Tyler Acoustics Highland H3.5 or Focal Aria 936


I am trying to decide if I want to move away from my Aria 936s to the H3.5s. The H3.5s use top notch scanspeak mid range and woofer drivers and they have the scanspeak beryllium tweeter. Problem is, I can’t listen to them first. Will they be better than the 936s? I have read that the Tyler Acoustics products punch way above their price and compete with much more expensive speakers. They are definitely a risk though, if I don’t like them there will be a huge hit taken because of the relatively unknown brand. What do you do when faced with a conundrum like this?
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If you like you're current Aria 936s, there's huge risk that you may prefer them.  My advice is to hold onto them until you're certain you prefer the Tylers.  If you don't, best case scenario is to resell the new speakers at a loss.  

With that said, risk of disappointment is part of the price we pay for an upgrade.  No risk means no change, so no chance of improvement. 

What electronics and cable are you using?

I'm going to comment based on my experience with different types of drivers.  The Focal Aria use their new flax/fiberglass drivers for mids and woofers.  These are warmer and have more body than the previous Focal drivers.  However, the high frequencies can have a bright edge to the sound on these speakers due to the metal dome tweeters.  Metal has a low breakup/distortion frequency that is easily heard.

I would say Tyler Acoustics is more like the powerful underdog.  They are not well known.  They make a variety of speakers with different driver combinations (Tyler does not have one voice).  The new Highland H3.5 uses Scan-Speak drivers for both mids and tweeters.  The beryllium tweeter will not have the bright edge and distortion that you hear from the Focal metal dome tweeter.  However, the Scan-Speak mids and woofers are incredibly transparent and revealing.  So much that it will show flaws in your electronics and cabling.  Scan-Speak is not warm sounding like the Focal Aria.  However, it is not thin sounding like the conventional Focal speakers.  It is very easy to get a Scan-Speak speaker to sound bad with common "consumer electronics" level equipment.  Don't get me wrong, Scan-Speak can sound excellent with the right equipment.  However, put something like a sterile harsh Hegel or Cambridge unit and you get a harsh sound with quick listening fatigue.

 

So, to sum it up, the Focal Aria is more forgiving in the mids and lows than the Scan-Speak.  However, the Scan-Speak does not have the bright edge high frequencies that the Focal Aria does.