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Focal Aria 906 Speaker Review

Rja4000

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What is your use of each pair?
Well, if you want to know...
I first purchased the 948 for my living room, as my main system.
Then I purchased the 906 for (what I thought was) a good price, to build a HC... But then I moved home, and now the 906 are in the dining room... while the 948 remain my main speakers.
 

Rja4000

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I would just like to point out that this darn forum has taken literally thousands of dollars out of my children's inheritance.

Unless I treat my audio gear very well, in which case they will inherit some pretty good antique audio gear.
Shouldn't you save money, instead ?
Knowing that a 100€ DAC and a chromecast audio outperform some equipment I paid over 1000€ each a few years ago is quite useful.
 

dfuller

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Nice to see Focal doing their thing.

Do you by chance have a way to test active speakers? I use Focal Shape 65s in my studio, but obviously enough don't have the equipment to do these tests. :)
 

GXAlan

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I would just like to point out that this darn forum has taken literally thousands of dollars out of my children's inheritance.

Unless I treat my audio gear very well, in which case they will inherit some pretty good antique audio gear.

Or you have collectibles that will appreciate in value when it's time to go to college. :)
 

youngho

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First, I've got a hand woven Nepalese carpet of about 1 inch thickness 3x4m^2. It has no felt under it. The effect is marginal up to 1kHz .. 2kHz, according to my own measurements.

The dip itself is determined by the distance of tweeter and woofer. It is inherent to the box design, also known as "lobing". I might show You, in case please ask. It is in particular not formed by the phase wise combination of direct and reflected sound. So, to remove its irregular shape from the reverberant sound field would need to not absorb something at the dips center frequency. To the contrary. One would like to absorb the frequencies to the left and right as to equalize the off axis response somehow to some degree.

In consequence, the typical dip from lobing at the xo-frequency of multi-way designs is not easily absorbed. That is why good coaxials are sought after. KEF went for coaxial exactly because of the dip(s). Once the history of that company is known, it falls into its place immediately.

Hi GelbeMusik, I was responding to your reply to Amir's original review, in case that wasn't clear, for which I should apologize that my writing "Since Amir was referring to the dip above 2 kHz, which is very clearly shown in his graph showing Early Reflections and which has the sentence that you reference before your comment "From my experience it is not easy to absorb sound below, say 1..2kHz with just a carpet, even if it was a fat Nepalese or so," I don't understand why you wanted to discuss your experience about absorption "below, say, 1.2 kHz with just a carpet"" was not specific enough.

I also provided some data from a supposedly reputable source named Floyd Toole, whom you seem to have declined to refute and instead cite your own unprovided measurements. Thank you for not providing data in this supposedly Audio Science Forum!

The measurement concept of the "Early Reflections" curve incorporates reflections in multiple directions, including vertical reflections, not just left and right. I agree that "one would like to absorb...as to equalize the off axis response somehow to some degree."

Usually the bigger problem is the so-called "floor bounce." It sounds like your concerns are much higher in frequency and easily addressed.
 

RickSanchez

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GelbeMusik

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I also provided some data from a supposedly reputable source named Floyd Toole, whom you seem to have declined to refute and instead cite your own unprovided measurements. Thank you for not providing data in this supposedly Audio Science Forum!
.

You cherry pick statements. The original question was, if a bounce could be muted effectively. So that the dip at 2kHz into some direction(s) would not contribute too much to the grand total sound field.

The carpet data is actually not that important, I think. I don't want to stir up the misunderstandings. But, can a dip be absorbed?
 
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EB1000

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Great speakers. I've paid 600$ for a brand new pair of black ash here in Israel. I was so pleased with them, and went back and bought the Aria CC900 center and 936. Now I have a full 5.0 Aria plus two SVS SB-2000 subs. They are a great match for my Yamaha RX-A2700. Way overpriced in the US. The price in France and other countries that import directly from France by sea is MUCH lower! I paid 1900$ for the 936 black ash! I'm guessing that Flax seeds are very cheap in France... :)
 

VintageFlanker

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Great speakers. I've paid 600$ for a brand new pair of black ash here in Israel. I was so pleased with them, and went back and bought the Aria CC900 center and 936. Now I have a full 5.0 Aria plus two SVS SB-2000 subs. They are a great match for my Yamaha RX-A2700. Way overpriced in the US. The price in France and other countries that import directly from France by sea is MUCH lower! I paid 1900$ for the 936 black ash! I'm guessing that Flax seeds are very cheap in France... :)
When you say "black ash" finish, are you talking about "Dark Ebony", which is exclusively sold by HomeCineSolutions?:
focal-aria-906-dark-ebony_65117_M5UZ2D1PtiA.jpeg
 

VintageFlanker

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They are even more expensive than Darc Ebony.
Depends on offers!;) Sometimes some deal comes up for a specific finish, becoming cheaper than others and so on...

