A recent evening spent with a pair of Focal Sopra no.3s, and the recent newsletter from The Music Room jogged my audio memory on just what a great value the Sopra no.3s really are.
The memory remains excellent, the only thing that has changed. Back in 2017, they were $20k per pair. Today they are pushing closer to $30k, but after re-reading my own copy, I still stand by what I had to say. Back in issue 82, we reviewed and I purchased the review sample of Focal’s Sopra no.3. Here’s an edited copy of the old review.
A couple years before that, I was touring the Focal factory when I spied what was the prototype for the Sopra 3. A hand quickly went in front of my camera and our host asked me politely, “let’s not talk about this just yet…” Always being one who can keep a secret, when they were on display two years later in the Focal room at Munich Hi End, we all had a good laugh about the new speakers. Of course they were orange, and those of you who know me, know I LOVE orange. A brief discussion was had to arrange the review and we closed the conversation with “of course we will be sending you the orange pair, no?”
As fate would have it, near the end of the review, a scheduled visit to Boulder’s new factory and soundroom makes for a poignant reflection on the $20,000/pair Sopra no. 3s you see here, in all of their orange glory. No snide comments about the color, my wife loves them. What proves illuminating is playing a handful of tracks on the Sopras after spending a few months with them, getting on a plane and listening to many of them on the Grande Utopias, then sitting back in my listening room the next day to repeat that playlist for comparison. In all my travels, the Boulder room is at the top of my “all time musically revealing” systems I’ve had the pleasure to experience.
Dynamics aren’t everything, but if you don’t have them…
Granted, auditory memory isn’t perfect, and my reference Pass XS300 amplifiers are not Boulder 3050s, but they are no slouches either, and the overall characteristics of both speakers are easily revealed. One of the most impressive aspects of the Grande Utopias is their response to transients, reproducing drums with the necessary impact to sound believable in a more realistic way than I’ve ever heard a cone speaker accomplish. A similar yet slightly diminished effect was had when the Stella Utopias were here a few years ago. Playing AC/DCs “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” at a relatively high volume, the solitary pounding on a single snare drum rings true with all of the force, tone, and decay that the Grande Utopia offers.
Turning the volume down to a reasonable level reveals the same dynamic immediacy, indicating a linear speaker. Where some mega speakers only sound great cranked to the max, the Sopra no.3s go all the way down to a whisper with ease, not losing the effortlessness they display at high volume. Thanks to a 92db/1-watt sensitivity rating, this three-way system does not need a ton of power to play at high levels, and it is also very tube-friendly. Even my 20-watt per channel Nagra 300i works splendidly.
The warmer tube amplifiers in my collection provide a slightly more friendly, somewhat colored presentation than the Boulder monoblocks. When connected to my reference Pass Labs XS300 monoblocks, they deliver a truly epic sonic experience. They aren’t quite Grande Utopias, but when mated to an amplifier with a lot of power and control, I am constantly amazed at how much of the flagship Focal sound the Sopra no.3 delivers.
Midrange is another key
After discussing the Sopras design with the Focal engineering team and reading through the white paper accompanying them, it’s evident that a tremendous amount of refinement has gone into this design. In some areas, the Sopra range incorporates new technologies that are not even in the Utopia range yet. At the Sopra launch, Focal’s engineers made it clear that they were trying to take what they’ve learned with Utopia further and make it more compact as well, without sacrificing the prodigious bass response their Utopia speakers are famous for. They have succeeded on all counts.
Yet Focal makes it a point in its white paper to discuss just how important midrange clarity and linearity are to its overall sound. Utilizing “tuned mass design,” a concept derived from Renault Formula 1 in 2005 (then deemed unfair by the FIA and subsequently banned), Focal is able to optimize the damping of the critical midrange driver without sacrifices in either transient response or tonal coloration. This gives the entire Sopra range a clarity and coherence that rivals the best ESL speakers.
