The Focal Sound
Contents
So how does a big Focal Aria Evo X No4 like this sound? Clunky? Sharp? Intrusive? Sluggish? No… anything but that actually! We expected – given our experiences with Focal – that the soundstage would be very open, somewhat fresh and perhaps a bit mid-focused. But honestly, the treble is well controlled and a lot friendlier than we’re used to.
Friendly giant
Focal has obviously changed course somewhat, as the “old” Aria is a lot fresher. And even our Sopra No1 was a bit more airy than this Aria Evo X. We can see that in the measurements we take later (see next page). The sound balance is straighter and more balanced. Although voices still come through prominently. This is probably due to the – slight – bump in the distortion around that area: between 1000 Hz and 2500 Hz there is a bump towards 0.5%. Anyway: considering the price, that’s allowed (our opinion).
What is nice is that this floorstander is widely applicable. Because of its size, you can drive it pretty hard. That also makes it suitable as fronts in a cinema for example. Now we would still add a subwoofer in a home-cinema, because 35 / 40 Hz is not deep enough for a home-cinema. However, this Focal Aria Evo X can be pushed quite a bit and does not shy away from some hefty action in wild movie scenes. Nor for some more refined work…. We had quite a bit of fun with this big boy!
The bulk, of course, will just be playing music. And also there the Focal delivers. As mentioned, the character is a lot milder than the previous Aria line. And we think that is certainly an advantage; the old one could really bite sometimes. That made you really have to be careful when combining it with an amplifier. That is now a lot less; many – powerful – amplifiers can work fine with this Frenchman!
We have played quite a lot of music. Think Steven Wilson, Massive Attack, Pink Floyd, Muse and countless other fine tunes. The Aria Evo X No4 stood its ground. And also let you hear the source just fine…. Without fortunately becoming too critical.
Small note
Now we played on both a B K HTA7.150 and the reference set. Both systems have stable, fairly heavy power amplifiers. The Pass is a bit more critical because of its design, but you really can’t get the HTA to lose control; that’s just a heavy lifter for multi-channel setups.
Given its specifications, we strongly advise against using the Focal Aria Evo X No4 on a “small” amplifier. Not because of the efficiency: that’s high. It’s more about the minimum impedance of 2.5 Ohms. That is a really mean load for a small amplifier with few power reserves.
