Focal Solo6 Be Review (Studio Monitor)

[Vini darko]

Nice powered speakers. I like them

 

[Remlab]

I love seeing a tweeter with a small flange and placed as close as possible to the midbass, especially when the midbass is larger than 5"

 

[JJB70]

I remember a few years ago some manufacturer made a bicycle frame from beryllium to prove a point and probably the equipment of click bait to get attention. It was slightly lighter than equivalent titanium and aluminium frames but insanely expensive.

 

[Somafunk]

I remember a few years ago some manufacturer made a bicycle frame from beryllium

There's been a few beryllium bike frames made over the years, probably the most famous/infamous was the American Bicycle Manufacturing built version in 1996 which used lugs to hold the beryllium tubing, insanely expensive at $30,000 but provided them with worldwide exposure so compared to an expensive advertising campaign it was a win for the company, I doubt they sold any that were used in anger but I still wanted one at the time, and a tioga disk drive wheel just like John Tomac rode.

And back to the topic in question........I'm now in a quandary over which monitor to get for my room, do I get the Dynadio LYD 48 with 3 drivers or the Focal Solo 6BE?, by all accounts the Dynadio's are excellent and now Amir has thrown me a curveball with the review of the Focals as they are the same price. Going in my fully treated room for near/close midfield use (no more than 2m distance), I mostly listen to electronic music - shame I can't demo them at all nor visit a store to try them out due to my multiple sclerosis confining me to the house...bugger!

 

[Ralferator]

Focal has rather blinder-like focus on low distortion and the W cones are about the best out there. Truly brilliant cone design. Consider for a moment that these are nearfield monitors and 86dB per speaker at 1m is far louder than you'd be listening at most times, and clearly the distortion behavior is excellent.


Damn, look at that driver frame! Clearly a lot of thought has gone into minimizing reflections.

Yes, distortion looks very good, but still not as good as the cheap JBL Stage A130

 

[respice finem]

There's been a few beryllium bike frames made over the years, probably the most famous/infamous was the American Bicycle Manufacturing built version in 1996 which used lugs to hold the beryllium tubing, insanely expensive at $30,000 but provided them with worldwide exposure so compared to an expensive advertising campaign it was a win for the company, I doubt they sold any that were used in anger but I still wanted one at the time, and a toga disk drive wheel just like John Tomac rode.

And back to the topic in question........I'm now in a quandary over which monitor to get for my room, do I get the Dynadio LYD 48 with 3 drivers or the Focal Solo 6BE?, by all accounts the Dynadio's are excellent and now Amir has thrown me a curveball with the review of the Focals as they are the same price. Going in my fully treated room for near/close midfield use (no more than 2m distance), I mostly listen to electronic music - shame I can't demo them at all nor visit a store to try them out due to my multiple sclerosis confining me to the house...bugger!

I tend to prefer a 3-way over a 2-way, it will mostly mean less distortion and better midrange.
OT question: this is one really nice desk, is it DIY or where can I get one?

 

[q3cpma]

the usual suspects are giving free advertising for Genelec.

Do you also stomp your feet when people compare any supercar to Ferrari and Lamborgini? In this place, at least, Genelec and Neumann are seen by a lot of people as benchmarks (which doesn't mean without reproch) of objective audio performance. Do you think this is a misattributed status?

 

[q3cpma]

There's been a few beryllium bike frames made over the years, probably the most famous/infamous was the American Bicycle Manufacturing built version in 1996 which used lugs to hold the beryllium tubing, insanely expensive at $30,000 but provided them with worldwide exposure so compared to an expensive advertising campaign it was a win for the company, I doubt they sold any that were used in anger but I still wanted one at the time, and a toga disk drive wheel just like John Tomac rode.

And back to the topic in question........I'm now in a quandary over which monitor to get for my room, do I get the Dynadio LYD 48 with 3 drivers or the Focal Solo 6BE?, by all accounts the Dynadio's are excellent and now Amir has thrown me a curveball with the review of the Focals as they are the same price. Going in my fully treated room for near/close midfield use (no more than 2m distance), I mostly listen to electronic music - shame I can't demo them at all nor visit a store to try them out due to my multiple sclerosis confining me to the house...bugger!

Since you have a subwoofer, why not the smaller and more accurate Genelec/Neumann? After all, the only advantages of this monitor are width (less important than off-axis smoothness in the nearfield) and good deep bass.
Seeing the length of your desk, elevating your monitors a bit more should be a good gain.

