Thank you very much for the kind words.

I appreciate that!

Your*

They still cost a 1000 eur and always were and thats with 20% vat. I bought my pair for 550 and sold it for 650

Wow. Thank you so much for the kind words.

I appreciate that!

@Eric Well, that was about 3 years ago, so it is plausable that *something* changed in regards to their manufacturing and production due to supply chain or labor issues during the pandemic. Focal has transducer manufacturing and complete loudspeaker production facilities in both France and Asia. In all areas, production, labor, and transportaion costs have skyrocketed post-pandemic, and I wouldn't be surprised if Focal needed to find some way to reduce production costs in order to help bring profit margins more in line with pre-pandemic figures. Or, they might have needed to find a new supplier for a particular component. For all we know, the metal alloy or material used in the inverted tweeter domes (or some other aspect of manufacturing the tweeter) may have changed in order to reduce costs. For instance, even the use of aluminum vs copper wire for the voice coil windings can add up over a quantities such as 20k to 100k pieces. And the same for different vc bobbin materials. Or, they may have found a less expensive supplier for the electronic components used in the crossovers, and the quality and values or tolerances of those new, less expensive components might be significantly different now. They may have even reduced the number of parts in the crossover (i.e. removed a -1.5dB high-shelf filter that was previously in the circuit for the tweeter). We just don't know unless we get one of each of these from a current production run and from a 3 or 4 year-old pre-pandemic production run to compare the two. Even a miniscule 50 cent change in production costs can potentially add up to many thousands of dollars when implemented across an entire product line, and exponentially more if implemented across their entire vast line of products. This tends to happen A LOT in all areas of manufacturing, especially for any products where there are no minimum quality or safety regulations or standards required. Just one example. I had a pair of classic Porter-Cable 2.25HP routers for woodworking, and wanted a 3rd to eliminate having to switch bits and having to reset the perfect bit depth each time. So I bought a new one, and the spindle runout was nowhere near as tight as my older models. The spindle had way more play in it and wobbled side-to-side which produces rough cuts, gouges, and burns. :( The new router also failed in less than 6 months with only a few smaller projects having been completed. 😵‍💫 So, I took it apart to see if I could track down the issues (they are fairly simple electric motor designs), and discovered that 6 or 7 of the small parts in the motor that were previously machined cast aluminum were now cheap, brittle plastic. 😡 The sealed bearings for the spindle were obviously a different design/manufacturer from the originals as well. Then I noticed that the coil windings and stator was significantly different as well, and not in a good way. I didn't even bother getting it repaired. 🫤 I did some more research to confirm the consistent quality of several other brands & recent reviews, and ended up with a Japanese-made Makita and a smaller DeWalt trim router and they've been fantastic. Sorry for the rambling! Just sayin' that this sort of thing is not at all unusual. 🙁

You bet.

Thank you 🤗

Thank you very much!

That's wild. The cheapest I can find is 450€ for one.

Same price for me when I bought a pair at Cobra. Also seen deals at 410€/pair at HCS back then. But it was before COVID, then 2022 inflation...

Same. Bought them from France in Dec 2021 for around €450 per pair. Super happy about them! At the time they were £1200 or maybe more in UK.

That's very kind. Thank you. :)

My pleasure!

Erin knows all about room correction and DSP. You can check out his history with such things on the car audio forums he frequents and ASR. The Klippel data give you the best possible starting point though. Be aware that these still actually rate really highly in the scheme of things (look at ASR speaker review tables). They're a lot cheaper in Europe though and don't have to compete with big hitters like the R3 Meta et al.

Probably a bit of everything. I believe those Focal tweeters are quite a little neo magnet with seemingly no room for vented chambers

Yikes.

Yes, but if you have a cat or dog, there's no reason to abuse their ears. ;-)

No! I refuse to smile! Everrrrr!

They ARE a lot cheaper indeed... Just not in US. I paid mine 440€ for the pair. MSRP increased again last year, while this model is now ten years old...

​@VintageFlanker @krjohnson29 Yes, the U.S. distributor/dealer markup on all types of European-manufactured audio products is usually AT LEAST Double of what they cost within Europe. I'm in the U.S., but I've purchased Norwegian, Danish, Italian, French, and German raw drivers, loudspeakers, and various audio electronics directly from Europe for far less than what it would cost from a retailer here in the States. And I've only had to pay import duties on one of those items, and overall I still saved quite a bit of money. Yes, the shipping can be expensive, but it is nearly always offset by the removal of the European V.A.T., as well as the often drastic reduction in price compared to purchasing in the U.S. But it will also depend on and fluctuate a bit with the current exchange rate between the € or £ and the US Dollar. Another thing that may have to be considered is the lack of dealer or warranty support when purchasing from overseas. But if a product that's Shipped to the U.S. is less than half the price when purchasing directly from Europe, that's a risk I will usually take.

