Speaker upgrade for Christmas

Hello all, I am looking a bit in advance into upgrading my speakers to the next level.

The goal is to spend my Christmas bonus in some really nice bookshelves.

I currently own Focal Aria 906 which I got for 590€ (pair), it is steal, they are so good I could live with them. But I recently had a listen to the Kanta 2 and was impressed by their level of detail, soundstage and clarity, I think I fell in love with that tweeter ...

So I am looking at trying the Kanta 1, in the meantime I have also seen some insane discount for the 1008 be2 that currently retail at 1900€ a pair (Kantas are 5000€).

So has anyone heard both of them ? Are the Kantas worth the extra 3k ? The 1008 have the W medium driver that can be found in Sopras and higher-end models but they are now 10 years old while Kantas are very recent.

I will listen to both of them but I always like to have some opinions.
Also don't try and convince me into another brand, I am very decided already, I tried Dynaudios, Dalis, Kefs, B&Ws and just always got back to Focal, I also listened to some Spendors and was really not convinced.

My amp is a fully digital amp that delivers 85w into 8ohm and 170w into 4ohm, it has room correction and is currently perfectly feeding my arias.

 

OK, i went today for a listening session and fell in love with kanta 1, the store offered me a 2.5k discount for the bundle kanta 1, feet and focal 1000f sub.

So i went out of the store with the bundle for 4700€ which is 300€ less than the speakers alone with extra feet and sub.

The store demo was on lyngdorf tdai 2170, which is my amp.
Sound was great, we took 20 minutes and did the roomperfect settings as they did not do it, some customers entered the store at that moment and wondered what the train noise was !

The speakers were unboxed from new and tried brand new, they already sounded so good...
The dealer told me they will improve after 100h and again after 400h which is the time Focal gives for the suspension to run-in.

I will get everything delivered to me within 2 weeks as he did not have the color I ordered in stock.

 

Congrats! But probably this thread doesn’t get long now ...

 

My listening room is 30 sq meter open on a 6m corridor.
The testing room was 20 sq meter, just hope the power will be enough, when testing we went to -25db, the volume goes up to +10 on the lyngdorf, so should be fine.

 

You must be new here.

 

Given that there aren't many threads on focal kantas, this might be a long & slow one...

 

The most se difficult part will now be to setup the sub correctly with roomperfect...

Shall I use low-pass filter on the sub output ? High-pass filter on the main speakers ? What delay shall I setup ? What crossover ?

A lot to think about ...

 

Don't overthink or you'll just be looking for the fly in the soup, just plug and enjoy it. The 400 hrs run in is probably a bit on the exaggeration side but if you already like them there is nothing to worry too much about.

 

I like the Focal sound allover.
The Arias 906 are already very good speakers for the price.
But the Kantas are on an all other level : separation, clarity, soundstage, details are all better.
The difference between Kantas and Sopras are very huge, Sopra is on a more analytical side, they will not forgive bad recordings and are very revealing of upstream components, Kantas have more warmth.

That's why they usually recommend Sopras for classical music / jazz enthiusiasts, people who want precision.

 

Christmas seems to have come early round your way, just as well given the times we live in.
Congrats on speakers, have had Focal 926s years ago and enjoyed them a lot.

 

The only issue i have now is with the subwoofer, i am currently using the rca out of my amp to connect to my headphone amp, if i connect a sub i will have to change the settings of the output.

I guess i will have to connect my headphone amp to the digital out and use the headphone amp DAC then.

 

OK, so Focal have a bit of delay due to new COVID restrictions, i will have to wait until october 16

 

Your Preamp has no Tape Out or Line Out? These are fixed 2V outputs.
Normally you shouldn’t use the (variable) Preamp Out for the HP amp.
Yeah, I know there are some without nowadays, it’s all cost saving ...

 

The RCA outs are fully configurable, i can configure them to be variable or fixed.

The problem is that there are only one pair, so it's either sub or headphone amp !

 

Coming soon

 

They arrived, jut need to redo the calibration !
So far so good

 

Beautiful! Those stands look gorgeous as well!

You'll be all set once you hang some Christmas lights.

 

2 months left before those are hung up !
Next move will be to change the TV, this one is from 2009 and just will not die (almost did 2 weeks ago but turns out it was just the power cable !).

 

Congratulations! I know you're going to enjoy your new Kantas. I have a set of 4 Chorus 826v speakers connected to my vintage Sansui quadraphonic receiver, and they are truly amazing. I'm a huge fan of Focal and will likely never buy another brand.

 

Dammn, those are the ugliest speakers I have ever seen!

Bet they sound bloody good however!

 

Never seen Tektons, eh?

 

I have now, hideous!

 

Where's the Sub?

 

Magnepan too. Anything, I think they’re nice looking speakers. Congrats!

 

Not in the picture but at the right