Focal Sopra, Kanta, Aria
I’m confused. I’ve been in the market to replace my B&W 802D speakers. I’ve had them for 10 years and finally cannot take the brightness of them anymore. I’ve replaced amps, preamps, cables, sources, and yet the fundamental brightness is there, fatiguing me after only 1-hour of listening.
I auditioned the Focal Sopra 3 which I am told are not as bright and more musical. LIstened to them a few times, and honestly felt that they were also on the bright side similar to the B&W’s.
Another time I listened to the Focal Kanta 3 speaker. Like the Sopra it also has the Beryllium tweeter. Yet the one time I listened to these, they didn’t seem as bright.
Anyway, recently a friend of mine was in the process of moving, and I stored his Focal Aria 936 speakers at my home. I decided to hook them up to my electronics in my listening room just out of curiosity.
What I found were loudspeakers that were not bright (non beryllium tweeter), a warmer sound, probably due to a better mid-bass then the big 802’s. The extreme resolution was not there, and the midrange seemed congested at times. Yet, I found I could listen and enjoy these speakers for hours at a time. Bad recordings sounded good, and great recordings sounded, well, good also. Speaker placement made minimal difference.
My questions is at what is the sweet spot for Focal speakers. The point where they sound wonderful with extended listening, vs the point where they become a finicky pain in the ass to live with (aka 802D).
I was expecting to spend around an equal amount of money as the 802’s as a starting point, now I’m not so sure if I need to.
Thanks in advance for everyone’s input…
Well I own the Focal Sopra 2's. And I don't find them bright. But, I also have treated my room with ASC tube traps and Stillpoints Apertures. I also have tube mono block amps. And, cabling that works well with my equipment. So, as the cliché goes, "everything matters", its all part of the whole system. ozzy |
@winoguy17 is spot on. Owned Aria 936 and never loved them. I sold them off and went to Electra 1028BE and those were the first speakers to amaze me. I now have the Sopra 2's and they took a great deal of time to settle in to get rid of brightness and really do take placement to be spot on. I'm still messing with placement, but I am pretty dang close. They were also still a little bright in my shoebox room with poor acoustic placement, but once I got that right I'm headed in the right direction. I still can't get over the price increases for the Focal lines so if I had to do it again I would probably be looking at other brands. $20k for Sopra's to me is way more overpriced. |
J-wall,
Agreed on the Sopra price increaseS. I was pretty much set to buy a pair of Sopra 2s right before they went from $14,000 to $19,000+, just crazy. I ended up buy Revel instead. They are just as good an way cheaper. I mean revels price went up 10% and Focal went up 40%…. Other international brands like Sonus Faber went up 15%. Focal is price gouging for sure. |