Let's summ up all finish available:

Dark Walnut:
focal-aria-906-noyer_44536_4YzdE1rd2c0.jpeg


Prime Walnut (Supposedly real wood):
MN0005247192_1.jpg


Dark Ebony (HCS exclusive):
focal-aria-906-dark-ebony_65117_M5UZ2D1PtiA.jpeg


Black High Gloss :
focal-aria-906-noir-laque_60198_Xi9Ojv5YbI8.jpg


White High Gloss:
focal-aria-906-blanc-laque-modele-dexposition_52547_z3cUgpIXw.jpg
 

SEKLEM

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Would a speaker that measures like this have any issues with cabinet ringing? I've had several bookshelf speakers that have a propensity to resonate with certain instruments and vocals. It's overwhelmingly obvious with much of the material from Radiohead for example, which uses a low of piano and Thom Yorke's voice seems to cause this effect as well. I've been using Linn Katan monitors for several months now and they handle this sort of material much better than previous speakers I've used.
 

stren

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So are the woofers the exact same as the Kanta and Sopra? Seems a big step up from the aria to pay for the Kanta and Sopra for better cabinets and the beryllium tweeter. $900 vs $6000 vs $10000.
 

napilopez

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Would a speaker that measures like this have any issues with cabinet ringing? I've had several bookshelf speakers that have a propensity to resonate with certain instruments and vocals. It's overwhelmingly obvious with much of the material from Radiohead for example, which uses a low of piano and Thom Yorke's voice seems to cause this effect as well. I've been using Linn Katan monitors for several months now and they handle this sort of material much better than previous speakers I've used.

Such majorly audible issues usually show up as a resonance on the spinorama. This speaker doesn't seem to really have that problem based on the spin. There's bit of a hump around 1k but as has been pointed out by others, it appears to be lack of baffle compensation.

So are the woofers the exact same as the Kanta and Sopra? Seems a big step up from the aria to pay for the Kanta and Sopra for better cabinets and the beryllium tweeter. $900 vs $6000 vs $10000.

The sopra line doesn't use flax, it uses the company's w glass sandwich cone.

As for the Kanta definitely not the exact same. According to Focal because they make their own drivers, drivers are tweaked for each individual model -- not just tweaks per speaker family. I believe the Kanta uses different motors and surrounds, and they adjust things like coil windings depending per model in the line.

In any case, good cabinets are really the important expensive bits, especially for passive speakers.
 

Andrew678

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Ok I am in France and the actual price from cobra_dot_fr is 600 EUR. I bought a pair 3 weeks ago.
Connected to Topping D70&D50->Rotel-04. Previous pair of speakers KEF iQ30.
Well, impressions are mixed, definitely they are not worth 2000 USD, 600 is the right price point and yes they are exactly in the same league as KEF 350 but different. It feels that they lack treble, it is not that detailed and brilliant as with KEF, midrange is comparable, bass is better than iq30. They sound slightly better with D50 because of its glassy Sabre treble but there is still something wrong with them, the sound is dull vs iQ30, even with treble boosted in the amp, so frankly speaking I should have tried KEF R3 but it is impossible is the part of France I live in, you either buy or read the forums. By the way KEFs were too bright with D50 and meaningfully better with D70 (seems that D70 should be bought with brighter "steeler" speakers).
 

GXAlan

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Ok I am in France and the actual price from cobra_dot_fr is 600 EUR. I bought a pair 3 weeks ago.
Connected to Topping D70&D50->Rotel-04. Previous pair of speakers KEF iQ30.
Well, impressions are mixed, definitely they are not worth 2000 USD, 600 is the right price point and yes they are exactly in the same league as KEF 350 but different. It feels that they lack treble, it is not that detailed and brilliant as with KEF, midrange is comparable, bass is better than iq30. They sound slightly better with D50 because of its glassy Sabre treble but there is still something wrong with them, the sound is dull vs iQ30, even with treble boosted in the amp, so frankly speaking I should have tried KEF R3 but it is impossible is the part of France I live in, you either buy or read the forums. By the way KEFs were too bright with D50 and meaningfully better with D70 (seems that D70 should be bought with brighter "steeler" speakers).

The "glassy treble" hasn't been measured with the ESS, but may reflect the digital filter or an IMD hump. If you look at my experiments with the Cambridge DacMagic XS which sounded and measured poorly, but then was "fixed", there may be an unusual perfect storm. I would try running the D50 at -10dB or -6 dB instead of 0 dB and then seeing if it takes away the glare.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ifferences-between-two-dac-amp-dongles.13715/
 
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