Audiophilepure

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“Play most any recording taken from a concert hall or other large acoustic space and you will “feel” the pressurizing of the room with these speakers. It’s amazing how much ultra-low low bass information there is on many of these recordings and how much that information enhances the illusion of your room being that same concert hall. There is a down side, though. It can get a little disconcerting when you can plainly hear the rumblings of the air ventilation system or the traffic outside the recording site. I hear way too much of this on Chesky’s Johnny Frigo with Bucky and John Pizzarelli and the other recordings made at the RCA Studio “A” site in New York City.

Another down side is that a speaker that goes this low with real authority, will excite room resonances and standing wave problems much more than speakers that don’t move as much air or that have limited range. I don’t have resonance problems in my “audio bunker,” my room being underground with concrete under the floor and on all four walls, but I do have a standing wave problem at about 34 and 37Hz due to the long straight and diagonal lengths of my room. With the Wilsons, they’re heard as only minor peaks—with the VR-4s, they’re quite a bit more prominent. Not to worry though, the problem is nicely solved with a few of ASC’s 20″ tube traps or some of Tyll Hertsen’s (Mr. Headroom’s) home brew frequency specific cancellation tubes. Let’s face it, you have to pay your dues if you want killer bass with no peaks.”

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“I’d actually asked a friend over to help with some fine-tuning and tweaking, but it turned out it wasn’t necessary because the minute the music started playing, it was obvious that the positioning was perfect, not least because the soundfield I experienced was virtually holographic from the outset, so that there was no way I could localise the sound as issuing from the speakers. It was as if the speakers didn’t exist, just the musicians.

I have experienced this before, of course, but rarely so perfectly from such large multi-driver loudspeakers, because a prerequisite for this level of performance is that the left and right speakers are perfectly matched, so this must certainly have been the case with my review pair. And by holographic soundfield, I am referencing not just the stereo imaging, but also the height and depth of the soundstage. It was the sonic equivalent of a hologram.”

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“The science of loudspeaker design is like any science: it obeys the law of diminishing returns. For anyone buying loudspeakers, this means that the more you pay, the better the sound will be, but there will eventually come a point at which the increased costs are not matched by similarly satisfying increases in sound quality.

The ideal is to find a speaker at the ‘sweet spot’ where the balance is just right for both your ears and your own budget. For me, the Focal Kanta No.3s represent that ‘sweet spot’. For you? You’ll obviously have to make that judgement for yourself – but I do sincerely recommend that you at least listen to a pair of Kanta No.3s… no matter what price you might originally have had in mind.”