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Author Topic: Focal Twins Be  (Read 29154 times)

maarvold

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #15 on: August 29, 2010, 05:06:20 PM »

bob ebeling wrote on Tue, 24 August 2010 02:55


Focal Twin 6's are the most honest monitor ever, force you to work harder than any other monitor to get the magic happening, and reward you with incredible results that go beyond what you expect, pulling new heights out of your own mixing.

If you don't understand working hard to get a great mix then don't buy Focal monitors.  If you are confused by what you hear when you listen to Focals in a good room, chalk it up to your own inexperience.  




I would paraphrase what I think Bob is driving at by saying that I want my monitors to give me correct information... most, or all, of the information... that will make the decisions I make be reflected when my mixes are played back in the outside world.  When you can hear your mix played back on a laptop, in the car, coming out of a phone as a client plays back the MP3 you just sent, in a theater, over a tv set, etc., and you say to yourself, "that's what I did" your monitors are doing their job.  
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Michael Aarvold
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tom eaton

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #16 on: August 29, 2010, 06:37:53 PM »

Michael, that's very different from saying that one particular monitor will perfectly suit every user in every room with every tendency.

The reason there are so many professionals using so many different kinds of monitors is that every person's room and preferences are different.  

Are you still using room correction, Michael?  Have you heard the Focals in question?

t

bob ebeling

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #17 on: August 29, 2010, 08:36:42 PM »

Tom, calm down with the english lessons. 'ever' is my sentence, my experience.  

I believe they are amazing and have not found another monitor so honest, revealing, and dependable that gives me consistent incredible results.

I don't think I've tried every monitor ever made, but I've used probably 90% of the big hitters and alsays found myself puzzled and the results even more puzzling.

When I engineer in another room I make sure to take a CD of reference tunes, show up early and try to acclimate myself.  I've had nothing but bad experiences with Adams, Quested, and especially Genelec to name just a few.  Especially Genelec.

The Focal Twins for me are perfect. I trust absolutely what they tell me,the translation is always euphoric.  For me, they are easily the best monitor in the entire world, EVER!.
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Bob Ebeling
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Glenn Bucci

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #18 on: August 30, 2010, 08:05:15 AM »

bob ebeling wrote on Sun, 29 August 2010 20:36

Tom, calm down with the english lessons. 'ever' is my sentence, my experience.  

I believe they are amazing and have not found another monitor so honest, revealing, and dependable that gives me consistent incredible results.

I don't think I've tried every monitor ever made, but I've used probably 90% of the big hitters and alsays found myself puzzled and the results even more puzzling.

When I engineer in another room I make sure to take a CD of reference tunes, show up early and try to acclimate myself.  I've had nothing but bad experiences with Adams, Quested, and especially Genelec to name just a few.  Especially Genelec.

The Focal Twins for me are perfect. I trust absolutely what they tell me,the translation is always euphoric.  For me, they are easily the best monitor in the entire world, EVER!.


Wow, well I can't say the Focal Twins are the best, since I have not yet heard the PMC TB2S AII   http://www.gearslutz.com/board/good-news-channel/524655-pmc- tb2s-aii-monitors-amazing.html  The Genelec 8260A's that Bob Katz uses, or the new Adam  S3X-H. I think once you get to this quality, a lot of it (besides room treatment) has to do with your personal taste on what kind of monitor character you like best. However I had a very hard time finding monitors that I liked better than the Focal Twins that were under $4,000. When I work with the Twins, I forget about the monitors, I focus on the music. That is the biggest compliment I can give a speaker.
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tom eaton

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #19 on: August 30, 2010, 08:11:05 AM »

Hi Bob-

No English lesson, just a question of perspective.  Glad you've found a monitor that really works for you!  

I've never heard an Adam, Quested or Genelec that sounds right either!  I so want to love point source Tannoys because the concept is so intellectually right, but they all sound broken to me.  It took me years and years to settle on what I have (Dynaudio M2), but I still spend 10% of my work time on other sets for additional perspective.

I find the design of the Focals really interesting, because they are a three-way, but backwards from every other three way ever made.  Usually you get articulate midrange by getting the low end out of your midrange driver, but in the Focals they're doing exactly the opposite.  Both 6.5" drivers carry all the bottom, and one does midrange also.  The crossovers must be really well designed if they sound good, given that one driver is rolling out midrange (with no phase shift?) while the same driver right next to it carries the midrange in its original relation to the bottom.  I would think you'd get all kinds of weirdness where the "bass" driver rolls out against the "bass and middle" driver.

Does Mercenary have a demo pair of these that circulate?  i'd love to hear them.

tom


Glenn Bucci

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2010, 08:15:33 AM »

My understanding is there is less low end on the mid/bass woofer, compared to the dedicated bass woofer. So this is one of the reasons why this system works the way it does.

Tom, I checked out your studio....very nice! I am sure Mercenary Audio has the Twins for you to check out. I think you would be very pleased with the Twins.
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bob ebeling

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #21 on: August 30, 2010, 11:12:32 AM »

Cool Tom!  Sounds like we are in the same boat full of ears.  hehe

I'm sure Mercenary loans to a cat such as yourself, or I could PM you my guy at Sweetwater who has been the coolest proaudio guy I've ever dealt with and I'm sure he would set you up, (with a little 30 day return policy method, maybe better?)

God, of all the things in the world I could wish for it would be that Tom Eaton gets to have some Focal Twins in his control room for the next couple months.  Seriously.  If you are doumbfounded with Genelec and others like I am, I would love knowing that your life would be filled with joy and learning for a long time.

