Are todays speakers more biased towards AV than music? Everyone complains that speakers are too bright, whenever someone asks for suggestion many people say they sound bright, is this just to add some excitement in to the sound?

Have speaker companies moved away from hifi sounding speakers and now focus more on bash and boom and full on excitement?

I like some exciting sound, but for music it gets on my nerves after some time.

I tend to agree with that from the auditions of the last year or so. Even the huge B&Ws sounded anything but wholesome !

What else did you demo? any Focals? was it the 800 series you heard?

to my ears a lot do sound bright, I did initially put it down to the now normal slim front design. I then hear some with wide fronts, and a price tag that filled it. They were all boon and tizz as well.

Try spendor harbeth dynaudio and proac.

There is bright and then there is metallic, I find there is a difference between the two, I like a lively detailed tweeter, but I hate metallic sounding tweeters like those used by KEF and Monitor Audio, Focal I believe in the top range use beryllium and when I heard them they were excessively metallic and hard, with these type of tweeters I think you really need to be careful with the associated equipment you chose and cabling.

It was the 8000 diamong I think.
With a naim cd player and naim amps.....not a sound I could live w ith . Far to thin considering the size of the boxes and bass units....not the sound you would expect even from naim .

I've heard many a time mine are bright but I can happily live with them.

In my view, today's speakers are far too bright and very often metallic sounding. As I see it, there are two reasons for this.

The first is the general trend today of must have detailed speakers. There is just so much detail in the source, and if you want more, but cannot use tweeter and mid level controls, because it's a no-no from the nazi purists, so instead you crank 'em up altogether.

The second is what I'd term as a general lack of pure bass. Using small diameter woofers, so your speaker can be fashonably narrow, tall and occasionally deep, you work with actually fairly low effective volumes. You just don't get real, gut shaking bass from anything less than a 10" woofer backed up with a decent effective volume. On occasion, somebody gets it right, more of a happenstance than science.

Regarding Focal berylium inverted dome tweeter, I'd just like to point out that it takes an uncommonly long time get in proper shape, most tweeters do it inside 200 hours, that one takes 500 hours to settle down. Right out of the box, it's really a bit screamy and shouty, but over time, it does come on song.

Actually, the loudspeaker industry has given up the goal of getting as near to the truth as possible, save for a few lost souls still at it. These days, they need to impress you inside the first 30 seconds, or you're gone.

Very, very few people really, honestly try for a seamless top to bottom range, for a truly BALANCED sound. It's really quite depressing.

And that this is so, you can best see by watching the escalating prices of "old school" products from people like AR, JBL, Spendor, Celestion and a few others. The legend of AR3 rests on a 12 inch woofer, the world's most popular studio monitor, the JBL 4312 also had a 12 inch bass, Spendor's BC3 had a 12 inch bass, and Celestion's Ditton 66 not only had a 12 inch bass, but also a 12 inch passive radiator.

Look at today's best products from famous companies. Many still use a 12 inch woofer - but only on their top of the line model. Odd, don't you think to have to plonk down serious Mercedes Benz car money to get a 12 inch woofer? You have to be a millionaire to get decent bass?

Who are they kidding?

I thank The Almighty above I do not need to rely on this !@#$%^&*() industry!

You sound peeved of dear fellow The market dictates what manufactures make, if people didn't want bright they wouldn't make them bright, they make products that sell, not sound good

It's not only audio manufactures guilty of such methods, cars are the same, if we were to believe cars advertisements we would only see good looking people in cars, what about make up and beauty product adverts, only beautiful women need apply, it's just advertising, putting a carrot before your eyes, you don't need to buy, but people buy because they want, they have been motivated because they like, hence why speakers found in stores are bright and look like furniture, people people want those qualities. The ones he do get it wrong, are the ones the just buy on a review, which la de la, all tend to be bright sounding products, go figure.