Focal Chorus OD 706 V Outdoor Speaker Review

[Helicopter]

For those of us who have been on both sides of the fence- retailers of HiFi and buyers of HiFi, there is absolutely no substitute for bricks and mortar stores.

I feel very sorry for people who think they are coming to a remotely sensible or informed buying decision, particularly when it comes to loudspeakers, by trawling the internet, watching youtube "reviews" and pressing a buy it now button. Maybe just buying some little toy bookshelf speakers for Mom's basement desktop PC "battlestation", but for serious main speakers? No chance.

Find a retailer, sit down and listen to a range of different speakers. Ask for advice. Listen and learn. That is what an evolving audiophile does. The hobby and the pursuit is not like ordering Uber Eats. It requires, time, effort and exposing yourself* to as much gear as you can hear. I've taken plane trips in the past to bigger cities to hear equipment and see a range of gear not available to me where I lived. Many others on ASR have driven across states to see and hear stuff.

Basically, anyone buying an expensive speaker without listening to it first, IMO, needs their head read.

*not in that sense!

I would rather spend $3k to see what they sound like than $6k for the same speakers with world class service, hearing a bunch of speakers in a store, auditioning my favorites in my room, etc. I am not marrying the speakers. If I don't like them I will just move on to something else.

Ideally I could hear them at a show in a major city. That would cost something, but far less than permanent local inventory and space. I don't really care though.

This is probably more personality than knowledge. Safe bet my head works differently from yours. Not sure that means mine is broken. I would buy a new car the same way, without driving or seeing it in person, especially if I could benefit from reduced distribution costs and had a reasonable expectation is wasn't a handpicked lemon.

 

[Helicopter]

Chane, I have not heard of.

Philharmonic, I did not pay any attention to before this thread.

Salk, Ascend, Emotiva, I am not impressed with what I have seen.

Revel, KEF, too expensive for what you get if you buy online. That is, a speaker made in a low cost location and priced for a product mix that includes lots of in-person sales effort and expense, local showroom, and local inventory. I am not willing to pay for this. If you are, that is fine by me and I do not think you are wrong.

ELAC DBR, and Focal Chora, look good, only missing differientiation, that is, something big enough for my room in the line.

Focal Aria, actually priced to seal the deal online below MSRP, but MSRP is like Revel, KEF.

Focal Chorus OD line, my thoughts are the same as for Aria above but Chorus OD is discontinued. The new replacement Focal OD is made in China, priced higher, and I would not consider it.

What I think is missing is something like Chorus OD or Aria, but lower MSRP, or something like SVS, Dayton, Emotiva or Monoprice, but excellent.

I see ELAC and Focal filling this gap over the next few years with some more products in the DBR and Chora lines, so yeah, probably no buckets of gold out there.

 

[Chromatischism]

ELAC DBR, and Focal Chora, look good, only missing differientiation, that is, something big enough for my room in the line.

For ELAC, I agree, they need to come out with a DFR62 that extends to 30 Hz. I would buy it right now. I have 6.5" Mackie active monitors on my desk that extend to 38 Hz. There's no excuse!

Chorus OD is an outdoor line.

For Aria, there is online discount pricing but return fees are expensive if you end up not getting along with them. I'd say most people will like them, though. It's less of a gamble than buying some other speakers that could have a more polarizing sound.

 

[Helicopter]

Chorus OD is an outdoor ...

I know. I will edit my post for clarity.

 

[Maiky76]

Hi,

Here is the Optimized EQ for these speakers within a stereo pair context.
Score with no EQ: 3.89

Directivity very narrow vertical axis, average in the horizontal plan.
HF generally problematic.

EQ Design:
Score with EQ: 5.07
Rather far form the "flat" seed of the Genetic Algorithm optimizer. Would require listening test for the boost at HF.

Type           Freq      Gain     Q
High-Pass      54.3,    -0.00,   1.32,...
PEQ           151.0,    -2.75,   1.37,...
PEQ           358.8,     1.02,   3.13,...
PEQ           793.7,    -0.00,   1.35,...
PEQ          1244.0,     0.00,   1.42,...
PEQ          2754.0,     1.13,   6.48,...
PEQ          4603.0,    -1.76,   6.34,...
PEQ         10045.0,     2.00,   1.47,...
PEQ         11965.0,    -2.29,   4.27,...

EQed Spinorama:

Zoom On the PIR-LW-ON

Regression - Tonal, even less of a slope than what @amirm believes would be better

Radar, not the greatest improvement suggesting a rather optimized system out-of-the-box.

The Focal is much better out-of-the-box than the RSL Outsider II
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...tdoor-speaker-review.16659/page-2#post-538535

Once both EQed it is difficult to say but provided that EQing these speaker is probably not what people will do I'd say the Focal is the better bet.

 

[tuga]

For ELAC, I agree, they need to come out with a DFR62 that extends to 30 Hz. I would buy it right now. I have 6.5" Mackie active monitors on my desk that extend to 38 Hz. There's no excuse!

The Mackies are active. And extended low frequency ability with small drivers in small boxes usually means high(er) distortion.

You're better served buying a bigger box with more cone surface or a pair of subs.

 

[Chromatischism]

I spent some more time comparing this to another speaker today.

Indeed out of the box it sounds congested due to an upper bass bloom.

However, if you clear that up the speaker is very good. All I had to do was tell Audyssey XT32 to correct up to 500 Hz and it was good to go. Detail was cleared up. Treble is not bright at all; very natural sounding and well-balanced. The kind of speaker you could listen to for a long time and not get tired of it. It maintains its composure at high levels and with low bass. Of course if you pretend it's a subwoofer it will complain as will most speakers. Punches well above its weight.

 

[Chromatischism]

They are up.