FOCAL JMlab Aria 936
Floorstanding loudspeakers
In the past Focal changed the material for its drivers several times, from paper and different polymers to Kevlar. Now the company has decided to go even more organic - the all new Aria 936s use flax fiber in their drivers. And, boy, it sounds so good.
Function and form
For midbass driver flax was the material of choice. The lightness of the flax fiber satisfies the criteria of high internal damping, high velocity and high flexural rigidity. The flax core is laminated from both sides by thin glass fiber layers. Flax is twice as light as fiberglass, because the fiber is hollow. It also has very low elasticity which makes it ideal to increase the flexural rigidity of a sandwich structure.
Aluminum/magnesium tweeter has been derived from the one in the Utopia range. The suspension between the dome and its bracket uses Poron, a material with shape memory, which - according to Focal- reduces distortion by a factor of three in the 2-3kHz range, where the human ear has very great sensitivity. Focal traditionally uses an inverted dome tweeters that should have better dispersion.
Bass management
The Aria 936 features 3 (!) bass reflex ports. Also, considering my previous experience with some budget Focal models, I was a bit afraid of pumping bass that obscures other frequencies. However the Aria exhibited one of the best bass performance I ever experienced with the French speakers. The bass was rapid fast, artculated and very well balanced with the midrange. Switchback of Jesse Cook was presented with a great sense for rhythm and timing, the sound was forward and lively with very low viscosity.
Clarity & delicacy
One had to love the Focal-JMLab Aria 936. When I listened to extremely difficult material like Sanctus Lydian from Stereophile's Test CD3 I was completely relaxed. It does not happen often - this recording was made in a lively environment that was further enhanced by quite sophisticated spatializers. Thus the artificial phase shifts and reverbs blend with natural sounds which is very demanding combination for reproduction accuracy.In many high end systems the sound was smeared, unfocused, without dynamics or with false spatial clues. Sustained trumpet tones also easily excite room modes. It surprised me that the Aria 936 had no issue whatsover to decode this complex sound network into highly resolved and tonally balanced sound.
Tonal accuracy
Though the enclosures are not braced and they are quite lively under knocking test, they do not store energy. Similarly to Sonus Faber or GamuT the principle of the Focal spins around sympathetic resonances that do not harm the music and whatever they add only enhances listening experience. The Aria 936 were transparent enough so that instrumental decays were clearly audible, and they also were very extended and open on top.
Spatial resolution
The imaging of the Aria 936 was precise in all planes, vertical and horizontal, lateral and depth. The speakers virtually dissolved in my room (a quite unusual act for Focals) but they required careful placement.
By the help of correlated (mono) pink noise I arrived to the best focus when both speakers were 2m far from me and they axes met in approximately 4m distance. Which means that they were toed in less than other speakers.
Recommended resellers
CZ: Horn Distribution, Praha, +420 272 656 485
Manufacturer's website: http://www.focal.com
Associated components
- Sources: C.E.C. TL-51XR
- Amplifiers: Mark Levinson No.432 power amplifier, Mark Levinson No. 360 preamplifier
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Kubala-Sosna Emotion
- Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima Studio2
Gallery
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