I went down and listened to a set of these today

http://cgi.ebay.com/FOCAL-165V1-POLY...ayphotohosting

if the link won't work it's 5870105142 on ebay. Anyway, I thought they sounded pretty good. Before I buy them though I wanted some feedback from you guys...anything out there better for the buck?

Bill

 

HELL YEAH...!! I am an SQ guy and this is what I decided to put into my truck. I can tell you that it was the best idea. These things rock! Very crisp yet still very warm. But, you still need the rest of the puzzle before you can have a full picture. I have a Sony CDX-C910 as my head and Soundstream Class A amp running it all. But with this, the Focals are AMAZING...!!!

 

I have the 5.25 version and they are simply amazing.
They blow everyhting right out of the water, definatly worth the price. I love them.

FOCAL BABY!!!

 

Ok, sold...bought the set. However, they are not for the F-150..they're going in the car. Thanks guys



Bill

 

You will be MUCH pleased with those components!

I have the entry level CDT CL-61 components and those focals blow mine away. And mine sound great!

RL

 

Actually, I liked the 6.5 components in the rear so much, I bought 5.25 components for the front (my car, not my truck). It sounds so, so much better than it did. I do have to say though, my audiophile in the Ford is comparable. In fact, imaging in the ford is better I think..and some of the instruments come through better with the audiophile as well In Elton John's Rocket man there is a part where an acoustic guitar just does one 'thrum' across the strings and in the ford it's like the guitar is sitting in the passenger seat...in the porsche with alpine head and amp and focals around...it's good, but not quite as good. Still, I'm very happy with the focals, and lets face it...a race/street car with all the sound deadening in floor etc removed and the speakers in the stock locations (it's a turbo S, so it came with components)..getting a good sound at all is impressive.

Overall, really impressed with the focals.

Bill

 

rear fill and good SQ don't mix

 

I can build a race car as fast as you can afford, but audio I'm a novice at. Explain what you just said?

bill

 

rear fill = bad SQ the reason being is that the car environment is already less than optimal for speaker placement. the main problem with rear fill is the speakers are behind your head. which is ok if your listening in like 5.1 with discreet audio channels that are mixed for that purpose but the 99% of car audio installs, the signal is only in stereo so really you only have two discreet channels. and thus you want your soundstage coming from the front as it was intended. what happens as you add rear fill is it pulls the entire soundstage back. so instead of the singer's vocals coming from in front of you it sounds like he's leterally on top of you. it bassically a matter of soundstage seperation. so instead of left center and right appearing to the ears like the left center and right of a stage in front of you 10-20 feet, rear fill rips it apart and makes the left side of the stage sound as if it was at your b-pillar. same with the right side. the seperation between left and right then becomes to wide and very unnatural. basiaclly in a SQ audio install you want the whole bandwith coming from the front. which usually cant be done because of the space required for a subwoofer. wich is ok because bass as we all know is omnidirectional. which means our ears cannot locate where its coming from. which is why its still ok to have your bass coming from behind you. you can't locate it. now the higer you go in the frequency spectrum the easier it'll be to locate where your noise is coming from. thats why you might want to cross over your subs at say 80-150hz as then your subs are only reproducing the omnidirectional frequencies. letting it roll off the FR before it become directional.

 

Great little write up and explanantion. But, you can still incoporate "rear fill" and not loose you front stage. Not optimal if your competing, but still can be done by simply fading to the front (w/ other adjustments as well). I have done this in my truck...the rear fill dont effect my front stage while sitting in front and while sitting in the back seat it actually helps bring the front stage to the rear.

How many non-competing & competing audiophiles will agree??? Probably none, but it sounds good in my truck...just gotta tweak it some. It all boils down to what YOU like.

BTW, Focals are good speakers...I have the Utopias and at first didn't like them, but I got them tweaked w/ the H701 and now they are really showing off their abilities!

 

exactally. some people HAVE to have their rear fill. I personally would rather take the money i'd dump into rear fill and spend it on the front stage since 99.9% of the time I'm the only person in my truck. I also never have anyone in my back seats. and once I build this box. well the back seats aren't an option. so in my case rear fill would be completely useless. I also just hate sitting in other peoples rides to demo their "tyght syztem" and the first thing I hear, or don't hear is nothing from the front, lol. they crank the rear fill up more than the front. and then stick their tweeters like really high on the a pillers with the woofer in the door with 2 feet of seperation. lol plus all the clipping of the amps, ugh. of corse anyone running focal componets would know better than the 16 year old that maxed out mommy's credit card at best buy. (16 year olds obviously don't drive a porsche turbo s either) I don't mind rear fill as long as I can't hear it lol.

 

I actually thought about dumping my rear fill (which are another pair of Utopias), selling both pair of Utopias and getting a pair of Rainbow Power Line CS 275.27 and run them active. I'm not sure if I can get those humongous mids to fit though. LOL I've never experimented with with an active set-up but would like to. I'm kinda in the same boat as you...no one is in the back seat the majority of the time. The kids get back there ocassionally, but not that much.

BTW, what set-up are you building the box for?

 

single RE audio 18XXX 8.5 @ 27hz give or take. I havn't finallized the plans yet but thats about what I'm shooting for. the SPL bug took over yet again

 

Cool. That's a BIG box. LOL Did you get that to fit under the rear seat with or without a seat lift? LOL J/K Also, you might want some rear fill with that MONSTER! LOL

EDIT: What amp?

 

i'm going to run the 2 autotex xs900.2's i've had FOREVER. they are my workhorses. not high end but they will do. I plann on running each 2 ohm VC to its own amp. now lets hope nothing goes wrong