Focal Alpha 65 EVO Review (Studio Monitor)

[Merkurio]

Great results.

I hope you review the Alpha 50 in the future to see how it compares with the Adam T5V!

 

[respice finem]

Looking at the strange distortion in treble, this speaker might be better off with some "normal" tweeter IMHO.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I wonder why there isn't an Alpha 80 Evo

 

[thewas]

I wonder why there isn't an Alpha 80 Evo

Probably because many 8" drivers can be quite compromised as midwoofers and also Focal prefers wide radiation designs with tweeters with no or shallow waveguides and there a large midwoofer would not offer the needed directivity at the mids.

 

[pierre]

Sure, the newer ASR measurement of the EVO has more points/less smoothing than the older one, but the weird tweeter behaviour is unacceptable and does not give trust in the engineering and long time quality of the monitors and unfortunately matches also reports with reliability problems with other of their active monitors and headphones.

For active monitors, do you have data? Focal Solo or Trio have been very reliable for me. I would be interested in failure rate of monitors over time but I am guessing that’s not public data.

 

[thewas]

For active monitors, do you have data? Focal Solo or Trio have been very reliable for me. I would be interested in failure rate of monitors over time but I am guessing that’s not public data.

Wish I had, just what I am reading in various forums, mind you that might not account to all models or series and possibly just more to their cheaper series.

 

[ShiZo]

Are these better than jbl 305s? Do they have the Twitter hiss?

 

[FeddyLost]

The tweeter distortion results is really interesting. Would love to learn of the reason behind it

Looks like some weird crap is going on within HF amp section. Something is generating high order harmonics with constant absolute level, so they are relatively small with higher signal.
Tweeter itself most probably working well, as most drivers start from 2nd harmonic, as woofer on these graphs. For getting domination of 4th and 5th, one need to go beyong decent driver in its comfortable range (86 db for typical tweeter is milliwatts, so it's barely motor issues).

 

[amirm]

Are these better than jbl 305s? Do they have the Twitter hiss?

They have almost no hiss which makes them much better than 305. They also play louder with more bass.

 

[GWolfman]

Preference Rating
SCORE: 4.1
SCORE w/ sub: 5.9

Surprised it scored this low.

Also surprised the front port didn't cause more cancelation issues as most do. Why do you think this one managed so well in this regard?

Last surprise was the low-frequency extension they managed to get out of this.

 

[Newman]

The mystery of the tweeter distortion needs to be solved.

Product issue (if so, what)? Or test issue?

 

[pavuol]

No magnesium for the tweeter in this range for damping, puzzle solved..

 

[renaudrenaud]

No magnesium for the tweeter in this range for damping, puzzle solved..

It seems to me Focal uses Beryllium for the more expansive speakers.

 

[amirm]

Surprised it scored this low.

I think this is because the predicted-in-room response is almost flat. If you turn down the HF adjustment, it would fix that and increase its score substantially.

 

[amirm]

I just emailed their PR folks. Hopefully they can respond and I can follow up with someone technical on the distortion front.

 

[3125b]

Confirms to me what I always thought: Focals sound better than they measure.
I did a blind test of different active monitors when my dad was looking for a pair and, despite hearing some more expensive models, he settled for first gen Focal Alpha 65 and I have to agree with that decision. I‘m sure those don‘t measure very good either but they are enjoyable for music listening.

Are these better than jbl 305s?

Yes they are.
It‘s really not a fair comparison, 5“ 110$ budget monitors against something twice the size and more than double the price.
I‘ve tried the first gen Alpha 65 next to my Mackie MR524 (comparable the the JBL in size and price) and subjectively there is a big difference. Although the MR524 have one advantage over both the JBL and the first gen Alpha (Class AB amps) - much lower tweeter hiss, they are among the quieter active monitors I‘ve heard.

 

[Matias]

This is good, but Kali LP v2s are still better.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Probably because many 8" drivers can be quite compromised as midwoofers and also Focal prefers wide radiation designs with tweeters with no or shallow waveguides and there a large midwoofer would not offer the needed directivity at the mids.

But there's a non EVO, Alpha 80

 

[MZKM]

I think this is because the predicted-in-room response is almost flat. If you turn down the HF adjustment, it would fix that and increase its score substantially.

Yeah, they go for constant directivity in the treble where tweeter response mainly just lowers in level as you go off-axis rather than slope down.

Interestingly, Charles Sptinkle said he stopped designing his waveguides for do that when he went from JBL to Kali, as It can lead to brightness.

 

[abdo123]

btw the distortion should be without a doubt audible, 1% 5th harmonic at 86dB is definitely above audibility thresholds.