Focal Tantal 520 Floorstanding Speakers

Focal Tantal 520 Floorstanding Speakers 

DESCRIPTION

3Way

USER REVIEWS

Showing 1-4 of 4  
[Mar 15, 2002]
juris
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Good sound for the price. No apparent faults. May give life-like impression for some recordings.

Weakness:

I do not think one could expect much more for the price. Well, bookshelf Chorus 706 has better midrange - I understand that Chorus line have improved midrange drivers; thus (a guess by induction) a floorstanding Chorus speaker may be a better option for similar price. But, then again, Chorus seems to be just a replacement for Tantal line. Not bi-wirable.

I bought these 2 years ago to replace some domestical nothings I had before (thus without much experience). The other options available in local stores at this price range were several Tannoy models (probably Mercury m5, Saturn S6), Audio Monitor (Silver 5i), something from AE and a couple of others I don''t remember. After the several auditions Tantal 520 came out as a clear winner with no apparent competitors (although I realised that there are better speakers available, but these were considerably more expensive). I have been quite satisified with them for these 2 years and, although I am starting to look for an upgrade now, I still find them very enjoyable and sometimes even wonder whether it will be really worth to spend much larger amount of money for a noteworthy upgrade. The sound is clean and well balanced and (depending from the recording) sometimes may give life-like experience. They do not have any apparent weaknesses (ie. practically anything that seems to be well recorded sounds reasonably good). There is some lack of precision at least in bass and midrange (piano and percussion sometimes sound more natural on JMLab Chorus 706 (bookshelf model), which I got later for another room). The sounstage is not very detailed, but still reasonable. The bass is convincing and rarely causes suspicions (though sometimes it happens - but then, it may be the problem of room arangement). Just very recently I noticed that there are some frequencies that causes small resonance - I can not tell which frequencies, but there is a spot in a bass range (the only "bad" recording that shows this is "Era 2"), and even less noticeable spot somewhere in upper midrange (can be heard sometimes in female vocals (sopranos)). However I do not consider these to be a real problem. The "best" material for these speakers seems to be male vocals (including many of rock music in this category) - I still feel fascinated how life-like these may sound. Equipment: Initially they were used with Marantz - PM68 amplifier and Yamaha CDC-775 CD player. Currently Marantz has been replaced by Alpha 10 - this was an improvement (most noticeably in midrange precision); however the performance with Marantz also was quite good. Ratings: Since I am looking for upgrade I feel that I need to give less than maximal ove

Similar Products Used:

JMLab Chorus 706

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
5
[Jun 22, 2001]
sven hijdra
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Makes music, well produced pop-music, powerfull as it should be, the sound is terrific. It can give each kind of music the sound how it was mend to be.

Weakness:

If you want to know one, they are not small, but for me none.

I allready noted that I searched for quit a long time. My musical taste is from classical to hardcore, from hardcore to jazz and from jazz to techno, bleeps and noise. So I needed speakers who could do them all. I am very demanding so that was difficult and my income is not enough for the super-expensive speakers around.
Now I have a super-expensive sound within my reach and I am very happy. I bought them black, neutral.

Similar Products Used:

I listend to many speakers in the same price-class when I was looking for new ones. I use to have Marantz oldies, they sounded great, but I am very happy with these

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Jul 22, 1999]
Frederic
an Audio Enthusiast

I have associated the Tantal 520 with my Yamaha DSP-A2 amplifier and I was really astonished by the sound quality provided by these loudspeakers.I really prefer the JM-Lab sound compared to JBL or Tannoy.

These loudspeakers provide a very good sound and are capable of accepting without any problem the power provided by my amplifier. Very good.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
[Mar 05, 2001]
jordan schultz
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

bass high end sound

Weakness:

at high volumes the bass starts to get drowned out by the high end

i have had these speakers for nearly a month now and i am and enthusiastic listener of music, whether it be techno mozart, rap or alternative. I use my speakers on average 3-4 hours a day and i am happy with the results. To be honest they are beyound my wildest dreams for performance. Those little 7's compare with my 2 10's in my hitachies and my 1 12 in my technics. For the amount i paid and the products i have heard for anywhere over and up to 1000 dollars more my speakers will compete and actually kick some ass except for bass with speakers. I am now thinking of buying a pair of tantal 509's to use as my rear surround speakers and am going to buy a volodyne hgs-10 within the next 4-5 months. I am not questioning the price of any thing jm lab makes but it is going to take me time to assemble the money to buy my dream system.

I would put my speakers up against a pair of NHT VT-2 or any pair of NUANCE speaker on the market.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
Showing 1-4 of 4  

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