Why so many used focals?

Prolly more ignorant than pretentious :)

It's just that the best speakers are not often available on the used market 'cuz people keep them.

They're bright and forward. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't really pay dividends in detail. Focal and brands of their ilk lead to one place: another ride on the merri-go-round.

@contuzzi

Magico A3. The speaker for someone who wants a Magico but can’t afford it. They are selling a lot based on that. Not that they’re bad, just that they’re getting lucky people have that expectation bias going into a listening session with them.

Nice. Pretty much the Mercedes A class then.

It’s pretty interesting all the sniping at Focal speakers by Wilson and Magico fans. Guess that means that Focal speakers have finally made it to the top tier.

I got 20% off my Kanta 2’s from a dealer NIB.  I sold them, but discounts can be had...IME.

I found the Kanta No. 2 bright and forward, on both Naim and McIntosh electronics, at my local dealer. 

Bright and forward are a thing of the past.  Sopra is definitely not bright and forward and they’ve been updating their entire line based around it’s new design.  This is just a dumb outdated trope in the audiophile world at this point.  

Hilarious to be called a mid-fi sound, truly.

Just like any other successful brand Focal has a line for every budget. I didn't find them bright or forward either. I just got caught up in how good a dedicated listening room can sound and now I don't think I need speakers after all. If I didn't already have decent speakers I could happily live with the Kanta 3 so don't take my returning them as a judgement.

Just a guess here but could it be they sound bright and forward?

Focal...   mid-fi.  This is the same company that has made drivers for many high end companies in the past including Wilson.  The same company that has some of the most expensive and possibly most beloved car audio in the world.  The same company that was making speakers like the Grande Utopia way before mega speakers were ever popular.  Same company that has taken the headphone world by storm and continues to do so...  the same company that has some of the most coveted pro audio monitors in the world.  

Anyone talking down focal is either ignorant, or pretentious.  What a joke.

I have the impression that focals are mid-fi.

You know, I’m 57 and I must admit to being more than a little frustrated with the whole High End journey I’ve been on for some 30 years now.  It always seemed to lead to something unobtainable...something I had in my early youth, but somehow was not able to regain.  Fun!  It just wasn’t there anymore.  It all became so serious....the relentless pursuit of some fictionalized ideal.  Why couldn’t I put on my favorite Zeppelin track or Yes album...Genesis or Pink Floyd without scratching my head?  Where did the emotional connection go?  Why did everything I play have to be audiophile approved to hear anything involving?  I used to feel the music.  Immerse myself in it.  The music was the event, not ogling my expensive gear.  Funny thing is, the systems that were the most fun were not necessarily audiophile approved.  Soooo...I’m going old school.  Ordered me a pair of JBL 4429’s!  Can’t wait to blast “In the Evening “!!

Magico A3.  The speaker for someone who wants a Magico but can’t afford it.  They are selling a lot based on that.   Not that they’re bad, just that they’re getting lucky people have that expectation bias going into a listening session with them.

These same people... what do you know, they happen to talk sh*t about Paradigm Personas because of the name.   So sad and so embarrassing.  

Funny. Let me guess you have the A3's. I heard more expensive magico's driven by some Dan'D you know 6 figure system and I liked the focals better. so much for taste. at least you know to never ask my advice.

Everybody is dumping them and moving on to something better such as Magico A3s.

Let me know how you like the replacements.

Bailed on my Kanta Speakers as well!

The Kanta 3's are going back! If they sounded in my room like they did in the showroom I would have kept them, but the demo showed me i'm trying to fix the wrong thing and it's my room that needs treatment. I appreciate my dealers patience working with me and I hope with some room treatments I won't need speakers after all. 

Steve59,

So did you keep the Kanta 3's?

ozzy

yea, they've changed how the search engine works. I type in Focal and 2 pages of speakers appear I hit the search button and they all disappear! then if I search from my phone I get a completely different list. 

Anyhow I finally got the Kanta 3's into my basement and am playing all my old rock collection. They're sensitive and don't need a ton of power, image great and have an open clean midrange and my wife likes the way they look! If I hadn't lucked into the Usher be-20 DMD's I probably would have bought the Kanta's but the speakers are more of a trade of qualities than one being a clear winner and my room is a *itch.