 

[richard12511]

Focal seem to have quite the fanboy population. This is honestly quite bad for the price, when you consider the competition: Sweetwater has the 8340A only $200 higher and 8330A for $900 (can get a pair of those with a 7350A for the same price).
I mean, midrange full of resonances (probably from the port, as the woofer nearfield measurement is clean) including a wide hump around 1 kHz, an obvious directivity issue (that'll induce brightness in the mid field) that the resident audiophile population explains (which is not the same as "justify") with the house sound blurb that you see from B&W cultists, no builtin DSP and high midbass distortion.

I guess you're referring to me with the "house sound blurb" comment? I don't own any Focal speakers, so I definitely don't think I'm a fanboy. I also didn't make that comment as a means to justify the other flaws with this speaker. I just truly believe (based on almost all Focal speakers showing it) that the 2-8/9kHz dispersion width bulge is something Focal is aiming for.

Dispersion width matters, and Toole has been pretty vocal about the fact that most folks seem to prefer the wider apparent source width that comes from wider dispersion in that same region. Those Genelec models you compared don't have anywhere near the dispersion width that this speaker does. You can see in one of my earlier posts just how much wider this speaker's dispersion is when compared side by side.

The M2 measures flatter and smoother on and off axis than the Salon2, but still lost handily under blind conditions, simply because the Salon2 has wider dispersion. Therefore I don't see anything as a given here.

What are you on about? The smaller and cheap Peerless in a 8030C does better at 86 dB.

Sure, but also worse at 96dB.

When Revel manages to be wide while still using waveguides, you know it's only an excuse.

I haven't seen a Revel measured yet with dispersion this wide. This is around +/- 80-90° at points. Revels are more consistent, but also usually 65-70°, at least from what I remember.

Eh? If you ignore H2, it's certainly quite good. In a comparison with the 8050B, it's clearly better in the deep bass, but a lot worse after (where it matters, because subwoofers exist).

I don't think we should just sweep the superior bass distortion under the rug like this "because subs". The bass distortion performance of this speaker is exceptional for the size, and even the Genelec 8050B can't match it. Not everyone uses subwoofers.

 

[napilopez]

I think we agree. That region is seemingly responsible for sense of spaciousness. Focal seem to be aiming for that super spacious sound, and they're willing to sacrifice a bit of directivity uniformity to get there. The level of sacrifice required is greatest for their 2 way models, but gets less and less as you move up their lines into 3 and 4 way models.

This seems to be a deliberate strategy to differentiate themselves from competitors. Compared side by side with Genelec, Focal is much less uniform, but much wider. I can easily see why both might be preferred by different people.

View attachment 144820

The Genelec should image tighter, but the Focal should have a wider soundstage. Preference depends on what is more important to the individual.

Yeah, absolutely, plus it's going to depend on the room and such. I can imagine someone bringing in a Focal speaker after having a neumann or genelec and suddenly things being more spacious. But then it depends on how the room is treated and such.

The thing is that it seems to be pretty hard to make a very wide directivity speaker that also has very controlled directivity. At the least, there are vanishingly few such speakers on the market. Few other companies use inverted domes, and other than that it seems like narrow ribbons are the best alternative. I'm curious how the Focal Trio measures, as of course having more 3 ways on the market would simplify matters.

As it happens I was just finishing up my writeup for these. Good to have this extra set of measurements although it doesn't really change my conclusion.

 

[q3cpma]

Eh, kinda. Revels do tend to be wider than the typical waveguidey speakers, but this speaker, like other focals, is still noticeably wider up to higher frequencies. The inverted dome makes it such that the typical focal is only down about 10dB at 90 degrees and 8kHz, while the typical revel is down about 15dB. It's substantially wider in a frequency range where it still counts imo. This is readily apparent in the horizontal SPL graphs for various focals vs various revels.

Honestly, that's an interesting question, but personally, I don't qualify a speaker that has a lack of directivity in a limited area as "wide", but that's really a question of words, at this point.
I also wonder if width is really that important past a certain value; for monopole speakers, of course.

 

[q3cpma]

I guess you're referring to me with the "house sound blurb" comment? I don't own any Focal speakers, so I definitely don't think I'm a fanboy. I also didn't make that comment as a means to justify the other flaws with this speaker. I just truly believe (based on almost all Focal speakers showing it) that the 2-8/9kHz dispersion width bulge is something Focal is aiming for.

I wasn't aiming at anybody in particular, just the use of the expression on such a forum to excuse it. It explains that it's at least Focal's intention, but not that this isn't what accuracy is about (this is a studio monitor, after all).

Dispersion width matters, and Toole has been pretty vocal about the fact that most folks seem to prefer the wider apparent source width that comes from wider dispersion in that same region.