I honestly didn't know what to think when I first got the Twins in.  I switched up from the Solos, and the Solos were obvious intantly to me, I loved them but they were light as hell below 50.  

Reading the threads, good trustable sources were saying just go up to the Twins, screw the sub, and I'm not a sub guy, so that's what I did.

The first few months I actually felt disappointed.  The Solos were funner to listen to and I used to put CD's on just for enjoyment.  I couldn't do that with the Twins.  I expanded the GIK trapping in my room and things got a bit better.  I bought more GIK, things started to get really good.  I redid the room.  Studied some physics and 30 degree angles, etc.. redid my room.

The Twins will not lie!  Until I got 23 GIK Monsters and 244's in my control room, they showed me that my room sounded bad.  When I finally got things right in the room, I noticed a big difference between my left and right ear midrange response.  I wanted to blame the speakers, but switched them and couldn't blame them.  I went through my entire system.  Nothing to blame.

I went to a specialist (Dr.) and he showed me how I have a slight difference in the angle and shape of my ears.  My left ear is ever so slightly tighter to the head and doesn't have this fun little bump near the main entrance.  The difference is about 3% by sight, but until I had the Focal Twins I would have never known!  The Twins make it glaringly obvious every day.  I have some tricks to work around it and a possible invention in the works.  

I think this in itself is pretty crazy and amazing.

So after a year of totally questioning the Twins, actually at times hating them, after this knowledge about my ears came to light, I suddenly loved the Focals with a pure love reserved for only very special things.

Like, I know my wife will not lie to me and that forms part of the foundation of our beautiful marriage.  Well, I know the Focal Twins will not lie to me and since I accepted that fact as reality and started working from that premise, I have made many miracles happen with these Twins.  Because as soon as I hear something, I have a judgement that is so purely tied to knowledge now, that I am able to know the right thing to do or not to do instantly.

The quality of my work is steadily increasing almost in reciprocal proportion to my knowing the Twins.

I could understand why alot of people would hate these.  I just don't think they understood why they hated them.

On a pure enjoyment factor I have to give them a zero out of 10!  maybe a 1.
On a pure truth to microscopic scintific rediculous proportions i have to give them a 9.8 or 9.9 out of 10.

They are the tools of a scientist.



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Bob Ebeling
bobebeling.bandcamp.com
Virginia

Samc

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #22 on: September 14, 2010, 09:15:28 PM »

bob ebeling wrote on Tue, 24 August 2010 10:55

Sam Clayton has established that he has a vendetta out for Focal.

Didn't say single a word about their monitors, didn't say anything bad or untrue about the company....

Dude, how long did it take you to arrive at this brilliant conclusion?    
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Sam Clayton

bob ebeling

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #23 on: September 15, 2010, 07:36:46 AM »

I'll let your own words speak for you here Sam, sorry if my conclusion is off, but when you start throwing out the big C word on a pro audio forum it's usually not a supportive gesture.
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Bob Ebeling
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Barish

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #24 on: September 24, 2010, 06:26:35 PM »

In the last studio I have done the acoustic treatment for, they had a pair of Focal Twin Be's and a pair of Adam S4As. I have used both of them for weeks while tuning the room to the customer's satisfaction, and after judging the results with the outside world for some 20 days, neither me nor the client considered to hold on to the S4As in the room anymore.

B.
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M Ozturk

Glenn Bucci

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #25 on: September 25, 2010, 09:37:04 PM »

Update on mixing with the Twins:
I found in my room when the bass is full and strong on playback, it's too much in the car or home stereo on playback. When the bass is well balanced with the high's and mid's, it sounds perfect on other sources. For playback for customers when you want to impress them with a big sound, I think having the Sub 6 with the Twins would be best. I don't need it for mixing, but for playback on a finished product, it would be nice. It would be helpful in mastering as well to hear freq's lower than 40Hz. Not buying it at this point, but it is something in the back of my mind.

What I have done to help my situation is I boost the bass contour to the 1st line past 0. This adds a little more umph to the bass so my mixes sound fuller on playback, and I now mix with the slightly stronger bass which in turn sounds great on different sources since in reality the bass is really more even on different sources. Don't need the sub now, though it still could be nice.
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Nicky D

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #26 on: September 29, 2010, 09:47:33 PM »

I'm gonna go ahead and say that I'm in agreement with Bob...they are not great to me because they sound good...not at all....but for some reason, they do make you work really hard  especially in the low mids to get something exciting and for some reason they translate really well everywhere else...they don't lie.
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Glenn Bucci

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Re: Focal Twins Be
« Reply #27 on: December 09, 2010, 05:18:56 PM »

I had a chance to compare the Focal Twins to the Genelec 8050's. The Genelec's sound great and have a great stereo image.

I have to admit that I prefer the sound of the Gen's in my studio. They have a more even and relaxed sound. The Twins are a little too mid forward (in comparison) and they lack some of the depth I hear with the Gen's. I don't hear a 3 dim sound with the Twins like I did with the Gen's. With that being said, I found I preferred mixes with the Twins on many difference sources. Since the end results is the most important thing, I choose to stay with the Twins. The vocals and guitars are more forwward in the mix and the high hat sound and mix was better. The Gen mix's are more even sounding with the instruments and vocals in my studio. If I had a pair of Yamaha NS 10's or another mid forward monitor to work with the Gen's, that would probably be the best of both worlds. But I have a lot of respect for the newer Genelec monitors. They are pretty quiet too.
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