I just looked for Focal speakers on Audigon and found only ONE Maestro Utopia III.    Only ONE.

kosst, you bring up some great points in your post but what you describe regarding the speakers’ impedance variations (as a function of frequency) is nothing unique to Focals. With a very few exceptions, majority of the cone driven speakers have similar behavior and many sound pretty good when paired with McIntosh Autoformers. It mostly comes down to the listener preference. In general, I think more efficient/sensitive speakers with higher and more stable impedance tend to be less picky about the pairing amplifier in most systems/rooms.

The thread started when I started to research focal speakers from owners by checking forums and in comparison to other big players there wasn’t much activity . for example Dynaudio has 10,000 posts on a forum that focal has 1,000 then looking on the used market for price comparisons there’s as many or more focal speakers for sale....soo if, and this is really not science, but if there’s 10 to 1 active on the forums is it wrong to expect a comparative amount of trade volume? I’m sure there’s many reasons that have nothing to do with quality. Many people go online only when somethings wrong and that interpretation would suggest focal customers are more satisfied and upgrade within the same brand or are dealer promo's. there’s any number of ways to interpret the observation that have nothing to do with bashing the speakers I was seriously considering to be my LAST speaker purchase. Since finding these Usher BE20-DMD dancers i'm tapping the brakes on changing anything.

Another reason is this,Focal from the manufacturer level instituted a massive price drop on the Electra series 1028 and 1038 ,1038 dropped from 12,500 to 6995 for the pair at a lot major online players ,music direct ,world wide stereo,etc .other lines as well the 900 series at close to 50 % off !I’m hoping the same might happen to the sopra 2-3’s which would put my 1038’s in the for sale category.

I can’t recall the model of McIntosh amp I demoed on, but know it was a two-channel. However, I found a Stereophile review of these McIntosh solid state mojo blocks. See: https://www.stereophile.com/content/mcintosh-mc501-monoblock-power-amplifier-measurements-0

The output impedance was no higher than 0.20 ohms from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, resulting in a frequency response variation of +/- 0.1 dB, regardless of which tap was used. So I really don’t think that it would have made a meaningful difference with the Focals assuming the amp I listened on was similar.

I am not familiar with their electronics, but know it was a solid state amp the dealer had set up. Can you please clarify?

Agreed. The Kanta No. 2 sucks, and I could only take 10-15 minutes of it, turning the volume down (on McIntosh electronics no less) constantly. I feel the same way about the Paradigm Persona 3F. 

It's not the beryllium. I use Focal Utopia headphones, so I'm familiar with the Be coloration (and use them on a neutral solid state amp).  

ozzy3,584 postsCheck out my review of the Sopra 2's.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/my-speaker-journey-and-focal-sopra-2

ozzy
That matched my experience with the Sopra as well.  While I was nicer to the dealer.  My comment to the dealer was, 
"I've spent too much time with soft domes.  I would not be able to listen to that tweeter for very long."He was offended and tried to tell me that "I was not used to hearing so much detail."
Oh I hear the detail just fine with my tubes and soft domes.  Thank you very much.  In reality, that tweeter is defective.  For proof, look at the Stereophile measurements of the Sopra 3.  There is a serious resonance peak at 10k.  It is annoyingly audible.

Too bad, because I really like the rest of their voicing philosophy of the gently downward sloping frequency response. 

If ToneAudio says this is the best version of their BE tweeter then well, wow.

IMO, they would really be onto something if they abandoned that tweeter for a ribbon or a smooth sounding soft dome.

It's quite difficult to draw too many definitive conclusions about why products from a particular brand might be sold at a given time on the used market. People don't possess the same ears. If they did, there would be only one brand for sale. When people reject a particular brand because of the sound, what they really mean is that the sound doesn't appeal to *their* ears.

