Focal Electra 936 Floorstanding Speakers

Focal Electra 936 Floorstanding Speakers 

DESCRIPTION

  • Bi-Wiring Compatible
  • Impedance 8
  • Number of Speakers 4
  • Power admitted (Watts) 250
  • Bandwith 35-23000 Hz
  • Sensibility (dB/W/m) 92.0

USER REVIEWS

Showing 1-2 of 2  
[Aug 29, 2011]
Anders Jonsson
Audio Enthusiast

These speakers are one of the best i`ve ever heard, i have connected them to a Electrocompaniet ECI-1 amp with abrahamsen Dac V6.0 and a Marantz cd6000, the cables are MIT terminators.
The level of detail is in my opinion very high, and the speakers are very neutral sounding with the electrocompaniet tube like sound output, i would not recommend connecting them to a britgt sounding amp setup.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Jun 28, 2009]
Steven A. Mechanic
Audio Enthusiast

These speakers were the last of the Focal 936 Electras. It had already been released with the Be tweeter although mine are the contempory less costly Tioxid 5 solld at that time. The speaker is a 52" tall and large ported cantlerverd 4 driver model with 2 x 7 inch woofers a 5.5 inch mid and 1 inch inverted dome tweeter.
These are in general a PITA to get sounding right.I bought them for the incredibly detailed sound in the showroom that their slightly smaller brother (927) had but these were being replaced and the price lower than MSRP never done by Focal.
The sound was much too much woof for me and sounded very bassy. The high end was very analytic and more than I cared for. I was simply royally bummed. This was by far my biggest investment in audio. I owned a Musical Fidelity 308 integrated rated at 150 wpc but is clearly very high current and never ran out of gas. I tried for four years to make them sound right. I went through two mre amps penultimately 400 wpc monoblocs. I owned a 4 EL34 tube integrated for the WAF rig and no stranger to tubes which provided me with a new way to spend money on audio I collected the tubes it took, the inputs 12XX7 and driver 6SN7s finally ending up with about 200 6SN7s and uncounted others. The Big rig SS amps sounded aweful and no placement mattered. Finally bought a tube pre but the wrong type and that doesn't make a system tube anyway. Then my best friend at that time took on distrubuting Consonance gear for NA. I sold the big amps and bought Cyber 800s monos. At landed cost and Chinese. I could finally afford relatively high power tube amps. My good friend then tells me that tube power amps not tube preamps or hybrids or CDPs anything else was the key to good sound. I don't know why he didn't just tell me that years before a stream of endless cables and sources had cost me a painful amount.
The search had ended. These are modern sttyle, bright, fast, extended tube amps with big trannies and all of 78 wpc in PPP.
Now the Electras sounded great. The soundstage was enormous the detail halographic the mids sweet the bass warm and big. This effect was made even more obvious with a whim of buying a used AES pre foor $350 to sound check my 6SN7s.
I thought I had eaten something and was in a state of disbelief. I invited some serious audio group friends by only one at a time. Their first comment was wow your speakers are really sounding good these days. I told them it is not the speakers that changed it's the amps. The Sinophobic response was a puzzled look. I had another friend who just happens to be a speakr designer and lately designer of a new patented circuit $15K preamp which has been marketed.
Man your speakers sound great. He wanted to see this cheap preamp and declared it scary good and 90% of the best including his own he had heard. He offered to update it to the DJH level he owed me a few bucks. Luckily no damage to the snics.
I should tell you that 6SN7s I use cost as much as the pre. I used $360 worth of NOS inputs and another $40 in the best 5687s. I had to get E88CC-01 inputs from Sweden as the only source for my favorite 6922 tube. That was 2 years ago and I have Nirvana with these Electras.
Normally one goes through a littany of music and souces. I don't know many of the recorings a reviewer uses or the associated gear. What is claer beyond doubt is that anything good or bad on a recording is invariably revealed by these speakers. I have heard from many that they are of the colder analytic type. This is definitely true but only if you do not spend an enourmous effort finding the right amplification. They will synergize with the right stuff beyond any reasonable expectation. I don't use the term neutral because all recorded music is subject to the engineering of that piece. As far as I can tell they are simply well balanced tonally have excellent detail and plenty of bass. They are not Cerwin Vega boomers and are not English syle which annoy me due to wooliness and fuzz. They are clean and very dynamic.
I find that a well made recording of any genre sounds good with these responding to the signal very accurately. They give that impression.
Above all else I learned the during the many years I have used them that system synergy is the single most critical issue that makes them a good or bad speaker.
For that reason I can only tell yu these can give you the best music you ever heard but in all truth it is probably going to require effort money and patience.
I love them now but was once awash in frustrated tears.
My recommendation is only buy them for a low price. MSRP 5 years ago was $6000 and $6600/pair if Be tweeter.
Currently using Jena Lab entry level speaker cable Sources are a VPI Scout and Granite or Consonance Ref. 2.0 CDP also used Audio Aero Prima and a MH CD-25. ICs include Silver Lace, Audience AU24,Cardas Golden Reference. Power is dedicated, no conditioner but distrubuted by audiophile power bar with surge breaker only, Power chords are Audience, Custom made SuburuGuru, Soundquest etc.
I would be remiss if I didn't tell you my favorite pre tubes Sylvania GT but early with massive chrome flashing W construction, most of the real Ws are abused but the good ones beat the current . TS round plates are not great ( tried 4 pairs)in this but many other work fine.

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
5
Showing 1-2 of 2  

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