Focal Aria 906 Speaker Review

[Chazz6]

... I found focal 906 have a big variation on speaker impedance from 4.5ohm up to 31ohm(6.8X) ...

Amir at some moment added an impedance graph to his review at the top of this thread. Have you compared your result with his?

 

[TheBatsEar]

the result was fantastic, vocal is much focus and clear

Ahoi Pete, do you have measurements to back it up?

 

[Peter Chuang]

Amir at some moment added an impedance graph to his review at the top of this thread. Have you compared your result with his?

i know that graph, i took value in that graph to calculate the most feasible resistor value for the test.

 

[Peter Chuang]

Ahoi Pete, do you have measurements to back it up?

no, i don't have that. that's why i come here for help. i do have a minidsp umic2, but i don't have a lab for sound test. is there any way to proof the improvement than just how i felt?

 

[TheBatsEar]

You can at least try to show a difference.

Use REW, gate the recording to a few MS to reduce room effects and just measure it. Screenshots of before and after should give an impression if the tonality changes. Rough distortion measurements should be possible as well.

 

[Xyrium]

Impedance is expected to be variable across the frequency range. Are you seeing difficult phase angles for your amp to drive them?

 

[Chazz6]

Another thread on Focal speakers has additional charts, from which the person who posted them concludes: "These loudspeakers appear easier [than the Focal 936 speakers] to drive: in the bass and mid only minor parts of impedance values are below 5ohm. In very low frequency, EPDR has minimum around 40Hz (3.2ohm) and 63Hz (3.6ohm): for the first the load is capacitive, not too high (phase is -40 deg); the second one is inductive (24 deg). Other minimums are around 125Hz and 400Hz, with 2.5ohm. Overall, they can be driven by a less 'strong' power amplifier." -- https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...l-aria-900-series-amp-load-measurement.19058/
Thanks to Xyrium for pointing out that the issue is phase angles, not variation of impedance by itself.

 

[Beave]

HELLO guys,

I found focal 906 have a big variation on speaker impedance from 4.5ohm up to 31ohm(6.8X)
so i try to parallel a ceramic resister 10ohm 5W at speaker binding bring the variation down to 3.1ohm to 7.5ohm(2.4X)
and the result was fantastic, vocal is much focus and clear
I used lyngdorf tdai 1120 as power amp
I'm wondering adding 10 ohm to the speak get improved for me only or if it works for everyone.
the resister cost you less than 1 usd, please give it a try
And i really want to know the reason behind it

Bad idea. You just altered the crossover for both the woofer and for the tweeter, thus changing the frequency response of the speaker - in unknown ways unless you know the crossover circuit and have modeled your change.

Vocal being much more focused and clear is probably because there is now a large hump in the midrange, or a large dip elsewhere, in the speaker's response.

It was fine as it was. The variation in impedance does not present any problems to any competent amp, so why mess with it?

 

[Peter Chuang]

Impedance is expected to be variable across the frequency range. Are you seeing difficult phase angles for your amp to drive them?

the idea at very first beginning is amp has better SINAD when output power higher than 1W. adding additional load just creat higher loading.

 

[Peter Chuang]

You can at least try to show a difference.

Use REW, gate the recording to a few MS to reduce room effects and just measure it. Screenshots of before and after should give an impression if the tonality changes. Rough distortion measurements should be possible as well.

I'm new at all these digital stuff. I'm reading tutorial at minidsp site. Or is there a tutorial you would recommend to do this measurements?

 

[Beave]

the idea at very first beginning is amp has better SINAD when output power higher than 1W. adding additional load just creat higher loading.

 

[TheBatsEar]

I'm new at all these digital stuff. I'm reading tutorial at minidsp site. Or is there a tutorial you would recommend to do this measurements?

I found this guys Youtube video very clear and precise. You can ignore the part about Equalizer APO if you only plan to make the measurements before and after.

If you challenge that assumption, it might help to say why.

 

[Beave]

If you challenge that assumption, it might help to say why.

Sorry, I thought it would be fairly obvious.

The SINAD of an amp may have a knee, but until the amp nears clipping, it's all going to be inaudible.

All this does is require *more* power from the amp (thus running hotter and possibly leading to clipping at levels lower than would otherwise be the case), all for totally inaudible hypothetical improvements in SINAD.

I say hypothetical because:

The speaker's impedance still varies with frequency. And musical content also varies with frequency, constantly changing. And musical content also constantly varies in amplitude.

So the wattage being outputted by an amp is constantly changing. Unless you're only playing tones at certain frequencies and fixed amplitude, the power output of the amp is constantly going up and down. You are not going to be able to hit any 'sweet spot' for the amplifier's SINAD and stay there with any content other than test signals.

This is all a fool's errand.

 

[Peter Chuang]

I found this guys Youtube video very clear and precise. You can ignore the part about Equalizer APO if you only plan to make the measurements before and after.

Sorry, i can not find the link. may i ask to have the link again?

The speaker's impedance still varies with frequency. And musical content also varies with frequency, constantly changing. And musical content also constantly varies in amplitude.

So the wattage being outputted by an amp is constantly changing. Unless you're only playing tones at certain frequencies and fixed amplitude, the power output of the amp is constantly going up and down. You are not going to be able to hit any 'sweet spot' for the amplifier's SINAD and stay there with any content other than test signals.

The impedance does changes all the time by frequency and output wattage is constantly changing.
Putting additional load is just an improvement(of course i don't have a measurement proof now) but not to resolve impedance fluctuation.

 

[Beave]

It's a change, yes, but an improvement? No.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Putting additional load is just an improvement(of course i don't have a measurement proof now) but not to resolve impedance fluctuation.

You're risking changing the carefully designed frequency response of the speaker in order to push down from one inaudible sinad level to the next?

Sorry for being blunt but this seems rather bonkers to me.

I know we all like big (or in this case small) numbers but it's best not to to obsess about things that have little to no impact in practical scenarios. You will not be able to hear the difference between -90dB vs -110dB. Especially not with an Aria 906 that doesn't like to be played beyond 95dB SPL in the first place.

 

[maty]

Focal Aria 906 by Danny Richie

YOU CALL THIS HI-END HI-FI? WHAT THE FOCAL?!

 

[Xyrium]

Ulterior motives abound...

It's cute how he reads from the standard Google'd instrument to frequency range chart and then looks up from it and faces the camera to say what you're likely to hear.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Focal Aria 906 by Danny Richie

"22 hundreds $" for the vinyl finish (which is not "nice", BTW)?! Someone likes to get scammed.

 

[thewas]

Focal Aria 906 by Danny Richie

YOU CALL THIS HI-END HI-FI? WHAT THE FOCAL?!

A typical Danny "tuning" messing up the sound power for a flatter on-axis to impress his half-knowledge fans, original horizontal angles FR

and after his mod

with a heavy sound power peak between 2 and 8 kHz where no experienced loudspeaker engineer would like to have a peak...