Not "all" exactly, but most, yes. Take the Dynaudio Evoke 20 for instance, Made in Denmark, which I also owned. 2000€ in France VS 2200$ in US (now 2150€ VS 2400$). Even for Focal, some products, such as their headphones or higher end speakers (Sopra, Utopia) are priced much more similar to EU Market. Other products such as amplifiers or DAC do not vary form one side of the Atlantic or the other that much either.

@@bbfoto7248Since most reviewers are based in the USA, the French are willing to pay a higher markup for US brands like JBL, Schiit or Klipsch. It’s so silly because the French brands are way cheaper here, but they don’t get much visibility outside of France.

Yeah, I saw his measurements. His review was posted nearly three years ago so it’s not always a straightforward making direct comparisons that far apart.. I also saw that he only took 800 measurement points. I’m curious what the fitting error was. Could explain our differences. Might not. But since I saw his results were different than mine I did a quick anechoic outdoor measurement to verify my measurements, and got pretty much the same result with a different microphone. Same HF boost clearly there with a different measurement setup (mic, amp, cal file, setting). 🤷‍♂️

@@ErinsAudioCorner Alright, thanks man. Doesn't look good for Focal anyway. I expect them to do better. Especially when they constantly increase their prices for a speaker that was initially released ten years ago.

@@vintageflanker7096 yeah, it seems these have gone up a bit since their initial release.

Erin. Had sound dropouts like bad connection,but is it my or in the video ? Didn’t see this live.

@Mark Winston It's unfortunate, but I think it's going to be expected to have at least some tyoe of production batch variations with a speaker such as this that was initially released 10 years ago. For all we know, the actual production facility might have even changed during that time! And manufacturers are always checking with other suppliers for better quantity pricing for all of the raw materials (MDF, veneers, paint/lacquer, port tubes, damping/fiberfill batting, etc.), as well as electrical components for the crossovers, etc. Over time, it's guaranteed that materials and components are going to increase in price, and if a particular source for just one raw material or component that is used to produce a product increases in cost too much, they will seek out another supplier. For example, that might mean sourcing a lower cost capacitor from a different manufacturer, and those new capacitors that have been swapped in the crossovers might now have a higher ESR or looser tolerances, or even a slightly different, but "close enough" microfarad value, etc. ANYTHING they can do to reduce production costs over time makes the company more profitable, especially when that profit margin is multiplied over every single product that they produce! And Focal produces A LOT of different loudspeakers, studio monitors, car audio speaker systems, and amplifiers as well. So you can imagine that if they reduced the manufacturing cost of every product that they sell by just 50¢, that can translate into potentially Hundreds Of Thousands of Dollars or Euros annually. Noting that the ASR test & review is around 3 years old now, with the pandemic-related supply-chain issues, it's very possible that something was changed in the design. Focal's higher end transducer lines are manufactured in France, but they own a factory in Asia as well. So who knows?...The tweeter used in this product might have shifted from being produced in France to Asia. Or some aspect of its design and manufacturing may have been changed in order to reduce production costs, which may have resulted in the variation. Or maybe they only test every 1,000th tweeter for performance and QC now, whereas before the pandemic they might have tested every 250th tweeter that came off the line. There are so many possiblities. Because it is a 10 year old design and product, the vast majority of positive reviews have already been in the wild for quite some time, giving this speaker a relatively well-known and established reputation for "good performance" in general. So, Focal might be more willing to make some cost-cutting changes in the design now, knowing that current sales figures will most likely not be affected too much because they already have a well-established reputation with "solid" past reviews, and that's what most potential new buyers will read in old reviews, or hear from their dealers or other owners.

@@bbfoto7248 with all that being said, this poses a problem for people that wants a relatively good measuring speaker but still wants to buy an Aria. Arias have been considered good measuring speakers, all the way up to their floorstanders. General trend of the Aria's response seem to be dipped above 1khz to make up for a rising off axis response. The problem now is it will be a hit or miss when anyone purchases an Aria; will you be getting an old batch or a new one. Anyway, there are new speakers from Focal now, the Theva and Vestia. Many subjective reviews mentioned that the Vestia has a more 'refined' and 'subdued' treble response compared to the Chora and Aria, so maybe they might do better in objective testings.

