JasZ

I am thinking of buying a set of Focal Utopia 165W to go with my JL 500/5 amp and 8w7 sub.

1)Got any opinions on these speakers?

2)How do they fit into the stock locations?

3)Is the sound too bright?

big-al

1. great speakers, one of the best ones around.
2. they'll fit with the right spacer, for best results, angle the spacer/speaker upward-rear a little to get better imaging.
3. mount the tweeter low within 10" of the midbass, like the kickpanel area.
also jl 300/2 will sound better w/more power.

JasZ

Well,

I just bought the damned things and I know that I am going to be putting these in the stock locations. Including the tweeters. I also already have the 500/5 amp.

Do you have any other speaker recommendations considering those things?

Thanks,
Jason

JasZ

Where do I get spacers?

JasZ

Is there somewhere near the kick panel to mount these tweeters so I don't have to make anything too complicated?

JasZ

Are these packaged as a full set, or do you have to buy 2 sets?

JasZ

So what do you guys think- Focal Utopias or Boston Z6??

LS350Z

replied in your other thread but to me the Boston Z6s are way more accurate at reproducing sounds. Focals are slightly overboosted in the mids and their tweets are always loud. Both are great speakers and you should listen to both but to me it's about sound reproduction, not sound modifing. You need to look at dynaudio and image dynamic compenents as well.

ranger5oh

I have never been a big BA fan. I say go with the focals.. just my opinion of course. The focals seems to offer clearer sound, to me.

chaps

Check out the new 165KP focals. The new TN52 tweeter on these are fantastic. Very smooth and detailed. These sound better than the Utopia to me. Bostons are also very nice, a warmer sound, but just don't seem to have the dynamics to me.

JasZ

Whatever I end up getting, I really want to mount the tweeters in the stock location. Aren't the focals going to sound a bit hard there?

chaps

The new tweets that Focal has do not sound hard or harsh. I build speakers at home and have used some of their inverted titaniums in the past and had some other versions in the car. What I liked about them was the airyness, somewhat like a ribbon. What I didn't like is the harder sound. These new ones are the best of both worlds. One other note though, I put them in a FX35. Not sure what your vehicle looks like for speaker location, but if the midbass is far away from the tweet, then a soft dome may be a better way to go. Larger soft domes can extend lower in frequency, lower freq. crossover point. This provides more of raised sound stage. I had a set of Morels, awesome speakers also,3" voice coils, similar to Dynaudio. They have low frequency extension in tweets and they would raise the sound stage even if there was a large distance between speakers...they were also very rich and warm sounding, if vocals are your main interest, I would suggest these.

JasZ

I am going to get the 165K2P speakers with the TN52 soft dome tweeters instead of the Utopias.

Thanks for the advice chaps.

chaps

Hey JasZ
The TN 52 is the tweeter that I was refering to, but it is still a coated inverted Titanium, not a soft dome. Soft domes are what they will typically claim as silk, fabric, cloth etc. It woud be best if you could listen to them, but I don't think you will be disappointed.

chaparro78

iTrader: (2)

i have the focal 165kp but withj T52 tweets - I wouldn't recomend anything other than focal - here is the difference in size of the tweets

JasZ

chaparro78,

Nice setup. I see you have the 500/5 amp. Have you found it sufficient to power the 165 KPs? I was a little concerned about it only having 25W to rear channels. I was thinking about going to a 450/4 and a 250/1 to get all my channels, but it takes some serious space to house both amps.

Thanks,
JasZ