Granted, I've only had these up and running for some hours, so their tone will still change quite a bit, but I thought I'd give some first impressions.
I switched from a pair of Yamaha HS80M's fed straight from a Profire2626 into a pair of Focal Twins and a Presonus Central Station, using the DA converter of the CS. Now, these monitors need some burning in before their sound settles down. I've already noticed quite a change, but the Focal manual states a minimum of 10h burn-in is required, and I've heard people recommending 80-120h burn ins. When I first powered them on, I instantly noticed the low mid definition. It's like browsing through the "mud" frequencies with a microscope. It's really hard to describe it other than just saying it's insanely accurate. I was a bit worried about the high end beforehand, since some people have said the Berylium tweeters can be a bit harsh sounding. This is not my experience with them at all so far. Comparing to the HS80M's, the hi-mid/high range is a lot softer but still very defined on the Twins. On a bit of a down side, I wasn't exactly astonished by the lowest lows at first. They were really tight and clear, but kinda "stiff." It only took a couple of hours of playing with moderate volumes for the woofers to loosen up a bit, and now the low end sounds excellent.
One thing even my girlfriend noticed was the stereo image. Compared to the HS80M's, it feels like going from 800x600 resolution to 1920x1080 when playing a game.
I'm not sure how much the tone will change over time once the burn in period is over, but I'm already absolutely sold and will definitely not return these, at least unless in the long run it turns out I can't get my mixes to translate, which I don't think is a likely scenario.
Here's a crappy pic of the setup:
I switched from a pair of Yamaha HS80M's fed straight from a Profire2626 into a pair of Focal Twins and a Presonus Central Station, using the DA converter of the CS. Now, these monitors need some burning in before their sound settles down. I've already noticed quite a change, but the Focal manual states a minimum of 10h burn-in is required, and I've heard people recommending 80-120h burn ins. When I first powered them on, I instantly noticed the low mid definition. It's like browsing through the "mud" frequencies with a microscope. It's really hard to describe it other than just saying it's insanely accurate. I was a bit worried about the high end beforehand, since some people have said the Berylium tweeters can be a bit harsh sounding. This is not my experience with them at all so far. Comparing to the HS80M's, the hi-mid/high range is a lot softer but still very defined on the Twins. On a bit of a down side, I wasn't exactly astonished by the lowest lows at first. They were really tight and clear, but kinda "stiff." It only took a couple of hours of playing with moderate volumes for the woofers to loosen up a bit, and now the low end sounds excellent.
One thing even my girlfriend noticed was the stereo image. Compared to the HS80M's, it feels like going from 800x600 resolution to 1920x1080 when playing a game.
I'm not sure how much the tone will change over time once the burn in period is over, but I'm already absolutely sold and will definitely not return these, at least unless in the long run it turns out I can't get my mixes to translate, which I don't think is a likely scenario.
Here's a crappy pic of the setup:
