Focal, one of Europe's premier manufacturers, is our newest speaker line. Focal models from $499/pair through $190,000 are recommended highly by ABSOLUTE SOUND & STEREOPHILE for excellent sound & superior value. Focal is one of the few companies in the world that makes every part of their speakers, all in Europe.

"Two of Europe's most successful high-end audio brands, Focal & Naim, announced that they were joining forces to create a new company, Focal & Co. With annual earnings of $82 million & more than 300 employees, Focal will automatically become a European hi-fi leader in terms of sales & resources." STEREOPHILE 11/11.

Today most European speaker brands, including B&W, KEF, Mission & Tannoy, are made in China. Most U.S. brands, including JBL, Infinity, Boston Acoustics & Polk, are made in Asia. Focal is one of the few world-recognized speakers still made in Europe. Unlike most brands, every Focal home stereo speaker, even at $499/pair, is available with real wood veneer at no extra charge. Their  cabinets have exquisite craftsmanship that ia all too rare today. The baffle edges are beveled to minimize diffraction. Cabinet walls are .8" to 1" thick with extensive bracing in the towers, plus on-parallel woofer & midrange suenclosures.

The Focal speaker line is very comprehensive, with models for stereo & home theater, including bookshelf & tower models, centers, subwoofers, on-wall, in-wall & in-ceiling models, as well as outdoor models. In addition to their superb craftsmanship, Focal speakers are efficient, usually over 90db.

This high efficiency gives you more volume with less distortion. Most competing bookshelf speakers are at least 3db less efficient. The 90db Focal speaker will play twice as loud as an 87db competitor or four times as loud as an 84db efficient speaker with the same wattage input. This efficiency advantage can also save you money by letting you buy a less powerful amp that can still play as loud. Your current amp will sound cleaner, since it will be running at a lower power level & less likely to distort.

Gold Sound is Colorado's first dealer displaying Focal's new Prestige 800 series, all with Focal's patented W composite sandwich speaker cones. The W cone excels in all three essential speaker cone qualities simultaneously:

1] Low mass, for quicker transient response.
2] High internal damping, to avoid sound coloration.
3] High rigidity, for better bass & less distortion.

The W cone is 20 times more rigid than paper or Kevlar; 89 times than aluminum & over 160 times than polypropylene. The W cones were originally developed for Focal's state of the art Utopia series, The Grand Utopia for $190,000 has often been called the world's best speaker. 

We have on display are the 807W bookshelf & the 826W & 836W tower speakers. All feature Focal's 1" aluminum-magnesium dome tweeter, non-parallel cabinets with extensive internal bracing to minimize resonance; & a nonparallel midrange subenclosure. Available finishes are Walnut wood veneer, Piano lacquer black or Piano lacquer red. The tower speakers have cast aluminum bases & spiked feet that are adjustable from the top side. The CC800W matching center channel is $899. The SW800W subwoofer is $1599. 

           price/                   Max    Freq   Eff. Size    Wt.
            pair   Woofer  Mid watts  Resp   db  HWD    lbs.
807W $1599 1-6.5"    -     160  4l -28k  92  l8,9,l3”    22
826W $3699 2-6.5" 1-6.5" 220  37-28k  92  4l,l2,l5”   57
836W $4499 3-6.5" 1-6.5" 250  33-28k  92  45,l2,l5”  66

 "Since its founding in 1980, Focal has been a driving force in high-end speaker design. Focal has developed many core driver technologies, earning 30 patents. Unlike many manufacturers who buy drivers from one supplier & enclosures from another, Focal makes virtually all the components of its speakers from scratch. For most of its 31 year existence Focal's primary business was supplying drivers to a Who's Who of the world's great high-end speaker brands [including Wilson Audio]."
 
The following is from ABSOLUTE SOUND 1/12
"On one of the tweeter production lines, which can build an astonishing 25,000 tweeters a month, a roll of aluminum-magnesium alloy specially formulated for Focal is cut into squares & the dome structure impressed into the square. The domes are trimmed to a round shape & mounted in a housing that contains a foam compliance. A worker then glues, by hand, the voice coil to the dome. Another worker adds the motor assembly. This is high-precision work - the voice coil must be perfectly centered on the inverted dome & the tweeter will work correctly only with a precise amount of glue. Focal designed & built the specialized machines that allow the workers to achieve this precision, repeatability & high throughput. Every driver is individually tested for physical parameters as well as acoustic performance. Specialized software-controlled imaging technology looks at every driver for tiny physical defects invisible to the naked eye. I was amazed by how quickly such precision work was performed. Focal has been refining the driver-building process for over 30 years. The tweeter builders have 15 years of experience."

"The R&D lab, housed in a separate building, features Europe's largest anechoic chamber. I'm always interested in the ratio of engineers to sales staff; it gives you an idea if a company is engineering driven or market-driven. In Focal, R&D was considerably larger than the sales department." 

"Both the driver & cabinet factories are oriented towards high quality. Every worker has the ability to stop the line & reject a part. The employees are rewarded for a low failure rate & all have profit sharing. Most cabinet factory employees have been building speaker cabinets for most of their lives."

"The people behind Focal are immensely proud of that the company designs & builds speaker drivers, cabinets & complete systems in France. Many companies today have lost touch with manufacturing due to the trend toward outsourcing production to inexpensive overseas subcontractors. They become little more than marketing enterprises. Focal stressed that its raison d'etre is innovation & high quality; without these values it could no longer differentiate itself from every other speaker manufacturer. Focal intends to be around for at least another 30 years & from what l saw & heard, its best days are ahead of it."

FOCAL SPEAKERS on DISPLAY

BOOKSHELFS: 705V, 706V, 807W
TOWERS: 714V, 716V 
                 Prestige 826W, 836W

FOCAL REVIEWS

705V Bookshelf, $499, Similar to 706V, below "with a little less bass extension & output," ABSOLUTE SOUND EDITOR'S CHOICE 3/12

706V Bookshelf, $699, "Bass power & extension of many small floorstanding units. Very dynamic & visceral, it has a forward perspective that puts vocals right upfront. Shines on rock, blues & orchestral music. Highish sensitivity makes it an easy load for an amp - 50W is plenty in a moderately sized room. More bottom end than similar priced B&W." ABSOLUTE SOUND 11/11
ABSOLUTE SOUND EDITOR'S CHOICE 3/12


826W Tower, $3699, Exceptional value, rated in same class as $13,000 models, "Produced a spacious sound with impressive dynamics & powerful bass," STEREOPHILE  11/11

ELECTRA 1028BE, Six piece home theatr system, $21,000, TOP PICK, HOME THEATER  1/12

Visitors since Jan 2001


Copyright © 2001-2009 GoldSound, Inc.

.