Is it worth EQing?

Perhaps you can leave them alone and think of it as compensation for hearing loss? (Unsolicited opinion as the question was addressed to Amir.)

 

[ctrl]

...treble rise starting at 14 kHz? Is it worth EQing?

The tweeter of the 906 breaks up massively very early. The frequency response increase measured by @amirm are the first effects of this. The frequency response increase is not problematic at first and should be inaudible for most people.

If the frequency response measurement was performed up to 30kHz, one would see an intense spike at 22-25kHz.

It can become problematic if the resonance leads to intense harmonic distortions. That means if the resonance is at 24kHz, there could be increased HD2 values at 12kHz, increased HD3 values at 8kHz, etc.

Since the NFS only measures up to 20kHz, this information is not available to us. If there is much increased harmonic distortion due to resonance, this would also show up as increased IMD - What is considered undesirable.

The resonance at 22-25kHz would also be seen in the impulse response or step response as oscillating interference.

 

[daftcombo]

It can become problematic if the resonance leads to intense harmonic distortions. That means if the resonance is at 24kHz, there could be increased HD2 values at 12kHz, increased HD3 values at 8kHz, etc.

How can you have harmonic distortion going backwards towards the lows?

 

[Eetu]

There seem to be at least 3 people here who subjectively prefer the Focal Aria 906 / Chora 806 to the Kef R3 even though @edechamps calculations show that according to the preference score there should be nearly a 90% (0.9 difference) chance the R3 is preferred. I know 3 people is not necessarily statistically significant but has this discrepancy been discussed somewhere on the forum already?

 

[ctrl]

How can you have harmonic distortion going backwards towards the lows?

When measuring the harmonic distortion, at 8kHz you would see a spike for third order harmonic distortion (HD3, 8kHz*3) and at 12kHz increased values for HD2 (12kHz*2), caused by the 24kHz resonance of the break up tweeter.
The resonance at 24kHz can easily be 15dB above the average sound pressure level. Accordingly, the harmonic distortions HD2, HD3,... are "boosted" at their fundamental frequencies.

The harmonic distortions themselves would not be audible at 24kHz, but the possible intermodulation distortions are partially in the audible frequency range.
UPDATE: Last part is not correct, as @GelbeMusik pointed out, no IM is generated.

As a small example, here is the measurement of the harmonic distortion of a loudspeaker at 90dB. The tweeter used shows an intensive resonance at 27kHz (Seas DXT tweeter).
At 9kHz increased values for HD3 and at 13.5kHz increased values for HD2.
Since the harmonic distortions of this tweeter are at a very low level, the increases in harmonic distortion due to the break up of the tweeter membrane remain within acceptable limits.
The increase of HD2 and HD3, caused by the membrane break-up is not important, because as mentioned above, the break-up frequency is inaudible.

 

[Frank Dernie]

The woofer is made out of the fibers of flax seed. Yeh, the same stuff health food people put in smoothies and such.

No.
It uses Flax fibres. Flax is a plant and the fibres from the stem have been used as a natural structural material fo centuries in rope and string. It is an ecological alternative to glass in fibre reinforced composites, ie a fibre structure in a resin matrix.
It is widely used in recyclable composites in the European car industry.
I looked into using it in place of fibreglass in racing car bodywork (which is why I know a bit about it).
The alternative would be composite glass or kevlar fibre cones.
The fibres are not extracted from the flax seeds that some people eat, or at least not until after it germinates, the plant grows and the seed is long gone..

 

[Rja4000]

I don't read polish but here are some other (basic) measurements.
Interestingly, they also measured the 948 , the 936 and the 926.

 

[tuga]

The tweeter of the 906 breaks up massively very early. The frequency response increase measured by @amirm are the first effects of this. The frequency response increase is not problematic at first and should be inaudible for most people.

View attachment 68993

If the frequency response measurement was performed up to 30kHz, one would see an intense spike at 22-25kHz.

It can become problematic if the resonance leads to intense harmonic distortions. That means if the resonance is at 24kHz, there could be increased HD2 values at 12kHz, increased HD3 values at 8kHz, etc.

Since the NFS only measures up to 20kHz, this information is not available to us. If there is much increased harmonic distortion due to resonance, this would also show up as increased IMD - What is considered undesirable.

The resonance at 22-25kHz would also be seen in the impulse response or step response as oscillating interference.

Does it use the same tweeter as the 936?

Focal Aria 936, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50",
averaged across 30° horizontal window and corrected for microphone response,
with complex sum of nearfield responses plotted below 300Hz.

Focal Aria 936, cumulative spectral-decay plot on tweeter axis at 50" (0.15ms risetime).

https://www.stereophile.com/content/focal-aria-936-loudspeaker-measurements

 

[Rja4000]

Yeh, as if I am going to sit there for the 20 hours doing this:

View attachment 68979

Maybe the person who wrote this, writes the manual for cars in another job and forgot which client he was writing for!

I should go back and chop off the Panther head for this write up!

Yep!
They have a bad tendency to go off-track in terms of marketing BS !
This is quite stupid, since their engineers are quite good :-S
Sadly, that's probably what you need to sale components at insane prices (like a pair of loudspeakers for the price of a small house, or a pair of headphones + amplifier for 6500€)

 

[PierreV]

Yeh, as if I am going to sit there for the 20 hours doing this:

View attachment 68979

Maybe the person who wrote this, writes the manual for cars in another job and forgot which client he was writing for!

I should go back and chop off the Panther head for this write up!

My Utopias have these jumpers

Who needs subwoofers when you can just use cables which add bass?
Unfortunately, there are apparently no cables that remove bass as the bass boost position doesn't mention them.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Yep!
They have a bad tendency to go off-track in terms of marketing BS !

Yeh, as if I am going to sit there for the 20 hours doing this:

Maybe the person who wrote this, writes the manual for cars in another job and forgot which client he was writing for!

I should go back and chop off the Panther head for this write up!

I find this perfectly normal from a marketing POV. Let's face it: the vast majority of speakers manufacturers mentions the "need" of burn-in time in their manuals or communication... At least, "20H" seems fairly reasonnable, when you can see "100H" for the Buchardt S400, and so on.

I just checked at Revel or Elac DBR manuals, there's no mention about that. But JBL HDI manual (Harman/Science-based company) claims strange things about bi-wiring (not only bi-amping!):

Sounds like the same kind of marketing BS to me. Hard to blame Focal (neither JBL) on this...

 

[BDWoody]

Dear forum users who have a wharfedale diamond 225?) I would send my kit but I live at a great distance, in Russia, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean) and the package from here can easily not arrive to Amir (( thanks for the review 906

Wow! You are out there!
Welcome...one of the things I enjoy and appreciate about this forum is the truly international representation.

 

[MZKM]

No. SPL changes 6 dB with halving of distance.

For anechoic purposes yes.

For living rooms, at least in my room, I have found it to be ~4dB. I still use 3dB for quick calculations as it’s easier to say that doubling distance is the same as halving wattage.