High end local dealers won't stay for too long unless they have online sale and have an attractive price policy. For example, the hassle of buying bulky items online is that if you want to return, the shipping fee and insurance will be hundreds of dollars. So a local dealer can match the online price. (Again, dealers make good profit on speakers anyway.) In the case a customer wants to return the speakers, the restocking fee then will be charged comparable to the shipping fee. Anyway, In the Unites States, the high end business will die with the baby boomer generation (my generation) and may be even before that because our ears gradually can no longer hear sound in details as we did 20 years ago.

The thread has been positive for the most part and my model works for me and has a pretty substantial downside as in I have to wait! Anybody who pays retail gets all the value that comes with it, something I sacrifice waiting for my price and often I don't get what I want.

Someone is sounding a bit like the deal he thought he got from his stereo store wasn’t such a deal after all.

Like I said, sometimes it takes awhile. I demo’d a pair of speakers from tweeter years ago and told the dealer I loved them and when he could find 30% off the list price to call me, they were the VA beethovens and it took about 4 or 5 months but he called and I bought them right over the phone. I don’t have your price sheet in front of me and if I did it probably wouldn’t mean much to me anyhow. I know from a business perspective though a sale is better than no sale and profit margins are (generally)what the market will bear. There’s a guy who’s ears I trust tell me he considered the Kanta 2’s to be a $6000 speaker while he thought the persona 3f would compete at $12k. If I don’t like them they’re worth 0 to me. If the kanta 3 turns out to be ’the’ speaker I end up with they’ll be worth waiting for.
I didn’t realize I was implying anything when I was stating my criteria for buying hifi products.

I don’t know of any dealer who will normally give a discount and completely remove it because they brought you some speakers.   Are you 60 miles from the store or something?

You are making some very foolish assumptions.  

Oh, and 30% off a speaker that a store is only making 42~ points on?  ROFLMAO.  

As a rule I don't buy anything hifi new without a 30% discount so when it comes to new releases like the Kanta 3 it might take awhile for me to own it. There's another aspect, if they have to drive the demo's to my house, shlepp them down the stairs, set them up, and then if I like them here, borrow the demos til my order arrives and then have them come back and collect the demos how much of a discount should I expect? NONE!
If they'll let me pick up and return the demos using my own time and trouble thats another story.

I bought those speakers three years ago, not today sir. For any speakers, not only focal speakers, you can make a deal with at least 20% especially in today high end market. Dealers don't like it, of course. A dealer in Virginia will accept any reasonable deal for many branches of speakers. Again, if you plan to buy speakers, think of at least 20% because speakers have greater margin than components.

Focal is a mass market loudspeaker builder thus many focals arround lots of discounting on focal products if buying a pair dont pay retail.

IMO, those older JM Labs/Focal speakers are still plenty relevant. Values and bargains are to be found to be sure. Newer is not always better.
Those models match well with solid state or tubed gear too.

Happy Listening!

I'm not sure why we're discussing Focal speakers of yesteryear that aren't really relevant anymore.  If you're actually interested in top notch performance, Focal starts with Kanta, moves up through Sopra and ends with Utopia.  And you'll be lucky to get more than 10-15% discount on any of those from a legit dealer.

Everything you mentioned has been discontinued for awhile and are all on clearance.

Also, you’re wrong about dealer cost, of course.  

I didn’t come here to spread false information. I bought a pair of 1038 be $10,500, the CC1008 $2100, a pair of 1008 Be $3100, a pair of SR 1000 be (used as new) $3000, a third SR 1000 be (used as new) $600, the Dome 2.1 $600, the Clear Pro $1200. Send me your email, I’ll show you the dealers and even the invoices. The dealer cost of most speakers is 50%, may be as low as 40%. People think Music Direct is the best place to get a good deal. There are at least two better places with even better price.

philkoan: What body part do you pull those numbers out of? Even 20% off Focal speakers would be pushing it. I don’t know of a speaker line with a smaller margin. They sell through a distributor and do NOT have the same margin as other speakers . Seeing some discontinued models or finishes at Music Direct etc at 30% off doesn't count.  ANY manufacturer presents scenarios like that at times and that is in no way unique to Focal.

I could see 20%~ off some of the higher end Utopias as there is more to play with, but otherwise, you are just spreading hilariously false information. I have seen the price sheets.

This place....