After hearing about these speakers for a long time, I actually stumbled into a dealer after I got stood up by my sister for lunch!!! I always love wasting salespeople's time listening to speakers that my significant (sm)other would never allow me to buy.

For those who don't know, the FS-688 is a bookshelf priced at $3000 (USD) and the 788 is a floorstander at $5000. There's an even larger model, cleverly dubbed the 888 that I didn't have time to try out, the guy was just setting them up.
For reference purposes, the only speakers this guy had that I had even heard of was the Energy Veritas 2.4i's(floorstander), which I think retailed at $3900 or so...right in between the two Focus Audios.

Without making this too long, I'll just talk briefly about what I really liked and didn't like about these. Everything was played on a pretty modest Arcam Integrated but I can't remember if it was the A85 or A65...either way, a really nice unit.

First, let me say that these speakers have as wide, and deep a soundstage as I have ever heard in a speaker. The Veritas (which I find are really good, but expensive) couldn't even touch these when it comes to soundstaging. I know they would wipe the floor with my Studio 40's, but they cost more than double.

Another area they really smoked the Veritas in was the highs. These things have a glorious Scan-Speak textile-dome tweeter (Revelator) that alone cost about $240 each. I don't have the audiophile words to descripe how good this tweeter makes things sound, but let me just say that cymbals had that certain "snap" to the clanginess that makes you feel like they're right there. I love good treble, and these things ooze it.

They imaged very, very well, but this was one area where the Veritas did a little bit better. Almost too well though, in my opinion...the Veritas have a very tight sweet spot and reduce the illusion of a center image to a really small dot, in my opinion. This might just be my preferences, though. I was surprised that the larger Veritas imaged better than the bookshelf 688's though, usually I find bookshelfs have an advantage here.

The midrange was excellent, you'd swear the band was right in front of you if you closed your eyes. I'm not a magazine writer so I won't put something lame in here, but take my word for it, these things have a really rich sound to them. I actually prefered the bass in the 688's to that of the 788's, despite giving up some bottom end, it was a bit tighter. Oddly enough, the midrange was better on the larger 788's...hard to describe, you had to be there.

For $3000 - $5000 you get a beautiful veneer finish you could put in anybody's room, and the best high frequency response I've heard in a speaker yet. And that 3-D soundstage ability that actually raised my eyebrows.

While I really enjoyed the brief time I was listening to these, a few things were re-enforced in my mind:

1) You get less, and less in speakers as you spend more, and more. I'd say the FS-688 could handle the Veritas and any of Paradigm's Signature series, and even hold their own agains some $5000 Klipsch K-Horns in a head to head fight, but the FS-788 was $2000 more for a bit more bottom response, and a slightly better midrange. Furthermore, I can't help but think how good some $500 and $1000 speakers sound to all of these models considering they're a fraction of the price.

2) Frequency response charts mean absolutely nothing!!! The specs on these things was 45 Hz (and 35 Hz) to 20kHz, +/- 3!!! This is kind of bare minimum average at best..but these things sound great in spite of this...(unless they under-rate their frequency responses for some reason)
Anyhoo...always fun drive the hell out of somebody's future speakers, especially when they cost a weekend ski-trip in the Alps!!!

2) Europeans make the best drivers for some reason
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