Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: Focal Focal 7KT kit Speakers by Jeff W

I have had these speakers a few days and feel that I have a good sense of their abilities by now. These are two-way bookshelf speakers using the 7" Focal 7K4211DB mid-bass driver and the TC120Tdx2 tioxide 1" inverted dome tweeter. I opted to have the crossover and cabinets made for me, having no prior DIY experience.

After receiving the cabinets, it took me a few hours to mount the crossovers, and fully assemble the speakers. I experimented with the bare drivers before the cabinets arrived and ended up using solid core wire throughout the cabinets.

Ok.. the sound!

I just don't think these Focal tweeters are capable of giving the level of intimacy required for some types of music. I expected the Focal tioxide tweeters to be close to the titanium tweeters in my JBL, but there is not much similarity. These tweeters are very tight. They just will not give me the "sweetness" that I expected, especially with violin and the "plucking" sounds of an acoustic guitar. I actually liked the JBL tweets better, expect for a "ringing" sound that occured at certain frequencies. On the other hand, the Focal tweeters have a stunning sound on brass insruments, and the "snap" of a snare drum is the most accurate I've heard.

The 7" polykevlar midbass is excellent! It has a slightly warm sound, but I have no problem picking out individual instruments. The bass is very satisfying, but I have a subwoofer for the lowest frequencies. These drivers seem to do everything right IMO, but some people may be turned off by the (slight) warmth of the sound. The cabinets designed by Focal are perfect for the speaker, and I like the slotted port design which seems to give a more defined low end and avoids the "chuffing" sound I've heard of of some round ports.

As you can see here, I enjoy lots of music styles, so I picked out one cd from each genre to give an idea of where these speakers excel:

Violin Concertos
- Violin Concerto No. 2 - Prokofiev - Vengerov/Rostropovich

This is an excellent recording that even made my JBLs sound good! I just don't think the Focal tweeters are capable of giving the level of intamicy required for this type of music.

Jazz
- Ottmar Liebert - Innamorare

I'm not a big fan of jazz, but this is the closest thing to it that I own. The Focal tweeters seem to restrain the cymbals too much, but the snare drum has that awesome "snap" I was talking about earlier. Bass guitar and horns sound excellent. The focus is on Liebert's acoustic guitar, but like I said earlier, there are better speakers for acoustic guitar.

Piano
- Works for Piano, Violin, and Cello - Ravel - The Kalichstein Laredo Robinson Trio

These are awesome for piano. The tweeters really shine here, letting the piano notes just flow through perfectly. I noticed the titanium domes on my JBLs sounded sloppy with piano music.

Opera
- Don Giovanni - Mozart - Karajan

Excellent for opera. Again, although the speakers may have a bit of trouble for intimate concertos, these speakers shine with complex opera and choral passages. Male vocals a little better than female. One thing that irritated me with other speakers when listening to opera was that when the instruments were quite, you couldn't hear them, then when they came in, it would be a gigantic sloppy mess. The Focals keep it all together and realistic.

Rock
- Creed - My Own Prison

Most rock cds are either overproduced or sound like they were recorded with a 4-track these days. This Creed album is an excellent recording that retains the rawness of the music. I didn't expect the kevlar drivers to be that great on rock, because I got the impression they were made more for classical music. These are excellent for rock! They reproduce distored guitar tones extremely well. Cymbals are ok sounding. They're still too restrained (like on the Liebert recording.) Bass guitar is excellent, vocals are good.

Choral
- Johannespassion BWV 245 - Bach - Suzuki

This is probably my favorite form of music, and this is quite a phenomenal recording. The speakers shine here, as they do with opera. I can hear every individual singer clearly. The tweeters sound awesome with harpsicord as they do with piano. No problems here!

Many may say my cheapo Harman/Kardon receiver or generic cables are at fault for the cymbals sounding rough, but I didn't ever notice this when using the JBLs. I think if I built my own speakers in the future, I would probably use the Focal midbass drivers again, but I would rather try a Seas aluminum dome tweeter or perhaps the Focal Audiom TLR. I think these may suit my taste a little more than the tioxide tweeters.

If this review seems harsh, I didn't mean it to be. I love these speakers. I think it hillarious how many reviews I read about how the speaker "does everything right" and how they're in heaven over the sound and this garbage. I've even read reviews of $20,000 and $40,000 speakers that have SOMETHING wrong with them. :)

Happy listening!

REVIEW: Focal Focal 7KT kit Speakers Review by Jeff W at Audio Asylum