So yesterday I blew one of my Focals (165VB) and now thinking of upgrading the fronts. So the plan is to go one step up and go Dynaudio MW160GT but for now just do the 6.5s and keep the Focal tweets and that way I can keep the cost under $500. What do you guys think?

 

What does the rest of your setup look like? Do you have the doors deadened and sealed yet?

 

Yeah doors, rear deck and trunk deadened. Factory deck, matrix line driver, Alpine MRP f300 for fronts and MRP F500 for subwoofer. Fronts are Focal 165VB (one blown), rear are factory and subwoofer is a single 10W7 sealed. The Focals where nice but want a try something different. BTW, how do you like the the CXS62s?

 

Are you just wanting to swap for the sake of trying something else, or is there somthing you didn't like about the Focals?

 

No actually killed one. O scope incident and lack of sleepAnyways since I can't buy just a single driver, I was thinking of trying something new. As for the focals without getting technical, they sounded good but not great.

 

Technical would help. If what didn't "sound great" in the Focal was in the upper end, changing the mid won't do you much good.

And FWIW, you should be able to buy a single driver either from a Focal dealer or directly from ORCA.

Are you running active or are you using the Focal passive still? If using the passive do you know what the x-over points are? That would be a good starting point to decide if just swapping the mids would be a good idea.

As a general rule if using passives I like to keep the matched set together. If active, you have some more flexibility.

 

Yeah Focal 165VB are discontinued and only one dealer in town and well using this as an excuse to upgrade. The Focals actually sound good in the upper end but at the lows they are pretty weak. BTW running passive and xover is at -3db with HP set at 70hz, tweets are bright.

 

I might be biased but I would go with the Dyns without question. Did you mean the 162 by chance? These newer ones (around 2008 I think with a 2 instead of a 0) have an improved spider for more xmax and a couple other improvements. I think you will love the Dyns. They are the most realistic speakers I've owned. If you plan on sticking to a 2-way, the Esotar 650 would be even better, the midrange is outstanding but the Esotecs are very good. I ran the Esotar 650 for a while and loved every second of it. I'm currently running the MW182 9" Dyns and it did add a degree of realism that is hard for a 6.5" to match. Only problem is running them in a 2-way. While they have no problems playing well past 2khz, beaming will be an issue. Just throwing it out there if you have future plans of going with a 3-way.

 

Hey IHC,

Yes, the MW162s is what I'm leaning towards. Currently can't afford the higher end ones (kid in college) but for now the 162s will do. BTW, Im actually in the process of purchasing them from Jerry (Neibur3) so we will see.