Focal Alpha 65 EVO Review (Studio Monitor)

[xaviescacs]

Can you compare them? thanks

I was already planning to do it at some point. Currently I have them in different rooms and I don't have a measurement mic yet. When I have the mic and know more or less how to use it, I'll put them on the same room, side by side, and try to achieve something remotely rigorous. I don't want to start talking this and that without the minimal common sense controls: same room, level matching,...

 

[ubik3000]

OK, fair enough. This is not my experience, they sound quite good to me.

Perhaps they don't nail voices, not sure really, but the highs aren't crappy either, IMHO.

See more details about the mid range issue here:

(from minute 7:24)
I knew about the issue before I ordered the EVOs, but I thought it is an exaggeration. Unfortunately, I felt it myself, by comparison with Cantons and Tannoys and in other songs also...

 

[1122333]

The tweeter of my speaker also has high distortion. I loosened the two screws behind the tweeter, and the distortion of the tweeter disappeared.

 

[3125b]

The tweeter of my speaker

And what speaker is that? Not a Focal Alpha.

 

[1122333]

And what speaker is that? Not a Focal Alpha.

My speaker is Swan x4. It has a similar design with Genelec. I have bought it for 11 years. It is not as good as Genelec, but its price is only half that of Genelec in the same size. I found that the screw at the back of my tweeter was too tight. It seemed that it made the diaphragm slightly touch the place it should not touch, so there was distortion.

 

[1122333]

My speaker is Swan x4. It has a similar design with Genelec. I have bought it for 11 years. It is not as good as Genelec, but its price is only half that of Genelec in the same size. I found that the screw at the back of my tweeter was too tight. It seemed that it made the diaphragm slightly touch the place it should not touch, so there was distortion.

This is the frequency response curve of swan x4 measured by me in my home without acoustic decoration. Compared with the repaired speaker, the frequency response curve has hardly changed. Although the distortion measurement is more than 10% THD, the human ear can hardly feel it. This is a bit scary, which may cause many people not to find that there is a problem with their speakers.

 

[aaddas]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Focal Alpha 65 EVO powered monitor (speaker). I purchased it recently for US $404 from Amazon (with kind support from members).

I like the look and feel of this monitor:

View attachment 191806

It has a very wide stance for this size speaker which likely helps with bass response. Also helping is that very oversized front port which helps as place to grab and move it.

The side panel shows a nice design touch, setting the Alpha 65 apart from myriad of other powered monitors:

View attachment 170968

Notice the interesting shallow waveguide around the tweeter.

Back panel is rather simple:

View attachment 170969

I wish the LF and HF controls had a center detent. I adjusted them by eye but I think I set the treble one a hair too high per measurements below.

Amplification noise from the tweeter is very low. I could barely hear it from an inch or two.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

Reference axis was the center of the tweeter (aligned by eye). It is getting colder with the measurement room temp at 14 degrees C. Accuracy is better than 1% for almost entire audio spectrum indicating a well designed speaker.

Focal Alpha 65 EVO Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 170970

While there are fair number of fine ups and downs, overall on-axis response is flat and extends down to nearly 40 Hz which is impressive for such a low cost and small speaker. As I noted in the intro, the HF control may needed to be set a bit lower to flatten the response a bit more. The chewiness I expected from the front port of such designs is there but is very well controlled as we see in near-field measurements:

View attachment 170971

Our early window and predicted in-room response are for far field but still instructive:

View attachment 170972

View attachment 170973

Because the waveguide is so shallow, horizontal beam width is impressively wide:

View attachment 170974

View attachment 170975

Tonality should be a lot more consistent as you shift left and right.

Vertical response is good for the design type:

View attachment 170976

Now we get to a real puzzle: the distortion measurements:

View attachment 170977
View attachment 170978

I don't know what is going on between 1.5 and 8 kHz. Yes, it is distorting at 86 dBSPL but why did it do less at 96 dBSPL? Did a limiter kick in? Or is it sensitive to that 86 dBSPL playback level? To be sure, I re-ran the 86 dBSPL distortion after I ran the 96 and it produces the same elevated results. Very strange.

Edit: I contacted the company and they immediately responded and sent me a sample. Alas, a bunch of things interfered with me testing it until today. I am pleased to say that the distortion problem above is not there in sample 2:

View attachment 191803

As you see I repeated the measurement on my review sample (left) and confirmed problem is still there in identical setup where the new sample (right) has none of it. Indeed it actually has extremely low distortion now. I will be sending my sample back to them for investigation. There is also reduction in tweeter distortion at 96 dBSPL:

View attachment 192456

CSD waterfall measurements show very persistent resonances so perhaps that is the cause:

View attachment 170979

Here is the impulse response:

View attachment 170980

Focal Alpha 65 EVO Listening Tests
Contrary to my normal routine, I listened to the Alpha 65 in the near-field prior to computing the measurement results. Immediate impression was very positive with warm sound courtesy of good bass which did not bottom out no matter how much I pushed it. It ignores sub-bass but the part of it that it did play was very clean and not subject to distortion.

