Older Focal speakers

[mitchyz250f]

About 9 years ago i bought some Morel tweets, focal midrange and focal midbass speakers from Madsound based on the recommendations of a freind I would call an audiophile. Since then I have lost contact with him and no one (MAdisound ) seems to know anything about them. I would be looking for recommended crossover hz.

I think this might have been a well know system at the time.


Does anyone know any Focal experts I can contact?

[jotom750]

Zalytron could be a good start

www.zalytron.com

[Cloth Ears]

What Focals?

[pjpoes]

Zalytron may have these schematics around, but I don't believe they design any crossovers themselves. They rely on others, Mostly Orca for the Focals, and I believe Joe D'Appolitto as well. We could probably help you out as well. I don't have a lot of older focal drivers, but I'm a big fan and do have some of the Kevlar midbass and midrange drivers, and most all of the w-cone drivers that are 6" or less. I also have TC90tdx, TC120tdc, TC120td5, and a few car tweeters from focal, with measurements, so I may be able to suggest a crossover.

My least favorite final option, but honestly would be no worse than something you got without any measurements would be, is to use traces. I actually find the FRD files are rather close, its the Impedance files that are problematic. I'm not a big fan of SPL trace, nice concept, but somewhat poor results in actual use. Anyway, if I can get the graphs, I can trace and give it a shot. I don't like to design very complex crossovers based on the traces since I'm usually quite uncertain about the fine details of the response and impedance. Another important factor to consider will be the box, well, front baffle design mostly, and number of drivers used in this setup. Also, a sense of what you like in sound is good to know, since I can design it to be maximumly flat, tilted down (my preference), tilted up, bbc dip, etc. I'm sure others here could help further refine such an effort as well.

[mitchyz250f]

The speakers are at my house, but I do have the identification number for the mids, they were pruchased from madisound:

Ref - 4C212
N - 4081340

I called Orca and they said they only deal with car audio.

About two years ago I spoke with someone at Zalytron and they gave me the name of somone to call. It was a persons name I seem to remeber, not a company name. I spoke to the person there and they were going to get bck to me. But that never happened and I lost the contact info.

[Cloth Ears]

4C - I think that might be really old. I think only the 'K' and 'W' (or occasionally 'V') models are still available. It's possible they were from the Axon brand that Focal used to release their lower priced drivers through.

Are the cones made of a black plastic stuff, or is it a sort of grey 'fibrous' looking stuff?

The 'local' people here in Aus were W.A.R. Audio (war at warco.com.au). If you provide the model numbers, and a bit of pleading, then they might be able to provide you with the T/S parameters. I had an old sales brochure from them up until about a year ago which had all these old units in them, but it got thrown out in the last move...sorry!

[95Honda]

Contact Focal yet?

[pjpoes]

It's unlikely that Focal would give you any information. They have been very unhelpful to me in the past. As for Orca, what do you mean they only deal in Car Audio. I just got through talking with them about my own drivers, they don't even carry any car audio that I know of.

Orca Design Is that the place you called? Who told you they only do car audio, let me smack them around a little for misleading you.

By the way, I don't know what drivers those are, but I agree, I think they are before the normal nomenclature. Focal never released drivers through Axon, you are thinking of Access. That wasn't their cheaper line though, it was a special line they designed for DIYers that didn't require complicated 4th order crossovers with extensive correction filters. The breakup of their drivers have always required careful crossover design that was beyond normal diyers abilities, so that was their solution. I remember they used to claim you could run them full range with just a simple cap and resistor on the tweeter and get a perfectly flat response (rubbish by the way). None the less, if they are access drivers, then they are quite easy to design with, but they should have at least a 1st order crossover on the midbass, they weren't that flat.

[pjpoes]

Actually I see that Zalytron has a driver in the focal page labeled 4C 111 which is a 4" coated paper midbass, so I'm guessing its something similar. Also, that was an oem driver, not originally released to the public, which is possibly true of yours. That will make it harder, I have no oem drivers.

[Cloth Ears]

Thanks pjpoes, 'Access' - shows how bad the old brain is getting. As far as cheap is concerned, the Access line weren't cheap, but they were certainly a few bucks less than any other equivalent sized driver when I looked at the. But that was back in the 90's.
And you could get them supplied in full kit as well (design plus drivers - I'm not sure if the crossover was supplied as well), but I'm not sure if that was WAR audio or Focal/Access.