Please click here for their full analysis:
For those not so technically inclined, it only takes a brief listen to your favorite vocal track or some acoustic music to realize the Focal team has exceeded their goals. The delicate piano work on Keith Jarrett’s Shostakovich:24 Preludes and Fugues, Op.87 floats between these orange beauties, with a wonderfully accurate sense of tone and scale. Where some speakers capable of wide dynamic swings can overblow the image of acoustic instruments, the Sopras keep things in proper perspective. Consequently, when an overblown studio recording with a colossal sonic landscape is played, such as K.D. Lang’s Ingenue, or Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, maintains all of the grandeur.
Setup and placement
At 154 pounds each, you will need help getting the Sopra no.3s out of their cartons and out into your listening room. While not perfect sonically, I suggest if you have a carpeted floor, to slide them around a bit on their glass bases until you achieve the best placement you can. Then, screw down the integral spikes to optimally adjust speaker rake angle. Thanks to the wide dispersion of the Sopra tweeter, this is only a minor adjustment. For those who have more experience with the Utopia series, and are used to removing the protective grille on the tweeter, resist the urge to remove it on the Sopra series. The tweeter was voiced with the grille in place and sounds too forward sans grill. I was warned not to do this, but gave it a whirl anyway. They were right. Leave the tweeter grilles on.
My listening room is 16 x 25 feet, and I made it a point to try the long and short walls of the Sopra no.3s in both orientations. Both offered satisfying performance, and your preference will determine what works best. Situated on the short wall about five feet from the back wall and about six feet apart, with slight toe-in makes for slightly more powerful bass response, with the listening couch about 10-12 feet back.
I prefer a more immersive, near-field experience, so moving the speakers to the long wall with the help of Audio Plus Services John Bevier was easy. Orienting the speakers now to about ten feet apart and the tweeters nine feet from the listening position with a lot more room on both sides, the presentation opens up tremendously. Zammuto’s last release, Anchor, now goes beyond the speaker boundaries, out to the side walls and on some tracks feels like the room has been enlarged. Big fun.
The bottom and the top
Focal has been refining its beryllium tweeter for many years now, and with each iteration, it gets better, smoother, and more extended without fatigue. Ten years ago, the beryllium tweeter was a bit much, but they’ve tamed it perfectly. It now offers a stunning degree of resolution without any bite. Cymbals, strings, and percussion sound stunningly real., The integration with the midrange and woofers is equally flawless. The level of coherence the Sopra no.3 offers is world-class.
The lower part of the frequency response of the Sopra no.3 is listed as 33hz (-2db) with a useable frequency limit of 26hz. Listening to test tones proves this to be spot on, though the output is still strong in my room at 25hz, yet drops off quickly at 20hz. Seriously though, how much music do you have with 20hz tones, or do you have the room to render them anyway? I can’t imagine these speakers not having enough bass for anyone, and all of the bass-heavy tracks I auditioned proved highly satisfying.
-photo by Paul DeMara
Oh yeah, they are beautiful
With so much talk about sonics, which the Sopra no.3s excel at, I forgot to mention the sheer physical quality of these speakers. All three Sopra speakers give no quarter to the flagship Grande Utopia EM; they all feature $200,000 speaker build and finish quality. The layers of orange applied to my review samples (as with every other pair of Sopras I’ve seen in dealers and shows around the world) looks like liquid glass. For those wanting something a bit more subdued than bright orange, white, black and red, and two wood finishes are also available. All with the same high quality.
Nearly $30,000 is a lot of money to spend on loudspeakers. However, considering the level of performance offered for the price asked, it was easy to award the Focal Sopra no. 3 one of our Exceptional Value Awards back in 2017. Even at their current price, I would still make this call.
Focal’s level of in-house build and engineering expertise allows them to produce a speaker with this level of quality and resolution that is unattainable by few other manufacturers for anywhere near this price. Even if you were planning on spending $50,000 on a pair of speakers, I would not count the Sopra no.3 out. That is just how good these speakers are.
www.focal.com (factory)
www.focalnaimamerica.com (NA Distributor)
Peripherals
Analog source. Brinkmann Bardo w/Koetsu Jade Platinum – Pass Labs XS Phono
Digital source. dCS Rossini DAC w/Rossini Clock
Preamplifier. Pass Labs XS Pre
Amplifiers. Pass Labs XS 300 Monoblocks
Cable. Tellurium Q Silver Diamond
