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Zak: Hi. Greetings from the Crutchfield video studios. I'm Zak.
Ken: And I'm Ken. We're here today to tell you about Focal car audio products.
Zak: Now, Focal is a European manufacturer of some of the best car audio speakers in
existence. In fact, you really can't buy better speakers than these.
Ken: Now that might sound like hype, but it's true. Their mission is to create the most
lifelike reproduction of sound possible.
Zak: And to achieve that, nearly all of their speaker manufacturing is still done by hand,
in-house at their headquarters in France.
Ken: And Focal's also committed to research and development and very innovative designs
— really pushing back the limits of technology.
Zak: Oh yeah. For example while researching Focal, I read that they'll try one hundred
different glues until they find the one that does what they need without creating any distortion
in the sound.
Ken: There's an analogy between a car company like Ferrari and Focal. Ferrari will build
Formula One cars, no holds barred, then they take that technology and they put it in the
road cars they sell.
Zak: So let's take a look at the Ferrari of Focal's line, the Utopia Beryllium series.
Now, Ken I gotta admit I have never seen speakers packaged this way. Have you?
Ken: Nothing like it. This is incredibly cool. Let's take a look.
Zak: Let's do it.
Ken: Ready?
Zak: Ready. Now obviously Focal really is serious about protecting these speakers during
shipping. So now we've got them all out of their case.
Ken: And a very cool case it was too.
Zak: Yes it was.
Ken: These speakers surpass that. Let's start with the tweeter. This tweeter is an absolute
jewel. It's built into this cast-metal basket. It's got machined aluminum around it supporting
the tweeter. The tweeter is an inverted dome design. Focal builds it that way so they get
even better dispersion of the highs. And the tweeter itself is made out of Beryllium. Now
that's a rare metal — can be about a hundred times more expensive than gold.
Zak: And using materials like that lets Focal achieve a wider frequency range. For instance,
this tweeter goes all the way down to 1000 Hz. Now that's going to let it blend so much
better with the mids and the woofers.
Ken: Now the mids and the woofers share a lot of design characteristics. The basket's
made out of a heavy cast material so it doesn't resonate. The cone itself is layers of glass
fiber and foam. It's very rigid, but quite light too. And all the way around it, we've
got venting, so the voice coil will stay cool even when you're really cranking up the power.
Zak: Now Focal calls this the Crossblock. What it is is an external crossover system
built into a machined aluminum case. It's capable of over four thousand possible settings.
That means that no matter what vehicle you have, you'll be able to tune it just perfectly.
And in typical Focal fashion, they spared no expense. They use the highest-quality components
inside designed specifically for this series. Now where the Utopia series represents Focal's
ultimate speaker design, the K2 Power series brings a lot of that innovation into a line
of really high-performance speakers.
Ken: Yeah. These are the products that Focal's reputation is really built on. It focuses
on high power handling and incredibly detailed sound.
Zak: Yeah. Take a look at this tweeter. It's made out of Aramid fiber. It uses Utopia's
inverted dome design for optimized imaging in a real nice, realistic sound stage.
Ken: This woofer is built around a heavy duty cast metal base, and with a really strong
magnet structure also derived from the Utopia series for strong impact and accurate sound.
Zak: Now, all the K2s have high-performance external crossovers included, even the coaxial
speakers. And these crossovers have a built-in tweeter level control which gives you really
balanced highs.
Ken: Interesting note about these crossovers is that all the internal components are designed
by Focal specifically for the crossover. There's no off-the-shelf resistors, no off-the-shelf
capacitors. It's all purpose-built to make the speakers sound their very best.
Zak: Now of course they also have a couple of other speaker lines — Polyglass and Access.
Ken: Yeah, the Polyglass line has over twenty years of continuous development behind it.
It's really at the core of their lineup.
Zak: Now, it comes in at Focal's low end, but the Access line offers unmatched sound
quality for its price. In fact, its quality tends to be on par with other manufacturers
high-end speakers.
Ken: Exactly. And both the Polyglass and the Access line feature coaxial and component
designs and come in a variety of sizes, so you're probably going to find one that will
fit your vehicle. The same philosophy that drives their speakers goes into Focal's subwoofers
and amplifiers.
Zak: Yeah, let's have a look here at the 13" K2 power sub. Now, while it's beautiful to
look at, it's really designed first and foremost for adding great sounding lows to your listening
experience.
Ken: Yeah, it's a real beast.
Zak: Yeah it is. It is.
Ken: It's got a 4-layer voice coil in there, composite sandwich cone, and a very cool multiferrite
magnet design.
Zak: I like that.
Ken: All these magnets are stacked up, and that leaves room for air to get in and keep
it cool when you're driving it hard.
Zak: Yeah, it'll be much more efficient, and all these things add up to just outstanding
sound reproduction.
Ken: Right here we have the Solid line of amplifiers. This one is the Solid 4. It's
a 4-channel, 80-watt x 4 amp.
Zak: Yeah, and we've got the powder-coated red model here, but it also comes in black
if you'd prefer that.
Ken: What I like about it is how you can take this front panel off and get right to all
your inputs and outputs. It also has high-level inputs with signal sensing. If you hook it
up to a factory radio it'll turn on automatically when that radio is turned on. This is a great
amp to hook up to a factory system or an aftermarket system.
Zak: Yeah, I mean if you want quality power to go with your Focal speakers, this is your
amplifier.
Ken: Now, by now it's clear that Focal puts a ton of engineering and style into their
products in order to create exactly the sound they're looking for.
Zak: Yeah, it seems to me that at the end of the day, it's all about the music for them.
You know they just care about how great the music sounds and all these speakers, amplifiers,
subs are just a means to that end.
Ken: If you want to learn more about Focal go to crutchfield.com/focal.
Zak: Or call one of our Advisors at 1-800-555-9408.