When recently I went on looking for new speakers, I couldn't find much info on the models that I had my eyes on. I'm writing this here so that it may be of help to others considering these speakers.
In 2012 I bought a pair of Klipsch RB-61 II. At the time I lived in a remote area in the upstate NY and had zero access to local auditioning, so I bought the speakers without any real impression. I didn't like their sound. Those horn tweeters sounded like they were inside my head. I returned them and got a pair of Focal Chorus 807 V. They were a love at first sound. I liked everything about them.
Fast forward to 2019. I was perfectly happy with the Focals, but I could now afford more expensive speakers and wanted to see what else is out there. My only constraints were no sub woofer, and no floor-standing speakers; they had to be monitors. Thankfully there's a local KEF dealer in Mountain View (Audio High; Eugene is a good man). I listened to the LS50 (active), R7, and the Blades. They were all fine speakers, but none stood out to me. This was quite helpful because up to that point KEF had been one of the major candidates on my list.
Roaming around the net I came across the BMR Philharmonitors. I liked what I was reading about them, that they are based on solid engineering, follow acoustic research, have a flat freq. response, etc. Unfortunately, they are no longer on offer. The Sierra 2 from Ascend Acoustics seemed like a reasonable proxy for the BMRs. After reading countless raving praises about them, and the fact that they seemed to more or less follow the same design principles as the BMRs, I bought a pair while they were still on their new year sale.
I auditioned them at home for three weeks. Their major improvement over the 807s was a more articulate bass. The low seemed to go further too, but that might be because the Focals were front ported and didn't get as much of a boost from the wall. The tweeters sounded different, not necessarily better or worse, but they had a particular timbre. However, the thing that bugged me most was that between an articulate bass and a ribbon tweeter, the mids seemed neglected. At first I thought I might just be used to the sound of the Focals. But even after three weeks I still couldn't stop chasing after some more mid range frequencies. I should mention, both the Focals and the Sierras were measured and treated with a bit of DRC. There were no conspicuous dips in the mids to blame. I listen to a lot of solo instrumentals, and the instruments didn't sound good, even though the cellos had a solid bass to them that the Focals lacked. I wonder if the weak mid performance of this design, which is shared by the earlier Philharmonic speakers, was the reason the BMRs incorporated their namesake in their design. On occasion I have listened to members of that new breed of single speakers that re usually tube shaped, often wireless, and are getting quite common these days, and thought to myself, wow, this speaker sounds really good for its size and price. The Sierras sounded like a better version of those speakers to me.
Anyway, thinking that it might be safe to stick with the Focal house, I started looking at the Aria line. But then came across a good deal on the now discontinued Electras, and bought a pair of the 1008 Be II. Once again, the new Focals were love at first sound. They offer the same articulate bass as the Sierras but at higher amplitudes. The highs sound more detailed to me, even though I know RAAL is supposed to have world class performance. But most importantly, my mids are back! Piano and cello have never sounded so good. At the risk of committing audiophile poetry (I mean, it's not like this whole writing has been very empirical), while the Sierras sounded like very good speakers, the Electras sound like live music. I'm not exaggerating, acoustic recordings that are not soaked in reverb sound convincingly live and present.
One thing I like to stress is this: A very common testimony about the Sierras is that they go toe to toe with speakers twice or thrice their price. That hasn't been my experience. My impression was that the Sierras were too expensive for what they offered. Not only the twice as expensive Electras sound that much better, the Sierras couldn't seem to assert their dominance over the half as expensive Chorus speakers either.
TLDR: Sierras may be hyped. I like Focal.
In 2012 I bought a pair of Klipsch RB-61 II. At the time I lived in a remote area in the upstate NY and had zero access to local auditioning, so I bought the speakers without any real impression. I didn't like their sound. Those horn tweeters sounded like they were inside my head. I returned them and got a pair of Focal Chorus 807 V. They were a love at first sound. I liked everything about them.
Fast forward to 2019. I was perfectly happy with the Focals, but I could now afford more expensive speakers and wanted to see what else is out there. My only constraints were no sub woofer, and no floor-standing speakers; they had to be monitors. Thankfully there's a local KEF dealer in Mountain View (Audio High; Eugene is a good man). I listened to the LS50 (active), R7, and the Blades. They were all fine speakers, but none stood out to me. This was quite helpful because up to that point KEF had been one of the major candidates on my list.
Roaming around the net I came across the BMR Philharmonitors. I liked what I was reading about them, that they are based on solid engineering, follow acoustic research, have a flat freq. response, etc. Unfortunately, they are no longer on offer. The Sierra 2 from Ascend Acoustics seemed like a reasonable proxy for the BMRs. After reading countless raving praises about them, and the fact that they seemed to more or less follow the same design principles as the BMRs, I bought a pair while they were still on their new year sale.
I auditioned them at home for three weeks. Their major improvement over the 807s was a more articulate bass. The low seemed to go further too, but that might be because the Focals were front ported and didn't get as much of a boost from the wall. The tweeters sounded different, not necessarily better or worse, but they had a particular timbre. However, the thing that bugged me most was that between an articulate bass and a ribbon tweeter, the mids seemed neglected. At first I thought I might just be used to the sound of the Focals. But even after three weeks I still couldn't stop chasing after some more mid range frequencies. I should mention, both the Focals and the Sierras were measured and treated with a bit of DRC. There were no conspicuous dips in the mids to blame. I listen to a lot of solo instrumentals, and the instruments didn't sound good, even though the cellos had a solid bass to them that the Focals lacked. I wonder if the weak mid performance of this design, which is shared by the earlier Philharmonic speakers, was the reason the BMRs incorporated their namesake in their design. On occasion I have listened to members of that new breed of single speakers that re usually tube shaped, often wireless, and are getting quite common these days, and thought to myself, wow, this speaker sounds really good for its size and price. The Sierras sounded like a better version of those speakers to me.
Anyway, thinking that it might be safe to stick with the Focal house, I started looking at the Aria line. But then came across a good deal on the now discontinued Electras, and bought a pair of the 1008 Be II. Once again, the new Focals were love at first sound. They offer the same articulate bass as the Sierras but at higher amplitudes. The highs sound more detailed to me, even though I know RAAL is supposed to have world class performance. But most importantly, my mids are back! Piano and cello have never sounded so good. At the risk of committing audiophile poetry (I mean, it's not like this whole writing has been very empirical), while the Sierras sounded like very good speakers, the Electras sound like live music. I'm not exaggerating, acoustic recordings that are not soaked in reverb sound convincingly live and present.
One thing I like to stress is this: A very common testimony about the Sierras is that they go toe to toe with speakers twice or thrice their price. That hasn't been my experience. My impression was that the Sierras were too expensive for what they offered. Not only the twice as expensive Electras sound that much better, the Sierras couldn't seem to assert their dominance over the half as expensive Chorus speakers either.
TLDR: Sierras may be hyped. I like Focal.