I tried to identify distortion in the treble per measurements but I could not. It may very well be there but it is not like you can turn it on and off and hear the effect.
EDIT: as noted in the review now, I received a second sample from the company it does not have the distortion problem.

I did not feel the need for any equalization. The overall signature was maybe a tad bright which I would fix using the rear control.

Conclusions
I really like the look, feel and the sound of the Alpha 65. It innovated with a wider form factor which gives it much stronger bass than a small budget monitor usually produces. It doesn't generate much tweeter noise which is nice. Had it not been for the distortion that I measured, it would have garnered one of my highest recommendations.

I am happy to strongly recommend the Focal Alpha 65 EVO. A brand name speaker with this level of overall performance at this price is impressive.

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Tannoy gold 7
Amazing

 

[elbenderman]

Chiming in, I had a sighted comparison between JBL 308 (mk1) and Focal Alpha 80 (so very similar tweeter with some more wattage in the amp and probably worse crossover performance; also listened to Yamaha HS8) and in a large space when choosing my monitors upgrade. I walked into this expecting to buy the JBL 308, so if anything I was biased against the other speakers.

My subjective experience was also that the Focals sounded better than the JBLs in the tweeter region, in fact the JBLs were the first speaker I eliminated from my shootout. Harsh would also be the word I use to describe them. And that's coming from a big fan of the JBL 305s. Of course, this is only in the context of a comparison, otherwise I would probably be happy with JBL 308 at home.

We should not forget the preference score is not intended for nearfield monitors. Also, Amir's subjective impressions were positive (in both cases in fact).

Curious what you ended up with. The Focals?

 

[Funky-kun]

Curious what you ended up with. The Focals?

Yep, I'm still with the Alpha 80s and quite happy. There is some strangeness in the 1-2khz region, but the bass extension and overall presentation are great for the price and class.

 

[Vanx]

@amirm how did you contact Focal tech department?

I recently got these monitors for my home studio and been really impressed with them, I previously had HS8 and HS5.

The other day I started rising volume a little bit and noticed a REALLY bad resonance, stronger on one of the two, while playing with electric guitar amp sim. It is like the back metal panel is resonating like crazy, never experienced anything like this with any other monitor. I would like to contact them to understand if I need to get rid of the monitors or there is a fix. Could you guys be so kind to check what I'm saying? I attach a really small sample that I was then looping to isolate this problem.

 

[YARE]

I've listened and used Neumann's, Genelec, ATC's, B&W in the past as mixing monitors in different studios but for sure these have other dimensionly big Soundstage. It feels like a benchmark in Soundstage, an HD800 in Speaker form. They are kind of harsh out of box but once DSP'd (through REW or Sonarworks) these Monitors settle as a big bang for buck in their category (and above).

 

[GXAlan]

I've listened and used Neumann's, Genelec, ATC's, B&W in the past as mixing monitors in different studios but for sure these have other dimensionly big Soundstage. It feels like a benchmark in Soundstage, an HD800 in Speaker form. They are kind of harsh out of box but once DSP'd (through REW or Sonarworks) these Monitors settle as a big bang for buck in their category (and above).

If you look at all of the inverted dome Focal’s, the dispersion in sound power DI is extra wide in contrast to the “steady” narrowing of a classic design.

I actually really enjoyed this characteristic of older Focals because it added sparkle without fatigue although I never liked it enough to buy and keep it.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I've listened and used Neumann's, Genelec, ATC's, B&W in the past as mixing monitors in different studios but for sure these have other dimensionly big Soundstage. It feels like a benchmark in Soundstage, an HD800 in Speaker form. They are kind of harsh out of box but once DSP'd (through REW or Sonarworks) these Monitors settle as a big bang for buck in their category (and above).

The Solo6 is on a different level to the Alpha
It's worth the extra $$$

 

[JF122]

Recognizing I'm late to the party on this one...

I'm considering a pair of these (or possibly JBL 4305P) for near-field PC speaker use. Generally zoom call, youtube, and uncompressed digital music (rock/metal) listening. I don't have all of the fancy gizmos to test them to make sure I don't get speakers that distort similar to @amirm 's original set. Any suggestions on how I might test for those distortions?