I have a dilema

Front speakers: Component Focal 165Kr and rears Focal 130 CA1

or

Front: Beyma Pro65, Tweeters Beyma 5G40 and rears Beyma PH25

????

I walked to the shop that's going to install my sound system and the guy was telling me that I should look into Beyma speakers - that they are better than the Focals. I would like to hear your opinions as some of you are experts in this!

Thx-

vick

 

Listen to both then decide. It's all a matter of opinion, especially on mid-high end sets. Listening preference means the most. Just saying one is "better" than the other when talking about speakers at a similar level is just opinion. That's like saying red is better than blue. Or mustard is better than mayo.

I can't tell you if you'll like Focal's bright-clear sound, or if you might find it thin and harsh and need speakers more like Dynaudio. Maybe you would think Dyns sound a little thick or lacking in top end. There are people that even like infinity speakers so it really comes down to opinion and pretty much any opinion other than your own won't cut it.

That said, I've seen a lot of people rockin Focals. While Beyma SOUNDS familiar, I can't say I ever remember really hearing anything about them before from a car audio perspective.

In either case, rear speakers

 

 

For the money I would put infinity up against most anything. The price for Focals is rediculous for the sound you get for everyday listening. I also have a website that rates speakers and they are in the top ten for price and quality. The site actually doesn't rate them as 1 to 10, they just selected the best top ten in their opinion and provided a nice write up about them.

I don't necessarily trust websites so much but my experience tells me they are fairly accurate.

But the only way to get any good sound in these vettes is use 6.5 and a samll sub that's not overpowering, and then any quality speaker will do for the average listener.

I suppose you would also laugh at my JBL's.

 

JBLs are head and shoulder above Infinity and make some pretty decent speakers.

Infinity makes terribly unrealistic sounding speakers. They are thin sounding, harsh, and are just generally intolerable.

But as the above poster illustrates - there's a speaker for every ear.


Clearly, the difference he perceives between Focal speakers and big box store speakers isn't wide enough to justify the price. However, I would say that, to my ear, the $800 set of Focal speakers does sound more than 4x better than $200 Infinity speakers.

Again, just going to show that you really need to listen to speakers and form your own opinion.


My own opinion has changed dramatically since starting 10 years ago. I used to love CDT speakers. Now I think they are muddy as hell and completely lacking in resolution. =)


My current personal picks for my cars are Focal and Dynaudio. - And they are very different sounding speakers.
On a shelf, I'd pick the Focals over the Dynaudio for 90% of music. But installed - it's a different story.

 

I will say this. I had two sets of speakers. One Infinity and one JBL. I installed the infinity speakers first and listened to them for a couple weeks. Then I installed the JBL speakers and listened to them for two weeks. Then I reinstalled the Infinity speakers.

I listened to them for a couple days and threw them in the trash. (true story)

The JBL's still aren't up to my personal standards but are head and shoulders above the Infinity 6.5.

I have also had two sets of 6x9 Infinity and I loved them. But 6.5 speakers alone won't cut it for me. They have zero drive and kick. They do sound pretty decent if listening to them without driving down the road but as soon as you drive down the road the sound changes dramatically, so they're pretty well worthless without a sub. But a small sub that doesn't leave the 6.5 sized speakers behind.

I'm not knocking the Focal but I believe they're overpriced for what you get. If you're into competition or don't mind spending the money they are are indeed a nice speaker.

It truly is a choice best made by listening to speakers yourself. But one must be careful because speakers will sound different with different systems as well, which is something I seldom hear people speak about. And this, all systems are best built starting with your speakers.

Funny you mention CDT. here are the results of a competition from an electronics store's website I frequent on occasion.


I also apologize, this is not about Infinity or JBL and I know that!

 

Yeah, the CDT HD speakers are, sadly, not very accurate. They have very little detail and distort extremely quickly. Like I said, when I first got in the hobby I thought they were fantastic.

They had a warm sound to them, making vocals extremely smooth. The tweeters rolled off really quickly, so they weren't harsh at all. Given the 'darkness' of the speakers, they were also insanely easy to install. (Whereas you can really mess things up with focal tweeter placement.)

Overall, they actually sounded very tame and pleasant; but realistic, or detailed, or accurate? Not even a little. I'd be t that people who really love the Bose sound would pick the CDTs as their favorites in a line-up.



Now that I know what to listen for when it comes to distortion, I can't stand hearing them. The bass is very muddy from (what I presume is cone distortion) the midrange is very thick, leaving electric guitars to just get "lost" in a mess. The tweeters break up like crazy in powerful music and the tone is just wrong at higher volumes. A series of cymbal crashes, for example, can't be picked out individually. It all sort of smears together.

If you were to listen to, for example, Blur Song #2 on a CDT set, you might think the entire intro to the song is just a single static tone.


Some people say CDT speakers are just inexpensive drivers that have been rebadged and marked up. There have certainly been some inexpensive drivers with the same physical appearance and specs in the past, but, who knows? It's not uncommon to lower costs by using generic baskets...

*Please also consider that my CDT HD experience is from the set available 5 years ago. I haven't given CDT another chance since, they might have made a complete 180.

Still, the MSRP of the HD set I had was $400+. If I had to put a $ value on them, I'd say about $95 would be fair.


And, again, all opinion.

FWIW, when I got my Focal Utopias for the first time, I thought my Pioneer 6x9s sounded better. Now I use them as my benchmark for sound quality.


In any case all this just proves: You can't rely on someone else to tell you what sounds good to you.