When Entry Level OUTPERFORMS in HiFi! Focal Theva No 1 Review!

foreign [Music] hugely popular chorus series specifically the 806 bookshelf speaker has long been a go-to for those looking for Great Sound without spending a fortune while we expected the vestia line to be the new it speaker for focal it's the thieval line and has definitely caught our attention consisting of six models the number one that we're taking a look at today is the thiva's only bookshelf speaker now this two-way reported design is made in France entirely by focal and it uses a one-inch inverted Dome Tweeter that sits above a six and a half inch slate fiber woofer with its reported frequency response of 58 Hertz to 28 kilohertz this speaker is very amplifier and receiver friendly with a nominal 8 ohm impedance while it can dip to 4.6 you're not going to need a ton of power to get these speakers rocking thanks to that 89 DB sensitivity and no you are not imagining things the thiva does look eerily similar to the outgoing quora 806 but there are a few subtle differences that give the new series a more tailored look the number one is offered and the same three finishes as the core and it continues to be a well-crafted speaker albeit one that is built with a budget in mind even the specs at least on paper appear to be the same despite the thieva being just a little bit smaller than its predecessor the biggest change is the thieva's rear-facing port which may affect placement for those who might be a little tight on space rear-facing port be damned the new thievas are incredibly easy to set up and we did try them very close to our wall and we were able to achieve a greater sensation of Bass by doing that without them becoming boomy or OneNote But ultimately I really did prefer them where 95 of all bookshelf speakers sound their best in our room which is roughly two feet out from our front wall space roughly nine and a half feet apart and then ten and a half feet from our primary listening position now you can affect the treble a bit with Towing so if you find them soft at first go ahead and angle them inwards towards your listening position but if they're too bright for you angle them more Straight Ahead as a stereo pair of speakers paired with a good subwoofer like our rp1000 1000 from Klipsch the focals are shockingly good on their own bass is good deep enough that you are going to hear the thwack of a kick drum Mallet but you're not going to feel the movement of air nor feel the sensation of its physical scale or weight because that's what a subwoofer is for those of you who like bass Heavy Music think rock rap or Electronica be sure to budget for a sub but fans of more Ensemble acoustic or even solo piano works such as those from pianist Luna you're likely going to find a pair of thieva number one satisfying all on their own when it comes to the mid-range specifically vocals the focals are excellent crystal clear and articulate just know that as you turn things up it is possible for some frequencies to take on just a hint of coloration due to the speaker's cabinet construction and that well rear-facing Port not sure if it would have been as noticeable had we not just reviewed Paradigm sealed 70 LCR speaker nevertheless it's there on a positive note though intelligibility it's not affected by this the treble is quite clear even for a sub thousand dollar speaker this is a focal after all the Tweeter doesn't roll off much so poor recordings or say plosives and vocals or instruments with sibilance may not fare as well as they might through say a polk r200 but if you lean more towards Brands like BMW Clips sonus Faber and even Paradigm the focals will no doubt be to your liking when it comes to Sound Stage and Dynamics the focals are excellent in both departments I love the way these speakers Image in fact they have one of the bigger dimensional sound stages of all the speakers we currently have in-house regardless of price Center Imaging is superb though you will get better more refined definition and spacing between performers from speakers with more inert cabinets like say the kef R11 metas or BMW 805 d4s two speakers that cost five to eight times what the focals command now as for Dynamics these are fun Lively Punchy two ways that are captivating and virtually all volumes now whether or not a speaker sounds good in your room or to your ears is going to vary and isn't likely going to be determined by measurements unless of course you're just influenced by that sort of thing but I know it's important to some of you so doing a quick sweep 20 to 20 at our listening position at a volume of 75 DB we can see that the measurements support every thing I've just gone over there isn't a great deal of bass to speak of this speaker plays down to 50 hertz comfortably in room but not too much below that which is in keeping with focal's reported specs the speaker is largely linear through the mids with a dip occurring as we transition from the woofer to the Tweeter where depending on toe in you'll either experience little to no roll off up top or you may even hear a bit of a boost in treble energy now adding the thiva center to the group which also included are Clips in ceiling speakers and subwoofer powered by the Marantz cinema 70 and 40 receivers the number one excel at home theater 2. The Folk House were exceptional with action films like The Flash and even more Indie comedies such as bad words if you can turn them up just a bit I think you're going to be amazed at just how big and transformative they sound when paired with a sub or two you may not even want to hear the towers while the number ones aren't as refined or as absolutely like pinpoint Point accurate as the costlier Paradigm lcrs or Bowers and Wilkins 705s for a fraction of the cost the folk house where every bit as enjoyable and I cannot stress this enough they scale brilliantly we enjoyed Peaks just beyond 100 DB in our