Focal • Sopra No.2 Loudspeakers

by Roy Gregory | August 9, 2018

© www.theaudiobeat.com

I’m not sure whether Wilson Audio is responsible for the current crop of interesting $15,000 loudspeakers, all offering exceptional performance for the price. I’m not sure whether their early announcement of the Sabrina produced a rush of competitors, or whether the simultaneous emergence of multiple competing designs simply reflects a common appreciation of an emerging opportunity, a gap in the market that was waiting to be filled. Yet, here we have Wilson’s Sabrina, the Vienna Acoustic’s Liszt, the Ubiq Audio Model One and the Focal Sopra No.2 -- speakers that collectively don’t just redefine what’s possible at their price point but challenge models at far higher prices. Together they are setting about remodeling not just the audio landscape but their own (and other) product lines.

Marc Mickelson has written about the Sabrina, and I’ve already covered the Liszt and the Ubiq Model One. Now comes the final member of this quartet, the Sopra No.2. While each of these speakers offers its own distinctive sound, aesthetic and set of musical virtues, they share certain common features. All are compact, three-way floorstanders and offer superior levels of fit and finish, all are drivable by (and fit right into) real-world audio systems, and all distill the essence of their respective marques. Just as the Sabrina is unmistakably a Wilson and the Liszt couldn’t be anything but a Vienna Acoustics, the Sopra No.2 could only be a Focal. But the Sopra 2 also stands apart from the other speakers in this group in at least one important way: whilst the other three emanate from small high-end audio companies, Focal-JMlab is a bona fide giant of the industry, standing alongside the likes of KEF and B&W when it comes to their scale of operations, global reach and the extent of their range -- although even those august brands don’t extend as far up the performance range as the French company, products like the Blade and Nautilus 800 D3 barely reaching the foothills of Focal’s Utopia line. The Grande Utopia offers both familiar and credible competition to flagship designs from the likes of Wilson and Magico, as well as its own proprietary technologies and standout aesthetics. Those curved, segmented enclosures would be hard to miss, even if they weren’t lacquered in the brightest of bold shades. Given the shared styling cues, you could be forgiven for taking a quick glance at the Sopra No.2 and assuming that it’s a new addition to the Utopia line. But look a little closer and it soon becomes apparent that the subtle differences denote not just a new Utopia but something different (and in some ways, better). In reality, what the Sopra 2 represents is Son of Utopia, not just smaller but also more evolved.

The Sopra 2’s curved-wall cabinet, with its 69mm-thick (2 3/4") baffle, was designed using the same laser vibrometry and CNC panel shaping employed to produce the massive Utopia cabinets and is built in the same Burgundian plant. But the Sopra 2's compact dimensions bring their own benefits in terms of stiffness, while the implementation of the separate enclosures has changed significantly. The central wedge that holds the tweeter and also links and aligns the bass and midrange cabinets into a single, visually and mechanically coherent whole is actually a polyurethane molding. As well as offering a new, smoother aesthetic transition between the other cabinet segments, it illustrates just how different the scale of Focal’s operation really is. The tool required to produce such a part is massively expensive, a cost that can only be justified through volume sales and would be totally beyond the reach of most specialist, high-end manufacturers. But look inside and you soon realize that this is more than just an aesthetically convenient building block and branding exercise. The complex internal shape of the wedge creates an open, rear-facing "horn" profile that is in turn loosely stuffed with absorbent fibers. This absorbs the rear wave generated by the tweeter without creating back pressure, a performance benefit first discovered in the Utopia line. The careful shaping and precise choice of material also allow Focal to optimize mechanical termination of the high-frequency driver, itself using the latest in Focal’s established line of inverted beryllium domes.

With the rest of the world seemingly buying into diamond domes, perhaps it’s worth taking a quick look at Focal’s reasons for pursuing their own separate path when it comes to high-frequency-driver design. Of course, they’ve been building inverted domes for years, first in fiberglass and then titanium. The structural logic is impeccable: with a conventional dome, the voice coil is located around the edge -- a 25mm (1") dome necessitates a 25mm voice coil. But by inverting the dome and using a stiff diaphragm, Focal is able to reduce the diameter of the voice coil, creating a driver that’s more like a conventional cone design. This offers the ability to both brace the diaphragm, raising its first breakup frequency, and to reduce the overall moving mass. It also creates another avenue through which the designer can modify the resonant behavior of the diaphragm, tuning the performance. Why can’t you do the same with a standard dome? Because you can’t get the motor up behind the dome, and extending the voice coil backwards would quickly erode any potential benefits.

