FOCAL CHORA 816 FLOORSTANDING LOUDSPEAKER (EACH)

Most people think of speakers as large wood-paneled boxes. While the cabinets are important, a great pair of speakers is all about the drivers. Focal designs and builds their drivers in-house, which is why the new Chora 816 floor-stander aims to compete with speakers occupying loftier price points. Each tower features a pair of Focal’s newest woofers, along with a tweeter innovation borrowed from their flagship speakers.

The secret ingredient of the new Chora speakers is the Slatefiber woofer, made of recycled carbon fibers. Carbon fibers are very rigid — important for any speaker cone material. But they go beyond rigidity. These cones are lighter, more responsive, and have better damping than the Polyglass woofers of the previous Chorus speakers. As a result, the Chora 816 looks to be better balanced (particularly in the midrange), offer better, tighter bass response, and respond beautifully to high-current power.

For the Chora’s high frequencies, Focal chose their TNF inverted dome tweeter. This design is known for a wide soundstage that’s not seating-position critical. One new development in this iteration is the use of a material called Poron, which suspends the tweeter from its mount. This suspension is trickled down from the Beryllium drivers in Focal’s flagship Utopia speakers. Think of it as memory foam. By maintaining its shape as the driver moves, it significantly reduces distortion for clearer sound.