Best way to run 2 pairs of Focal Chora 826

[marco70]

Hi All

I hope I am posting in the right thread as it is my first time.

I recently bought a pair of Focal Chora 826s and have been running them in on my old Audiolab 8000A. With a CD they sound excellent sometimes and disappointing at other times depending on the CD, I have tried them with a Topping DAC combined with the CD payer and also with an Ifi Zen blue streaming in LDAC and again it sometimes sounds absolutely brilliant, at other times very compressed. A week ago they had another offer on the Choras so I now have 2 pairs ( the wife loved the look of the Dark wood ones we had and we both agreed a matching pair in the light wood would look great in the adjoining room) The two pairs cost £1200 (we are in France) they will be in adjoining rooms and can sit about (set 1) 4m away from the amp/streamer and (set 2) 2m from the Amp streamer (i can drill through the wall to pass the cables!!).

At first, it seemed a no-brainer, Powernode with a switch to change between speakers (I think mostly it would be one set at a time but it would be nice to listen to both) but after looking into it I am not sure if this is the way to go? Would you stick with a simple amp that is designed to run 2 sets of speakers and a separate streamer?

I am worried about buying a streaming amp that will become outdated. I don't think the Audiolab is right for the Focals, I am going to put it back with my B&W CDM 1's. The power node seemed a good idea (even if I have to keep swapping the banana plugs) at about £800 out here but I have heard that a lot of people then spend another 5-600 on a DAC (even though the power node has one built in?) I want to move to mainly streaming and would prefer to spend the 1k or so I had hoped to but could stretch it to double that for something that will sound really decent. I am not against trying out unknown brands or an outside-the-box way of thinking about how to do it.

 

[MacCali]

Hi All

I hope I am posting in the right thread as it is my first time.

I recently bought a pair of Focal Chora 826s and have been running them in on my old Audiolab 8000A. With a CD they sound excellent sometimes and disappointing at other times depending on the CD, I have tried them with a Topping DAC combined with the CD payer and also with an Ifi Zen blue streaming in LDAC and again it sometimes sounds absolutely brilliant, at other times very compressed. A week ago they had another offer on the Choras so I now have 2 pairs ( the wife loved the look of the Dark wood ones we had and we both agreed a matching pair in the light wood would look great in the adjoining room) The two pairs cost £1200 (we are in France) they will be in adjoining rooms and can sit about (set 1) 4m away from the amp/streamer and (set 2) 2m from the Amp streamer (i can drill through the wall to pass the cables!!).

At first, it seemed a no-brainer, Powernode with a switch to change between speakers (I think mostly it would be one set at a time but it would be nice to listen to both) but after looking into it I am not sure if this is the way to go? Would you stick with a simple amp that is designed to run 2 sets of speakers and a separate streamer?

I am worried about buying a streaming amp that will become outdated. I don't think the Audiolab is right for the Focals, I am going to put it back with my B&W CDM 1's. The power node seemed a good idea (even if I have to keep swapping the banana plugs) at about £800 out here but I have heard that a lot of people then spend another 5-600 on a DAC (even though the power node has one built in?) I want to move to mainly streaming and would prefer to spend the 1k or so I had hoped to but could stretch it to double that for something that will sound really decent. I am not against trying out unknown brands or an outside-the-box way of thinking about how to do it.

Personally I wouldn’t buy any powered streamer on a budget. Some high end units are great, but clearly we are not trying to do that.

It’s really up to personal taste. I suggest not doing this cause most class D amps are mediocre and also begin to suffer when you incorporate all these features into one box.

My only suggestion would be buy a standalone streamer which is moderately priced.

So far we have the wiim mini and pro which are excellent for digital output to a dac only. Also I use Pi2 Designs which is a great little streamer for about 350 I believe it costs that now, if it’s in stock and available to ship to you in your country.

The only cons about the wiim is you must use their app, which some people seem not to like. The thing with Pi2 is you must DIY it or build it yourself but can put any streamer on it. I use Volumio on mine and it’s great, but I have it as a roon end point and use roon which is my preferred streaming app.

Just depends how much you care.

Personally I feel like CD’s which I own, about 30, cannot march a quality streamer and I don’t know if this matters or not but all my cds are from early 2000’s and originals which are not burned or pirated. So I gave up on that and just sticking to streamers.

I know many people on here love their cds and prefer to play them as a source. I was really interested in CDs as what I’ve been told is they are better than streaming. But I do not see that and could be cause I never had an excellent CD player.

All in all, buy everything separate.

 

[valerianf]

May be you need a room correction device.
It could be also the stereo amp that does match very well the speakers.
Could you try an AVR with 2 speaker zones?
Most of them have an integrated room correction.

 

[Chrispy]

You would be better off with different hardware if you want to run two pair of the speakers simultaneously, otherwise could be a strain on the amp; many are best suited to driving an A or B rather A + B speaker setup. I wouldn't use the setup you have, so hard to know what I'd change in your shoes.

 

[MacCali]

You would be better off with different hardware if you want to run two pair of the speakers simultaneously, otherwise could be a strain on the amp; many are best suited to driving an A or B rather A + B speaker setup. I wouldn't use the setup you have, so hard to know what I'd change in your shoes.

I totally missed that, you want to play both at the same time???? In separate rooms with the same music @marco70

If that’s the case you would need two amps and dacs. Not familiar how the other streamers function but the pi2 designs output audio from every port. Coax, bnc coax, i2s, and aes/ebu

I would assume most streamers can do that, but not sure if that will work with every unit

 

[Bfg_audiophile]

I’m an owner of the 826, 816, and 806. I power mine with a marvelous D-Sonic amp, but it is very expensive. I would highly recommend one of the NAD C389 or C399, or even the 3050, which each have the ability to run and switch between 2 pairs of speakers. Our local dealer for Focal pairs most of them with NAD and they sound sublime. But to your point, they great speakers and amps…they will reveal recordings (good and bad). Also, I’m not fully sure I understand what you’re trying to do. If you want the speakers in different rooms you need a pretty expensive pre/pro or receiver that has 2 zone capability + solid high current amplification.

 

[MacCali]

I’m an owner of the 826, 816, and 806. I power mine with a marvelous D-Sonic amp, but it is very expensive. I would highly recommend one of the NAD C389 or C399, or even the 3050, which each have the ability to run and switch between 2 pairs of speakers. Our local dealer for Focal pairs most of them with NAD and they sound sublime. But to your point, they great speakers and amps…they will reveal recordings (good and bad). Also, I’m not fully sure I understand what you’re trying to do. If you want the speakers in different rooms you need a pretty expensive pre/pro or receiver that has 2 zone capability + solid high current amplification.

Guess he figured it out, still waiting for his response or conclusion

 

[Bfg_audiophile]

Guess he figured it out, still waiting for his response or conclusion

Other alternative he could consider is to accept perhaps getting Bluesound Powernode or Sonos Amp if primary concern is streaming the same content to two pairs of speakers in different rooms.