He was even more vocal about smoothness, which was included in his and Olive's score unlike width. And this whole point of view isn't about fidelity/accuracy but group preference (which is something worthy, just had to point it out).

The M2 measures flatter and smoother on and off axis than the Salon2, but still lost handily under blind conditions, simply because the Salon2 has wider dispersion. Therefore I don't see anything as a given here.

This has been discussed at length: you can't conclude this just based on the test conditions, as mono listening favours wide dispersion, and the Salon2 produces much smoother bass due to the woofer array and its distance to the ground.

Sure, but also worse at 96dB.

Sure, but there are subwoofers, pair gain and boundary gain enhance especially this region and 96 dB (let's say 105 dB if near a hard wall) in the nearfield is violent. For their respective tasks, I really consider the 8030C/KH120A better.

I haven't seen a Revel measured yet with dispersion this wide. This is around +/- 80-90° at points. Revels are more consistent, but also usually 65-70°, at least from what I remember.

Can't deny this, but their whole strategy simply doesn't work well with 2-way speakers.

I don't think we should just sweep the superior bass distortion under the rug like this "because subs". The bass distortion performance of this speaker is exceptional for the size, and even the Genelec 8050B can't match it. Not everyone uses subwoofers.

Well, I kind of agree with you on this, and that's one of my major complaints with Genelec's 2-way models, but audibility of very low frequency distortion is quite low.


To be honest, my "violent" reaction is due to the strange praises of "perfection" I've seen unchallenged; the more learned and talkative members aren't at fault (obviously, since they're not wrong, most of the time).

 

[napilopez]

By the way, here's how FR contour knobs affected the FR on my unit. Of course, things might be different on the one that Amir measured, and being a quasi-anechoic measurement, I can't capture the full effect in the bass region.

It's actually a pretty significant effect for a non-DSP speaker. After seeing the emasurements I tried bringing down the HF by 1 dB and found I preferred it. Made things slightly duller but also seemed to make the mids sound less recessed. Of course, that could just be placebo =]

 

[Somafunk]

I tend to prefer a 3-way over a 2-way, it will mostly mean less distortion and better midrange.
OT question: this is one really nice desk, is it DIY or where can I get one?

Initial decision on the 3way was driven by a mate letting me hear his Hedd Type 20 MK2 in my room, literally blown away by how good the 3 way sounded but can't afford the Hedd's at £4000 so the Dynaudios were the obvious choice.

Cheers, Desk is a 2m x 1m x 40mm walnut worktop with legs from amazon, got the worktop supplier to cut a 30cm length for the upper shelf to raise active monitors up and for iMac, pencil edged top/bottom with radius corners and finished with Osmo satin finish wax - all worked out perfectly as I couldn't find anything I wanted.

Since you have a subwoofer, why not the smaller and more accurate Genelec/Neumann? After all, the only advantages of this monitor are width (less important than off-axis smoothness in the nearfield) and good deep bass.
Seeing the length of your desk, elevating your monitors a bit more should be a good gain.

Dunno why but I've never taken to the Genelec range and not that taken with the Neumann range either, can't raise the height of the monitors as at the moment the height is perfect for seating position relative to tweeter height and there is actually pretty minimal sbir from the desk bounce and what there is, is very well controlled by the room treatment. The Cambridge Audio CXN-V2 is being moved under the desk on under desk pull out shelf runners - the monitors are sitting on isoacoustic stands. If I get the Dynaudio or the focal I'd live with them for a while and if I felt I needed an additional dynaudio or focal sub then that'd be factored in and bought at a later date. I'd probably sell my KRK 7's and KRK 10s sub to a mate who wants them.

 

[ouimetnick]

Yikes. Didn’t know BASH (Bridged Amplifier Switching Hybrid) was still in use. Lots of subwoofers from the late 1990s-2010ish used BASH plate amps and had a high failure rate. Boston Acoustics, Klipsch, Polk, etc all used BASH plate amplifiers.

 

[napilopez]

Honestly, that's an interesting question, but personally, I don't qualify a speaker that has a lack of directivity in a limited area as "wide", but that's really a question of words, at this point.
I also wonder if width is really that important past a certain value; for monopole speakers, of course.

Yeah, would be interesting to see more research into this. Purely going by my own experience though these seemingly subtle directivity differences are often what end up making the choice between two speakers once the FR is mostly in the 'good enough' range. And the region from 2-8khz is really responsible for most of what we consider to be soundstage cues.

