Hey Guys, Im getting a new ute either on the weekend or next week sometime, and i am going to put in some focal utopia Be kit 7's and wondered what setup you guys would use?



if you answer please feel free to explain why you chose what you did.



also if you would set them up a different way that i havn't got in the list please specify this aswell.



cheers, Grant.

The Focal crossover is a work of art, and the Dual Monitor is designed to mate with the Utopia range perfectly.

I have the last series Focal Utopia 3-way system, and honestly I can say I have never been as dispointed with set of speakers as them. I honestly hated them, everytime I listened to them, I became annoyed.

I sold them as quick as I could. I only hope the new series ones are better.

That or your ears will be punished with harshness

Good luck

Have a chat to Marty from FHRX - I'm pretty sure he's running the Focal BE's and Dual monitor in his 200SX.

yeah he is, i was chatting to him yesterday, he was very helpful

Come down across the border and have a listen champ! You're about to spend enough to warrant the trip.

For me personally I would recommend the Kit 7 and DM for the same reason Fury did. The crossblock has all the components to handle phase and linearity issues and the DM is designed to work with the Beryllium kits. However, you could always chose the option of running a better amplifier such as a Tru-Tech Copper C7 or Zapco C2K 6.0X too.

On the subject of my car; after scoring very well in everything except stage height during the last comp (and after extensive testing) I have moved the mids and tweeters on the A pillars. Should be ready for tuning tomorrow (we're just vacuum forming the pillars in vinyl at the moment).

nice that looks pretty sweet so far, and the tweeters look awsome.

Well here is the old position. It sounded fantastic but wasn't quite high enough in the midrange (note; not treble - it was high enough).

do you have apic of your boot?

Go with the crossblock and the DM.

It's one seriously hardcore hunk o' metal.

so is the DM.

Just a note Drew at Northfield is doing much the same in his Pathfinder Focal Utopia, up high in A pillar region. A bit closer drive then Marty @ FHRX. Though I believe Drew is still a little while off finishing them so you may have to wait a bit for a listen.

Here are a couple:













And if you want a photo of under the bonnet:

I prefer active

me too, active is cool,

although with the xblock, it gives you so much tunablilty, and im sure focal chose components to give a certaiin sound to the Be's...

go crossblock, and get the dual mon...

I'm with Pulse-R... if it were my choice, i'd go active off some Sinfoni or Brax amps

i know in asia a lot of the guys run them passive with the butler tube gear. the tubes are meant to mellow down the harshness of the focals nicely.

Question is, do they 'mellow' them, or do they 'blunt' them?



I'm a little so-so on the idea of tube amps myself.. the thought of electronics that intentionally colour sound is a tad of a turn off for me.. but then I know alot of others prefer the extra warmth.



Each to his own

I have never done a pair of the No7's but have done quite a few of the No6's both active and passive with the crossblock and I easily prefered passive over active. Regardless of how much tuning we did just couldnt get it to sound as good.

I voted to get the Crossblock with the dual monitor as this still gives you plenty of control over the sound but will sound great straight out of the box. As far as the Uniq crossover goes unfortunately I have never heard that setup so cant comment on comparison between the other two options but will know early next month as we are doing that exact system ( HXD2, Utopia No7, Uniq crossover, Dual monitor ). But by then you probably would have made your decision already.

Why? .... Think of it this way, you bought your speakers because they had a certain sound which you enjoyed right??? And your speakers sound that way because they impart there own sound, tone, color etc... to the music!

So why should an amp, HU, or ported vs sealed box be any different. When you think of it that way why should an amp be any different.

What if I told you it is solid state amplifiers that add their grainy, cold, harsh high order distortion/colouration to the music?

Like I said in my first post. You need to be able to deal with phase and linearity issue somehow. If you have a serious EQ (either external or internal as is the case with the DM) then by all means run them active. Otherwise, you would be nuts not to use the crossblock as a tuning tool.



Interesting choice with the Sinfoni's dude; I didn't realise you had used them before?

