Sopra N°2 | Focal Speakers
Focal's Sopra N°2 is the new pinnacle of today’s premium loudspeakers. It perfectly combines dynamics, space optimization, and harmonic richness. The Sopra range, from the Latin Supra, symbolizes the "plus" brought by the line in Focal's crusade to always offer more.
Moreover, it is the root soprano, probably the most delicate voice to reproduce, which occupies the part of the frequency range on which Focal have focused their efforts and in which Sopra brings major advances. Further enriching the sound signature, Focal characterized her expressive medium.
The first listening assessment, conducted with prototypes of the midrange driver incorporating the magnetic and mechanical innovations, were outstanding. The quasi "holographic" quality of vocals could not have been more encouraging, as were focus, articulation, and expression. In short, a surprising realism.
The first tuning sessions began with transducers and cabinet in their completed forms to finalize crossover filtering. Sopra 2 was chosen as the reference point because it is the most complicated product for fine tuning. With a high-midrange-class, all the difficulty lies in the connection of the serious track / lower midrange.
The compactness sought on Sopra 2 imposes limits in the low range on one hand, but especially in the other transitional arrangements to have the "fitting" the most successful in harmonic structure. In other words, to have the most accurate height and amplitude of each vis-à-vis the original musical message.
After the first tuning sessions, Focal had versions of Sopra 2 that they could evaluate with different electronics and in various acoustics. Its incredibly neutral, natural, high-definition sound and high-midrange spatiality revealed that the speakers have extreme sensitivity to other components in the system. This point requires a particular discipline when tuning not to compensate for faults upstream of the speaker. Focal then redoubled their efforts and tried endless combinations to achieve near-final definition of the Sopra 2.
Made in France Sopra’s cabinet was designed in their cabinet-making facility in Bourbon-Lancy (Burgundy, France) using the same manufacturing process as for Utopia The 69mm sandwich-machined front panel uses the same principle as ‘Gamma Structure’ to provide inertia and damping. Its density gives it the inertia necessary to provide a stable mechanical reference for optimal definition.
The inside of the cabinet has no parallel side panels, and small Helmholtz resonators have been added to the lower section to prevent vertical standing waves. Glass was chosen as the material for the base of the loudspeaker to provide floor coupling, using spikes, which enabled the fastest propagation time possible, thus eliminating all halo effects in the bass.