Talking of benefits, add beryllium into the mix and the potential of the inverted-dome design becomes really interesting. Focal is far from the first company to produce beryllium drivers (Yamaha NS1000 loudspeakers used berylium domes for both the midrange and treble drivers), although those earlier designs relied on vapor deposition to "grow" diaphragms over plastic formers -- similar in fact to the way many diamond diaphragms are created today. What Focal did was develop a way of using beryllium foil to create an inverted dome. Beryllium itself also offers an additional benefit: it dissipates heat incredibly efficiently, making the finished driver far less susceptible to thermal compression. Combine the benefits of the material and the mechanical advantages of the design and you end up with a driver where the diaphragm wasn’t quite as stiff as diamond, but it was significantly lighter, meaning that it could accelerate under impulse more quickly and, perhaps even more important, stop more quickly too. That’s the nature of the beast you’ll find covering the top end of the Sopra 2’s output, and, as we shall see, it dovetails perfectly with the rest of the speaker’s performance.

The rest of the driver lineup looks equally familiar, featuring three of Focal’s trademark gray sandwich cones. The diaphragms are created using thin glass-fiber skins combined with structural foam, then laser trimmed to create drivers with the required mechanical characteristics. By using a single skin and varying the type and distribution of the foam, employing it as a damping layer as opposed to sandwich filler, the same basic technology can be used to create highly tunable midrange drivers. So, although there’s a scant half-inch difference in diameter between the Sopra No.2’s midrange and twin woofers, and despite appearances, the drivers themselves are totally different. Haven’t we seen all of this before in earlier Focal designs? Yes, but it's worth going over in order to establish the evolutionary nature of the Sopra 2’s design. What sets the Sopra 2’s drivers apart involves, but actually happens behind, those cones.

But first a brief diversion, back into the Utopia line and the small, three-way, floorstanding Scala model. By rights this should have been the runaway sales success of the revised Utopia Be models when they were first launched, but it never quite happened. One reason for that was a peculiar quality to the low frequencies, which often sounded detached and disjointed, making the speaker’s performance extremely room-dependent. Researching the reason’s for this, Focal discovered that the driver’s out-of-band behavior was interfering with midband performance and integration, requiring modifications to the cone and suspension system, resulting in the dramatically better and more successful Scala V2.

The Sopra takes that lesson a whole stage further, employing tuned mass dampers (strategically placed, concentric plastic rings) on the driver suspension to control parasitic resonance that otherwise feeds back into the driver cones. In addition, Faraday rings around the motors improve the stability of their magnetic fields, irrespective of voice-coil location, driving current or frequency. The result is a significant increase in driver linearity, not just within but, crucially, beyond its operating range, improving both system integration and consistency, both central pillars of the Sopra No.2’s performance.

A key design consideration for the Sopra line was to deliver the technological and performance benefits of the Utopia series in a more affordable and accessible package, one that was both easier to accommodate and easier to use. In a word, that means smaller, and there’s no missing the fact that the Sopra No.2 does indeed look a little like Barbie's Utopia. Narrow in the hips, with an improbably small footprint, it has assets that are both prominent and clearly displayed, while its form factor might be recognizable but is smoother and altogether more modern in appearance. Part of that is the seamless transition between the body parts, but it’s also down to the carefully calculated proportions and styling that combine to create the largest speaker most people could easily accommodate, in a visual package that succeeds in looking smaller than it actually is. Despite standing all but four feet tall and only a little under two feet deep, despite the bright red (or white, black, blue or orange) finish, this is a speaker that is able to complement rather than dominate its domestic surroundings. Add in some of the neatest magnetically attached grilles I’ve come across and this is a product that would sit as comfortably in a Scandi-modern interior as it would effectively contrast with more traditional décor.

And talking of grilles, as easy as the main grilles are to remove, the ones that matter are the silver discs covering the tweeters. They are held in place with tiny Allen screws, and removing them should be a priority because doing so makes the speaker look way better and makes the speaker sound way better. Get rid of those gaudy metal radiator grilles and the top-end opens up, the sound becomes crisper, cleaner and sweeter and timing becomes more incisive -- with no downside to consider save possible driver vulnerability, although for some reason, Focal’s recessed tweeters seem less fascinating to small fingers than the protruding domes of more conventional designs that seem to carry an irresistible press-me appeal.

A large part of the Sopra 2’s unobtrusive domestic elegance is down to the bass alignment. Any serious speaker is going to have to take low frequencies seriously, and it is noticeable that all four of previously mentioned contenders do just that, albeit each in its own way. The Sopra 2 takes a leaf straight out of the Utopia book, with its large and carefully contoured port, firing down and out between the shoulders of the plinth. Combined with the well-behaved bass enclosure, this delivers a -3dB point at 34Hz, somewhat higher than the other speakers in this group, but combined with its two 7" drivers, 91dB system efficiency and easy drive characteristics, it makes for a fast, articulate and potent bottom end.