You are saying a sub enclosures should be built to be in-accurate? I can understand the appeal of tube amps, but that one I can't at all agree with.

In my opinion, electronics should impose as little modification of the signal as possible. Speakers add enough distortion to sound as it is, so the last thing you want to do is to add even more through your amps, source, enclosures, etc.

A speaker can be adjusted for accuracy if need by through adjustments of crossover points, EQ, time alignment, and proper isntallation.

If your electronics aren't accurate, then you're stuck with it. I don't really like that idea..

I guess everyone has a different reason for liking what they do. Some people get more enjoyment out of listening to a sound system that scrifices accuracy for warmth and a more pleasant sound.

I get more enjoyment hearing a song as it was recorded, or as it was meant to be heard. This way I feel I have more appreciation for the music itself, rather then the gear being used to reproduce it.



All amplifiers add distortion to some degree. That said, it's my understanding (correct me if i'm wrong - I may be) that solid state amps tend to be more 'technically accurate' , whilst tube amps tend to sacrifice some technical accuracy for subjectively more pleasant signature 'warmth'.

While no amplifier is perfectly accurate, the more accurate is the better amp in my opinion.

That said, I'll be completely honest - I've not yet actually heard a tube amp so I'm mainly drawing assumptions from what I've heard and/or read, and hence if I'm wrong about solid state amps being more accurate, then tell me

Remember also, this is all just my own view. If others out there appreciate the added warmth of tube tube electronics then I entirely accept and understand that



Wouldn't imagine that linearity would be a big factor if going active - you have individual crossoves, EQ and gain levels to deal with all that.

Phasing can however, be an issue. That said I'm thinking the results of that can be reduced by getting the speaker positioning right initially.

I may be wrong, though as phasing is one realm I'm still a little touch-and-go on.



Haven't used them before personally, in my own car.

That said, I've heard them in action (in someone else's car) seen them in the flesh, and read a lot about in international reports from users, installers and reviewers. On an international level, Sinfoni seem to have a reputation that holds them in a very high regard up amoung the absolutely upper echelon of car amplifiers - right up there with Brax, Genisis, Butler and the higher level Tru-Tech gear.

Here in Aus they aren't yet well known because they only just came over here, but run an international search and you will tend to find nothing but massive praise.

These few brands (from what I've seen) tend to always be the first ones mentioned in any major internation debates over what are 'the best amps'.

In the flesh visually, the attention to detail, styling and overall build quality are up there with the very best I have seen. Much like the Brax, they are absolutely built like a tank.

I was tossing up between these and the Brax initially to replace my ARC's and originally was going for the Sinfoni.. but the when I found the Brax I decided to go down that avenue instead.

Yeah the only Sinfoni's I have heard were in George's car when he brought it down to the shop a few months ago.

Hence why I said if you do have an EQ then active or passive is irrelevant so far as linearity is concerned. However if you do not have an EQ, some of the Crossblocks features come in mighty handly when trying to tune irregularities out.

Ahhhhhhhhhh sorry dude, I missed that bit

Hey Muzzy, check this out, it has changed my mind somewhat in regard to solid state and tube amplifiers...

btw, I'd also throw Milbert into the high end that you were quoting, often called the best amplifier in the world.

http://www.stereo.net.au/forum/index.php?showtopic=2512

The Milbert is by far the best amplifier I have ever heard. Unfortunately, it is massively expensive, massively big and massively addictive.....

What are the actual dimensions of the beast? Shame they don't make a 4 channel for 5k....

Ahh yeahhh Milbert. I knew I forgot one

ahh yes, the 'flux capacitor'


Analog amplifiers are not what they used to be, and neither are tube amps - the days of noise, hum and waiting an hour for the amp to warm up are mostly long gone, unless of course you still love using old-skool gear. The improvment in technology has brought tubes a long way, some would say to the point where the 'tube' sound has lost it's soul and character - because of the electronics evolution.

