Focal Sopra N°1
Bookshelf Speakers

Focal Sopra N°1 Bookshelf Speakers

Sopra clearly inaugurates a new era for the 'Premium High-End' by taking into account new performance criteria. Compact, modern, a pure design, character... all these are essential factors to ensure perfect integration into your interior.

Compact and powerful, Sopra No.1 is a concentration of technological innovation. It features 'NIC' magnetic circuit, 'TMD' surrounds for the midrange woofer and Infinite Horn Loading (IHL) of the tweeter. It is a true 'demonstrator', corroborating the contribution of the new technologies implemented on Sopra.

First, the very low distortion gives it incredible clarity and very high definition combined with the spectacular spatialisation typical of bookshelf loudspeakers...

Beyond this attractive first impression, what's astonishing is the texture and smoothness of its sound. It provides a solid, 'fleshy' sound with full and articulated bass. Precious is by no means artificial, nor is the limited to the treble. The overall coherence and harmonic richness gives the listener a surprising understanding of the music.

INFINITE HORN LOADING

Facal's Beryllium tweeter features an incredibly light and extremely rigid dome, that deliver a transparent and dynamic sound. Its main limitation comes from the compression of air in the cavity behind it. But the requirement for Sopra to be compact meant that as much of the cabinet as possible had to be used for the bass. We had to explore other options for loading the tweeter, which led us to come up with the IHL system. The "IHL" system enables to load the Beryllium tweeter respecting the compactness demand of the speaker. The rear wave of the tweeter is delicately and gradually absorbed to avoid any distortion. The treble definition is pushed to the maximum.

NEUTRAL INDUCTANCE CIRCUIT

Since the beginning, we have always had a great interest in the magnetic circuit, an essential aspect of a speaker drive unit. The precision and detail of audio reproduction depends on the stability of the magnetic field. NIC technology (Neutral Inductance Circuit) permits to control the magnetic field and finally enables to master it in order to limit distortion. It decreases the effects of distortion and give the sound a very high-definition and an unprecedented dynamic.

TUNED MASS DAMPER

Our teams have revealed resonances which alter definition in the suspension which connects the cone to the basket. The solutions already known for increasing the damping properties of the suspension all result in an increase of the mass which consequently alters definition. The answer came from a technology used in earthquake-resistant skyscrapers and which is also used for the suspension on racing cars. "TMD" technology consists of optimising the suspension profile which controls the resonance in order to drastically reduce distortion and increase the definition of bass and midrange.