room with no signs of strain or Distortion even listening to well-recorded multi-channel or spatial audio tracks these smaller thivas absolutely shine and I doubt anyone will find the thieva center lacking in intelligibility dialogue Clarity is terrific just know that the same critique regarding that Tweeter and poor recordings still applies if you find the Tweeter to be too pronounced or revealing when listening to poor mixes you can experiment with placement or clean things up with the use of EQ software like the Rack or Odyssey or just simply dial back the treble inside some tone controls when it comes to bookshelf speakers around the thousand dollar price point there are a number of solid options to choose from now after hearing the Divas I would easily put them at or near the top of a list that includes speakers from say Brands like Bowers and Wilkins Polk Klipsch and sona's father kicking things off I would 100 percent get the focals over the existing BMW 600 anniversary series which you know we've reviewed more than once while I would typically say that focal and b w share a few similar Sonic traits the 600 series it just continues to be an anomaly for the brand the thiva number ones are nowhere near as fatiguing and they are a little more linear in the mid-range and even more controlled in the bass and while you can compare these speakers to say the Polk r200s I think the r200s are going to appeal to a different type of listener a listener who likes a fuller richer some might even say laid back sound that's going to be better suited for more genres of music and recordings as a result the pulks may feel a bit too subdued for some of you where the thivas boy they're going to provide that fun you're looking for and speaking of fun I believe the focal's top competition is going to be either the Klipsch rp600 Mark II or sonus bobbers Lumina to you'll save some money by going with the clips and may even enjoy a little bit more bass in the process but set up correctly these two speakers are very comparable though I prefer the look and finish of the Folk House with the Lumina twos from sonus Faber be prepared to spend a little bit more in exchange for a lighter bank account you are going to have a more luxurious finish and overall higher end looking speaker one that you you know I love that said these two speakers are actually very evenly matched and I could be happy with either long term the smaller luminas are going to be just a little bit more placement friendly given their downward front facing Port but both require a sub for full range playback though luminas have more boost in the low mid base which makes them sound like they have a little bit more bottom end than they do which for some of you could be the Difference Maker as for whether or not existing focal 806 owner should ditch their quoras in favor of the new thivas that's harder for me to say we haven't had the 806s in at least a year so I was unable to directly compare the two now subjectively speaking I 100 prefer the more mature look of the new thivas But realize that that may not be enough of a reason to switch sound wise and I am forced to go completely off memory I'm not 100 sure there's a night and day difference to be had here so if you scooped up a pair of chorus on closeout recently feel 100 secure in your purchase because you still have a great speaker if you didn't score one of the last remaining core speakers on the market the thiva number one it's the new budget focal debate and speaking of budget focals before I get to my final final thoughts I think focal may have a problem in 2023. based on what we've seen and heard I think the brand may have diluted Itself by offering up too many speaker lines that seem to really collide with one another both sonically and financially the thiva line is clearly the Brand's entry point and it is a strong entry at that and it makes way more sense for customers to go with it over the mildly more expensive vestia never mind that vestia's presence in focal's line calls into question their two other Aria lines if I were in charge of the brand I'd pair it down to just three maybe four lines tops Viva Canta sopra and Utopia streamlining the brand while also giving customers a clearer upgrade path because for their asking price of less than a thousand dollars of air the thiva number ones are good enough that you are going to have to spend a lot more think Canta level money to outright best them in all judgeable categories so that's enough out of me and one I think of the number ones but before we get out of here what do you think of the focals I think they're very good yeah I might even go as far to say that they are in the running for one of my speakers of the year like overall orb for Budget well in like one of our categories okay okay all right yeah you know what um I don't disagree I don't disagree in fact um I think I want to hang on to these but I do think that they represent a very solid performer yeah in a more affordable for you know budget-friendly category absolutely I really wish we had had the 806 korres so that we could listen to them side by side and I for the record I actually did try and buy them for this review and when I went on Amazon and Crutchfield they were sold out like you could still get some of the towers which wasn't going to be a fair comparison and I I honestly I just waited too long and I didn't know that when they're gone they were gone yeah yeah I I do feel confident enough though to say that there are similarities for sure uh the thivas definitely have that Folk House sound yes something that I personally felt was missing from the vestia line yeah they just it just seems like such an odd departure for focal and I'm with you I I personally would ditch that line all together um not what you want to hear when it just came in yeah sorry uh they were not that they're they aren't bad speakers at any by any