​​​​​​@@-MarkWinston- I completely agree. It's not a good situation for customers if the performance of a well-established product changes significantly mid-product cycle. Though, on one hand, it could be argued that an improvement in performance is welcomed. However, when any such significant change is implemented, I feel that it should be released as a new version (MK II, III, IV, etc.) to distinguish it from the original product. I'm currently using the Focal Elite Utopia M component speakers in one of my high-end car audio systems, and I'm extremely pleased with the performance and SQ. That Utopia "TBM" beryllium tweeter is also used in some of the newer line of Focal high end home Utopia models, and some of their studio monitors, such as the *Trio11 Be* and I can verify that it is definitely more refined compared to the older inverted dome and beryllium tweeters that Focal produced. But in that car audio system, I also have at my disposal a multi-channel DSP that allows me to have complete control over all of the individual Levels, Crossovers, Digital Delay, Phase rotation, and 31-bands per channel of P-EQ, including high- and low-shelf filters, Allpass filters, etc. One of the DSP's I'm using even allows for the use of DIRAC Live (miniDSP C-DSP 8x12 DL). I also previously used the Focal *Twin6 Be* studio monitors in my home studio setup (drummer/percussionist & saxophonist), and liked them a lot. But they used one of the previous versions of the Utopia beryllium tweeter that wasn't as refined as the newer version...and that was my main issue with them. But ultimately I built my own DIY design to replace them for about 1/3 the cost and couldn't be happier. It uses the *BlieSMa T34B-4* beryllium dome tweeters, which I find a bit more to my preference over the Utopia TBM. :P

Hey! Thanks for the support! I’d like to test the Mission but so far I’ve not had any luck getting a pair to review from anyone.

You can compare data to data, ASR did measure the BR03. Having listenned to both, the 906 is just in another league IMHO. BR03 are just "OK" entry level speakers, mostly unremarkable to me.

He liked the Wharfedale Linton - a lot.

That's my beef with Monitor Audio prices here in the U.S. They are about 50% more expensive here for their Silver 500G than in the E.U. Makes me look to the JBL L100 Classics instead for not much more.

ps I just released a playlist on KZfaq music that lasts for over 7 hours so I listened to music for 5 to 10 hours a day for 10 days strait to compile it.

I do agree that $2200 is a lot in the UK they are under £800. We in Europe have the same problem with Us made gear, stuff that is good value for money over their is way over priced here because of import taxes ,haulage etc.

I don't have one. Lots of good options. But also important is the baffle/waveguide.

Typically, faint background noise like somebody coughing is picked up by heightened treble. And that isn’t necessarily a good thing because you want the background noise to stay in the background and not overshadow the front stage. Cheap Sony earbuds have that problem of overbearing treble. Now I would clumsily describe detail as bass speed and instrument separation. But that may also describe an unnaturally digital « Hi-Fi » sound. These days I look for a smooth/forward midrange with realistic vocals and acoustic guitars , something which most budget speakers just can’t do. Single driver speakers excel at that but nobody takes them seriously.

The Focal Aria line just got replaced by the Vestia line. Expect some improvements (or don’t).

​@@user-xg6zz8qs3q Focal has two new lines. Theva, replacing Chora, and Vestia, which is slotted between the entry Theva and Aria. I suspect Aria will be replaced/refreshed, but Vestia is not taking that slot as far as I've been told.

@@user-xg6zz8qs3q Oh didn't notice :) At £800 per pair Vestia 1 looks like almost the same speaker as Aria 906. Don't know how it measures but seems price appropriate comparing to competiton and built quality that Focal usually offers.

@@Zhiloreznik I don’t expect a huge improvement. I am more excited for the Elipson Horus 6B which sell for only 350€ and there’s a bit of hype. These Focal speakers aren’t anything special and I wouldn’t want to spend more than 400€ on them. They’ll go on sale like the Chora 806 (350€). In France nobody is pumped about entry-level Focal which sells for $2k in the US for some reason.

I think a speaker shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes for any break-in to occur. However, I let them play for quite a while just to quell any concerns about it from viewers.

@@ErinsAudioCorner I hear you, makes sense.

The tuning point of the bass reflex will drop slightly as the suspension of the bass driver loosens and Fs drops. No magic there.

Thank you!

The speakers do not take the vitality out of the music. I own a pair very engaging.

Would you send him one for review?

I thought the same, nothing is lifted on axis relative to 1khz until the highest regions. The way I would intepret this chart (only on axis) is that it will never sound bright. PIR shows it has a slight dip in the 1-3khz region, which I personally like. The bump in the treble region seems to be like a variation, so thats remains a question.