Not just responding to you here now, but making some general observations. The way I've always kind of interpreted the measurements is that Focal's and other wide speakers exhibit something a bit closer to constant horizontal directivity compared to your typical waveguidey speaker. For example, here's the normalized directivity for the Genelec 83541A vs the Focal Aria 906 (using the 906 as an example because it has better directivity behavior than the Solo6).

Genelec:

Aria:

While the Genelec's measurement is prettier, if we go by the logic of "how similar are sidewall reflections to the direct sound?" I'm not totally sure the Genelec have that much of an advantage. Even if the focal's is a little bumpier, one could argue the Focal's off-axis is more similar because:

• It's closer in volume to the direct sound
• the off-axis sound is less tilted. Reflections from the Genelec are going to be darker.

That second point is why I think I tend to like wider directivity speakers. Maybe it's not just that they're wider, it's that they're closer to constant horizontal directivity. That's my logic for why the D&D 8C is the only waveguidey speaker I've truly been enamored by. While sidewall reflections will be quieter overall, they are also less tilted and therefore more tonally similar to the direct sound.

Of course, this is all just theorizing based on my own experiences. I don't have much in the way of research backing this up, since so few studies seem to pay attention to directivity width. Just that one Toole study from 1984 and some inferences based on research on room treatment.

 

[dfuller]

Yeah, would be interesting to see more research into this. Purely going by my own experience though these seemingly subtle directivity differences are often what end up making the choice between two speakers once the FR is mostly in the 'good enough' range. And the region from 2-8khz is really responsible for most of what we consider to be soundstage cues.

Not just responding to you here now, but making some general observations. The way I've always kind of interpreted the measurements is that Focal's and other wide speakers exhibit something a bit closer to constant horizontal directivity compared to your typical waveguidey speaker. For example, here's the normalized directivity for the Genelec 83541A vs the Focal Aria 906 (using the 906 as an example because it has better directivity behavior than the Solo6).

Genelec:
View attachment 144854
Aria:
View attachment 144851

While the Genelec's measurement is prettier, if we go by the logic of "how similar are sidewall reflections to the direct sound?" I'm not totally sure the Genelec have that much of an advantage. Even if the focal's is a little bumpier, one could argue the Focal's off-axis is more similar because:

• It's closer in volume to the direct sound
• the off-axis sound is less tilted. Reflections from the Genelec are going to be darker.

That second point is why I think I tend to like wider directivity speakers. Maybe it's not just that they're wider, it's that they're closer to constant horizontal directivity. That's my logic for why the D&D 8C is the only waveguidey speaker I've truly been enamored by. While sidewall reflections will be quieter overall, they are also less tilted and therefore more tonally similar to the direct sound.

Of course, this is all just theorizing based on my own experiences. I don't have much in the way of research backing this up, since so few studies seem to pay attention to directivity width. Just that one Toole study from 1984 and some inferences based on research on room treatment.

So my experience with waveguided speakers is that unless they're designed absolutely perfectly they do more harm than good. Yeah, you're going to get some directivity error on a flat baffle, but I'd rather that than the weird upper octave diffraction effects a lot of waveguided speakers tend to show. Besides, if you design the crossover and cabinet correctly you can largely minimize it.

Side note, if you check out the old Focal CMS line (the Shapes replaced them) you'll see that they at one point did bother with sizeable waveguides. However lately it seems they've moved away, for some reason.

 

[amirm]

This seems to be a deliberate strategy to differentiate themselves from competitors. Compared side by side with Genelec, Focal is much less uniform, but much wider. I can easily see why both might be preferred by different people.

A cool experiment would be to have someone design a waveguide for such a tweeter that we could tape on and off on the speaker and judge the difference. There are some challenges with this as far as diffraction and such but if we get close, it would be a very cool experiment.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

A cool experiment would be to have someone design a waveguide for such a tweeter that we could tape on and off on the speaker and judge the difference. There are some challenges with this as far as diffraction and such but if we get close, it would be a very cool experiment.

do you mean something like the '' shadow '' waveguide in the r series from KEF? i mean you can move that thing... and remove with the hands

 

[Ron Texas]

Do you also stomp your feet when people compare any supercar to Ferrari and Lamborgini? In this place, at least, Genelec and Neumann are seen by a lot of people as benchmarks (which doesn't mean without reproch) of objective audio performance. Do you think this is a misattributed status?

I don't get excited about supercars because I see them everyday when I am home. That goes for Rolls and Bentley too. The Genelec/Neumann thing is based on worshiping a single number, the preference score. Any speaker can be improved with EQ. At any given price point Genelec and Neumann fall short in the dynamic range category. If they were as good as you think everyone else would be out of business by now.