sense of um things but they just don't feel like they belong to focal and I can't quite understand um where that sound came from to me the thiva is the better all-rounder even comparing the measurements of our in our room of thiva to vestia the the cheaper ones better it's just better oh I totally agree yeah and I suppose if you only had three speaker lines to choose from I mean it's classic marketing you know you give good better best but because they have all of these other lines it just convolutes things I I think now since we listened to these while we were also reviewing the Paradigm LCR speakers I think it'd be nice to do a quick comparison while I mean I would I would rather have the Paradigm 70s you know no offense to uh focal I still think the focals are great yeah I just think that the Paradigm do you represent like they're just more stylish they're Better Built yeah they're everything is just like a few steps above yeah but I still feel like this focals are a really solid alternative absolutely I mean when you stop and think that a single 70 LCR is going to run you 17 1800 whereas the all three of the speakers we're reviewing today from focal are less than that together it's hard to argue it's hard to argue and I'm not even going to go so far as to say but you know for that extra thou you know extra thousand or eight hundred dollars that you would spend to get one Paradigm you're getting 200 percent Improvement in performance because you're not the paradigms are the better speaker and you're gonna notice that pretty much immediately in the more tightness of bass the lack of coloration at certain frequencies at higher volumes specifically like with vocal ranges like mine where it falls right around where that Port tuning is on the folk house so it just kind of gets a little a little bit chesty not nothing like that I would say you know what skip this nothing like that a lot of speakers do that um but the paradigms Do Not and then when it comes to the the pinpoint accuracy of the rendered images in three-dimensional space the paradigms have it on lock but again most people may not have rooms that are acoustically treated in which case there's a real chance you're not going to hear that if you even spring for the paradigms because the Acoustics of your space are going to eat up any and all possible improvements and so in that instance if you think you might fall into that camp you're probably better off buying something like the folk house now there is one there's one speaker that I feel like we should talk about because I can already hear the questions oh no comments I think so uh well I mean I don't I don't know that I just I would have been finally being in the office I know our audience all right hit me with it Aaron doll I love the styling of Aaron doll there yes like just that classic minimal look is really great it is a killer line and they managed to somehow bring really good speakers down to a very affordable price point but I still need to but I still think I would get the focals over that particular speaker Aaron dolls are not as efficient and they are a more difficult speaker to drive so if you are using an AV receiver it has to be one that is very comfortable with the 4 ohm load and even comfortable with the 4 ohm load it has to have a fair amount of power on its side to really make those speakers come to life same with like the paradigms where in that review I said if you can turn them up just a little bit and that's kind of this story with a lot of sealed speakers you got to give them just a little bit of juice and so while the arendals may be a couple of bucks cheaper as speakers they may require you to invest more in a receiver or subwoofer or both which ultimately then drives the total cost of ownership for that line up higher than what you could get away with with the focals hope that made sense but it was it's a good comparison and again arendal great speaker great speaker and I know you're already going to flood the comments like when are you going to do the 17 whatever series and I don't know but the 1961 is fabulous but uh focals are pretty good all right guys that is now our review of the brand new focal thiva number one bookshelf speakers and their matching Center what did you guys think and I I honestly I want to know because two years ago ish it seems like everyone was talking about pho Cal and if we're going off metrics I don't know some of you did you have we forgot about focal are we ignoring for focal and if so why They Forgot About Dre They Forgot About Dre um because these are great if there is one Folk House speaker this year not to ignore it's actually their entry level if you like this video please do give it a thumbs up like And subscribe go ahead ring the bell so that you're notified when new videos come out if use any of the links that Christie's love for you down below know that that's a great way that you've continued to show your support for this Channel and the work that we both do here and both of us thank you all very much for doing that follow me on Instagram recovering audio file and that's it for us today so remember the only person who has to like the sound of your system is you so happy listening everybody thank you so much for watching and we will see you next Sunday with a brand new video bye foreign

Channel: Andrew Robinson

Views: 113,744

Keywords: focal speakers, focal speakers review, focal theva review, focal theva no 1, home theater speakers, speaker for small room, best speaker for small room, focal loudspeakers review, new focal speakers, focal home theater speaker, best focal speaker, focal loudspeakers, focal home theater speakers, focal speaker review, focal bookshelf speakers, focal chora vs theva, focal theva no 1 review, focal chora, Best Focal Speaker, When Entry Level OUTPERFORMS in HiFi

Id: mKI10MFynrQ

Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 20 2023