Focal Aria 926 Floor-standing speaker (each)

An expressive speaker for all kinds of music
The clear, richly detailed sound of Focal’s Aria 926 will give you a deeper appreciation of the talents and skills of your favorite singers and musicians. Focal’s Aria series features advanced technologies originally developed for the company’s acclaimed Utopia models, providing expressive, audiophile sound at more down-to-earth prices. The Aria 926 nimbly balances accuracy, musicality, and… fun.

Flax/fiberglass sandwich woofer
The midrange and woofer cones are made of a composite of flax and fiberglass.

Cone material combines old and new
Speaker makers continuously search for new and better materials for drivers. An ideal driver material has three qualities:

lightweight, so it can accelerate quickly
rigid, so that it moves like a piston, without bending
well-damped, so that unwanted vibrations don’t color the sound
In their pursuit of sonic excellence, Focal made a surprising discovery — right in their own backyard. Woven flax can form the core of a very rigid yet lightweight speaker cone. Some of the world’s finest flax grows in fields near Focal’s headquarters.

Focal creates this unique speaker cone by sandwiching a layer of hollow flax fibers between two thin layers of fiberglass. In the Aria 926, the 6-1/2″ midrange and both 6-1/2″ woofers are made of this composite.

Inverted dome tweeter looks different, sounds terrific
The Aria series also features Focal’s 1″ aluminum/magnesium inverted dome tweeter. Inverting the dome brings more of the its surface area closer to the voice coil. That means the voice coil can be smaller and lower in mass. Focal has found that this reduced mass allows the dome to move faster than a conventional dome, for better high-frequency response.

And the tweeter’s lightweight Poron “memory foam” suspension improves damping, which reduces distortion in the critical 2-3kHz range by a factor of three, compared to a typical suspension.

The inverted dome’s spatial characteristics and wide dispersion are further enhanced by the waveguide plate it’s mounted on. In the horizontal plane, the tweeter’s frequency response varies by only ±0.5dB. The result is an incredibly stable soundstage, even for listeners not seated in the central sweet spot.

Stylish, vibration-resistant cabinet
All Aria speakers feature ultra-rigid MDF cabinets with sturdy internal bracing and non-parallel sides. Focal takes these steps to eliminate the unwanted vibrations that lead to “boxy” colorations in the sound. The handsome cabinets have a traditional look, but with a few unexpected touches — a leatherette finish on the front, and a glass top surface.