One other aspect of the Sopra 2s is worth mentioning before we get to how they sound. Despite their svelte appearance and cuddly looks, each speaker weighs in at a grunt-inducing 55 kilos-- or 122 pounds in old money. Under the pretty paint work (Focal also offers a walnut veneer) and attractive curves, these are seriously solid and substantial cabinets. Now look at the shiny acrylic plinths and you’ll notice large, knurled adjusters in each corner. These may not be quite as effective as the ones fitted to the Vienna Acoustics Liszt, but boy are they an improvement on anything to previously emerge from the Focal factory. With a speaker this capable, being able to precisely adjust both its attitude (especially rake angle) and height off of the floor is crucial to realizing the performance you’ve just paid for. With a speaker this heavy, providing the tools to actually do that job is crucial to that job actually getting done. The result: more speakers sounding more like they should and another indicator that the audio industry is finally wising up to the fact that the only thing that justifies the prices it charges is the performance of its products -- so it better do a better job of actually delivering that performance. Products like the Sopra No.2 aren’t just capable of great performance; they make an active effort to help owners achieve it.

Talking of performance brings us right back to the question of how the Sopras sound. In this case, I say "Sopras" because there are -- as you’ve probably guessed -- multiple models in the line, the No.2 reviewed here and also numbers 1 and 3. Sopra No.1 ($7999 per pair), a compact, two-way stand-mount, looks like somebody took a slice out of the middle of the floorstander, leaving a single 6 1/2" bass/midrange unit topped off with the tweeter girdle. As is often the way, another local reviewer had the No.1 in his system, and listening to it and to him, I thought it clear that both Sopras are cut from the same sonic cloth, so if you like what you read about the No.2 but can only accommodate or perhaps simply prefer the sound of a smaller two-way speaker, you can consider the stand-mount with confidence: at this point in time, in many systems and circumstances, I’d choose it ahead of the Diablo Utopia, despite the 30% difference in price.

The No.3 ($19,999 per pair) is a larger but outwardly similar model to the 2, the proportional increase in driver and cabinet size making the two speakers hard to tell apart unless they’re side by side. They’re even harder to separate on paper. Despite using 210mm (8 1/4") as opposed to 180mm (7") bass units, accommodated in a substantially larger volume, the numbers on both speakers are virtually identical. The No.3 boasts 1Hz of extra extension at -3dB and 0.5dB of extra sensitivity, which seems like a pretty paltry return on a much larger cabinet and much larger price tag to match. But therein lies a story that I’ll return to later.

What makes the Sopra 2s punch above their weight is that sense of seamless integration and what it creates when combined with Focal’s traditional area of excellence -- dynamic discrimination. With the No.2 on the end of either the Naim NAP-300 DR or the Audio Research Reference 150 SE (quite different amplifiers) there’s an unmistakable feeling of musical purpose and momentum, of inevitable forward motion that reveals the drive and intent behind the playing and performance, be that a helter-skelter cascade of notes and emotion or a more measured and studied progress. There’s never any question of where the music is going or how it’s getting there. With the opening track of Basie’s Farmers Market Barbecue LP [Pablo Records/Analogue Productions AJAZ 2310- 874], there was an immediate sense of life and purpose in the playing: the bass was tactile, sure-footed and pitch perfect, a propulsive flow of spaced and placed notes, pushing the track forward. What was more impressive was the way it remained clean, clear and distinct, even below the towering brass tuttis. And talking of brass, the way the Sopra 2s managed to map the dynamic graduations as those tuttis build lent a wonderful inevitability and eventual release to proceedings. Listen to the Count’s piano and even his most sporadic chords and stabbed notes; interjections that can seem aimless on many systems have an obvious sense of purpose, adding slant and accent to the piece as a whole. Play this album through the Sopra 2s and I defy anybody not to get this music -- the infectious joy, pace and energy have an almost addictive quality if the system and speakers can capture it and the Sopra 2s do.

