Focal Kanta No.1 Walnut (Dark Grey Baffle) (Pair)

The Focal Kanta No.1 sits at the heart of Focal's Kanta range, positioned above the French brand's Aria Evo X family and below the flagship Utopia and Sopra lines. Introduced in 2018, the Kanta range represents a significant step up in materials and engineering, pairing Focal's most advanced driver technologies with a distinctive cabinet design that departs from the conventional box aesthetic.

Kanta Range Design and Technology

The Kanta No.1 is a compact two-way bass-reflex bookshelf loudspeaker, designed to deliver a level of transparency and resolution normally associated with much larger and more expensive speakers. Its cabinet uses a combination of high-gloss lacquer and real wood veneer finishes, and features sculpted curves that reduce internal standing waves and give the speaker a striking visual character. The Walnut with Dark Grey Baffle finish pairs a warm natural walnut veneer on the cabinet body with a dark grey matte front panel.

Beryllium Tweeter

At the top of the frequency range sits the IAL3 (Infinite Acoustic Loading) tweeter, which uses a pure beryllium dome measuring 27mm in diameter. Beryllium is approximately six times stiffer and three times lighter than titanium, giving it an exceptionally high breakup frequency that lies well above the audible range. The inverted dome geometry, a Focal signature, places the voice coil at the rear of the dome rather than the front, which reduces moving mass and improves transient accuracy. The tweeter is mounted in an aluminium enclosure that loads the rear of the dome to control resonances.

Flax Cone Mid/Bass Driver

The 165mm (6.5-inch) bass-midrange driver uses Focal's proprietary Flax cone technology. The cone is constructed from a sandwich of two thin glass-fibre skins bonded to a core of natural flax fibres. Flax provides a combination of rigidity and self-damping that is difficult to achieve with conventional synthetic materials: it resists flex well enough to maintain pistonic movement across the midrange, while absorbing resonances rather than colouring the sound. The driver also incorporates Focal's TMD (Tuned Mass Damper) surround, which damps the first surround resonance mode, and the NIC (Neutral Inductance Circuit) motor system, which uses neodymium magnets and a copper faraday ring to reduce inductance variation and distortion across the driver's excursion range.

Connectivity and Placement

The No.1 is rear-ported, with a single reflex port on the back panel. Focal supplies a foam port plug for use when the speaker is placed close to a wall, which reduces bass reinforcement from the room boundary. The binding posts are biwire-capable and accept bare wire, spade terminals, and 4mm banana plugs. The speaker is sized for bookshelf placement but performs best on a dedicated speaker stand, such as the matching Focal Kanta Stand No.1. Recommended amplifier power is 25 to 150 watts, and the speaker presents a nominal 8-ohm load, making it compatible with a wide range of integrated amplifiers and streaming amplifiers.

Reviewers' Response

SoundStage! Hi-Fi awarded the Kanta No.1 their Reviewers' Choice designation, with reviewer Doug Schneider concluding: "it's the most accurate and revealing Focal speaker I've reviewed, while retaining a touch of that liveliness the brand is known for." Schneider added that if he were "looking for a topflight two-way minimonitor, this is the one I'd go to first, and maybe last."