Focal Chora 826 Floor-standing speaker (each)

Innovative driver design

Focal’s Chora lineup is all about a big soundstage, clean sound, and exquisite detail. How do they do it? With a relentless dedication to developing innovative new drivers. Focal designs and produces all their drivers in house, resulting in a wide range of great speakers for varying budgets. The 826 tower carries a lighter price tag than many high-end speakers. But anyone who has ever heard it would never call the sound anything other than bona fide hi-fi.

Focal’s latest woofer design

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 826 looks to be better balanced (particularly in the midrange), offer better, tighter bass response, and respond beautifully to high-current power.

Trickle-down tweeter tech

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.

Gorgeous lean-back cabinet

Time alignment is a fancy way of saying that the sound from each driver should hit your ears at the same time. That’s why the 826’s cabinet is angled, for sound that’s accurate and locked in. The speakers are available in three beautiful finishes that will make a statement before you even turn on your amp.