These are not the first Focals to pull this trick. It’s one of the things that make the Grandes and Stellas so musically impressive and engaging. But it takes a lot more getting (in terms of system and setup) when it comes to those speakers -- and it’s a quality that’s been notably absent from the medium and smaller Utopias, at least until the arrival of the Scala V2. What makes the Sopra 2s so impressive is that they achieve it at such an approachable price and across such a wide range of systems and music. As I said, it’s a quality that you’ll hear just as clearly with a Naim amp as an Audio Research, but there’s a further side to this. The Sopra No.2’s 34Hz -3dB point and its large downward-facing port mean that its low end rolls off pretty rapidly after that (-6dB at 28Hz). That makes it less potent on paper than the immediate competition, at least in terms of deep bass depth and weight -- a proposition that is clearly reflected in practice. That’s the kind of observation that can have readers shaking their heads and dismissing a product out of hand, but that would be a mistake. The Sopra 2s have made their own distinct deal with the sonic devil, trading that bass extension (and the things that go with it) for other virtues that offer their own appeal. At 91dB sensitivity and a relatively kind 8-ohm load, the No.2s are the easiest of our quartet to drive -- by quite a margin. Not as power hungry, they’ll work with lower-powered amps than the other speakers I’ve been looking at, without eroding their core musical qualities. The downside is the loss of scale and dimensionality that goes with truly wide bandwidth, the Focal speaker offering neither the coherent acoustic space delivered by the Liszt nor the sheer scale and dimensionality of which the Sabrina is capable. But it makes up for that in terms of presence and purpose.

Play the Sol Gabetta-led performance of the Vivaldi Cello Concerto in G minor, RV 416 (from disc 2 of Il Progetto Vivaldi 1-3 [Sony 88875035952]) and the Sopra 2s don’t generate the wide-open soundstage and explicit instrumental separation that this disc contains; but what you do get is an almost physical sense of shape to instrumental lines and the energy that generates them. The impression of pace, quick or slow, both in the music and in the playing -- the contact of bow across strings -- was as vivid as the cut and thrust in the phrasing, the exchanges between soloist and the members of the small Capella Gabetta consort. This immediacy and musical directness depended both on the speaker's dynamic discrimination -- its ability to track and project tiny shifts in musical energy -- and on its absolute continuity from top to bottom, the integrity of the musical structures it created. Any shift or discontinuity in energy levels and the whole edifice, the illusion of real people and real instruments, came crashing down, but the Sopra No.2 rarely if ever put a foot wrong. The core of its performance rested firmly with the heavily revised midrange driver and it extended up and down from there without audible discontinuities or distractions. Playing the Vivaldi, that means that your attention rests less on the remarkable stereo qualities of the recording, more on the vitality in the piece and the playing.

So far, the examples I’ve used show both the Sopra 2’s strengths (dynamic, temporal and in terms musical integrity) and its weaknesses (spatial and dimensional), precisely because these are acoustic recordings. In neither case do those weaknesses disqualify the Sopra 2s from consideration, merely offering a different perspective on the event -- and arguably a more direct emotional connection. But move toward the realm of studio recordings and the balance of virtues swings firmly in the Focal’s favor. Sly Dunbar’s solo album Sly, Wicked and Slick [Taxi/Virgin FL1042] pre-dates his more dub-orientated outings with Robbie Shakespeare and is essentially a jazz/reggae outing for the Compass Point All Stars. Sly’s kit was front and center as you’d expect, but it was surrounded by a parade of musical virtuosity and captured on a great recording. The drums were big and solid, with regular avalanches from the toms and crisp, insistent percussion. The Sopra 2s delivered this album with a real motive force, driving the music forward and carving out the characteristic skanky rhythm. It still offered a perfect foundation for the solo fireworks -- none more so than Mikey Chung’s astonishing chopped bass breaks on the opening "Rasta Fiesta": I guess that’s what happens when you give a lead guitarist a Fender Precision.

But what really impressed here was the unmistakable joie de vivre that the speakers captured in the performance and projected into the room. This is where that sense of presence and musical purpose really hit home, from the solid impact of the drumming to the easy separation but ensemble organization of this tight (let simultaneously loose) band. It’s a quality that you’ll discover time and again, on tracks as diverse as Nouvelle Vague’s frenetically breathy cover of the Dead Kennedys’ "Too Drunk to F***," or Crowded House’s "Fall At Your Feet" with its surging, elastic rhythms. This is music to engage with rather than simply study, and it’s an approach or attitude that’s at the core of everything the Sopra 2s do.