I say there's a place for everything and everything in it's place. Sorry tube amp fans, but I firmly believe tube amps belong with fender stratocasters, gibson les Paul's and 335's and SG's where they were 'born' into the music world, and their 'sound' came from the guitar players who plugged in and turned them up.

Yes, I love the sound of a tube amp. BTW, tubes cost a sh**load to replace these days, and they're getting real hard to find. Exact replacements are what you need too, not some generic one. there's a lot to be said for different tubes, more than there is to be said for different models of different brands of car audio power amplifiers. (They've been around a lot longer too)

I've got a different take on music than some, maybe it's because I'm a muso. ?

my take is simple. You use the tools to create the sound you like (tube preamp / line-driver etc, plus effects). You take that sound (a sound you 'like') and record it with analog or digital gear, depending on your budget. how much of an audiophile or perfectionist you are becomes obvious at this stage, not so much later..

the source is what you have to work with, isn't it.... so for this example, I'm eliminating all the variables here and will state that the result for this particular example that i'm putting forth is an accurate Digitally mastered signal.
or if you like in cd-speak a DDD recording.

What you do after that, depends on how you want to hear it. tube amp / digital amp..... it's personal.

however if we talk about accurate reproduction, that also means adjustments in the car for EQ, TD, sibilance and a bunch of other factors, over and above adjusting the amp's linearity (or lack of) on output.
again, the advantage here is that a non-tube amp suffers less from 'walk' (the change in sound as the valves warm up and cool down, how much power is applied etc) Walk is hard to adjust for, because it's never exactly the same, the flux is variable on a magnitude far greater than solid state gear.

Let's not overburden ourselves with a discussion on solid-state amps with tube preamps just yet, ok? read on...

So for SQ, for 'reproduction' of the sound, you want accuracy. Accuracy is Zero or One. thats a digital signal, as far as you can use it. all the way to the amp if you can, and yes you have to use analog to drive the speakers obviously, but that reduces your weaknesses in a system to simply the d/a converter quality (components- head unit, amp- the digital source) and speaker quality, install quality and the quality of the recording.

So I use D.O output from my 'headunit' into a D.O input on my Focal DM. No rocket science there. The signal from the mac is digital optical all the way to the amp's D/A converter. Thats just reducing the physical layer complexity to the lowest common factor. less bits equals less possible sources of distortion.

But the difference is that I can know exactly what the signal is going in, and I can measure the signal going out and directly compare the waveform.I know what output waveform to expect for a given input, and if I were perdantic, I'd correct any anomalies there. Then I'd measure same with the speakers installed and compare the waveform and adjust the level and eq accordingly, because I know what the input is and know what the output should be in proportion.
This is so much harder to account for with a true tube amp because of the 'walk'

as an aside, many digital amps have some very tricky circuitry in them to stop the harsh 0dB 'clip' and now scale the output waveform so that the peak amplitude is a fraction under 0dB, meaning you get the same waveform 'shape' without the loss @ the clip level. analog amps don't clip, they just drive the signal into distortion, so this is where many people perceive the tube wins over solid state.... and yes, it could, but you have to control the input and output gains so much more tightly, and always drive the signal with the least amount of power necessary to achieve the level you want. way harder to do on a true tube amp.

So thats about as pedantic as I get. some days I don't give a toss, and love to enjoy cassette hiss, because there is something about an analog recording or just plugging in and ripping it up that appeals to some visceral nerve.

That also happens to be where the rolloff between SQ and SPL Junkie seems to occur.

I don't believe there are any hard and fast rules in what amp you use, what headunit you use. you have chosen some awesome speakers, now the trick is getting the best out of them by tuning them to your car's environment.

oh and guess what. it won't ever be perfect, because we are human.

Just enjoy the sound for what it is, and tune it as best you can, using whatever amplification you like/can afford - and if you're not happy get a pro to help.

Thats what I do anyway.

(edited for some really bad typos, left the less important ones)

Spoken like a true master - much respect

Word.

i went the full kit 7 but not the dual monitor, as i couldn't afford it at the minute, but i might upgrade in the near future