That sense of organization and musical immediacy comes, as already noted, at the expense of the sort of acoustic scale and dimensionality delivered by the Wilson Sabrina, for instance. Nor does the Sopra 2 possess the almost preternatural tonal quality and harmonic shadings revealed by the Vienna Acoustics Liszt, sounding a little pale and washed out in comparison, but those are considerations that are not just secondary for many listeners, I suspect they’ll be all but irrelevant to the average Sopra No.2 owner. Instead, that subtle thinning helps sort out congested mixes and compressed recordings, easily pulling the instrumental arrangement on the Nouvelle Vague track away from the constant party chatter in the background -- as well as accentuating the deliciously sardonic curl to the lips of lead vocalist Camille. Where these speakers excel is in extracting the musical core from the compressed muddle that represents so many modern recordings, although their sense of clarity, purpose and organization was equally impressive on better recordings too, while their fast, articulate bass allowed them to thrive on electronica as varied as Moby, PSB or Dead Mau5.

Time then to meet the No.2’s bigger brother. the Sopra No.3, and understand the relationship between the two. As I’ve already explained, on paper the two models are disconcertingly similar: similar enough to have me questioning the logic or diligence of the Focal marketing department when the No.3 was first added to the line. But the last laugh was definitely on me. Listen to these two speakers side by side and it soon becomes apparent that they are not just very different; each offers a completely different system strategy. The No.3 delivers the scale and expansive soundstaging that the No.2 struggles with. It offers greater dimensionality and intimacy, but above all it allows a greater expressive range, particularly on the subtle textures and harmonics of acoustic material. It also goes louder and does so with greater discrimination and grace. In short, it allows the music to breathe significantly more easily -- at the price of a bigger cabinet and more space. So far so good, but that extra performance comes at a price, not just in monetary terms but in terms of size, domestic impact and space requirements. It’s harder to set up too.

Take all that into account and I can see these two speakers occupying very different roles. The No.3 is large and capable and, in the context of the systems in which it’s likely to find itself, not extravagantly expensive. But perhaps most important, its spatial capabilities, dynamic and expressive resolution and headroom all allow it to grow with a system. This is a speaker that you can run with seriously exotic amplification, safe in the knowledge that it will deliver the benefits. In contrast, the No.2 is a very different and arguably more contained animal. Where it scores is in its ability to get the most out of rather than exposing the flaws in lesser electronics and recordings. The No.3 may well be regarded as a stopping point en route to somewhere else, whereas the No.2 is an end in itself, a speaker to buy and live with. Its balance of virtues, aesthetic, physical and musical, make it perfectly suited to the role of "The last speaker I’ll ever buy." In a world as fickle as high-end audio, where fashions and affections seem to shift daily, the ability to deliver such long-term satisfaction is no mean feat, while the structure and aspirations of the various Sopra models speak volumes about Focal’s appreciation of the shifting subtleties of the market.

Price: $14,999 per pair.
Warranty: Five years parts and labor.

Focal-JMlab
BP 374-108 due de L'Avenir
42353 La Talaudière cedex
France
(33) 0477 43 5700
www.focal.com

Associated Equipment

Analog: AMG Giro turntable with 9W2 tonearm and VPI Classic 4 with JMW 3D12 tonearm; Fuuga, Kuzma CAR-50, Lyra Etna and Dorian cartridges; DS Audio DS-W1 cartridge with matching equalizer; Tom Evans Audio Design The Groove phono stage.

Digital: Audio Research CD6 and Neodio Origine S2 CD players.

Preamplifiers: Audio Research Reference 10, Connoisseur 4.2 LE, Tom Evans Audio Design The Vibe.

Power amplifiers: Audio Research Reference 150 SE, Berning Quadrature Z, Jadis JA-30 and Tom Evans Audio Design Linear B monoblocks.

Integrated amplifier: Mark Levinson No.585.

Cables: Complete looms of Nordost Valhalla 2 or Crystal Cable Absolute Dream from AC socket to speaker terminals. Power distribution was via Quantum Qb8s or Crystal Cable Power Strip Diamonds, with a mix of Quantum Qx2 and Qx4 power purifiers and Qv2 AC harmonizers. CAD Ground Control and Nordost Qkore grounding systems.

Supports: Raidho equipment racks used with Nordost SortKone or HRS Nimbus equipment couplers and damping plates. Cables are elevated on HECC Panda Feet.

Acoustic treatments: As well as the broadband absorption placed behind the listening seat, I employ a combination of RPG Skyline and RoomTunes acoustic devices.

Accessories: Essential accessories include the SmarTractor protractor, a USB microscope (so I can see what I’m doing, not for attempting to measure stylus rake angle) and Aesthetix cartridge demagnetizer, a precision spirit level and laser, a really long tape measure and plenty of low-tack masking tape. I also make extensive use of the Furutech anti-static and demagnetizing devices and the Kuzma ultrasonic record-cleaning machine. The Dr. Feikert PlatterSpeed app has to be the best-ever case of digital aiding analog.

© www.theaudiobeat.com