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Focal Chora 816 Speaker Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 5 1.7%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 27 9.1%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 168 56.8%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 96 32.4%

  • Total voters
    296

PeteL

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if you are in EU, you're in for a treat. Aria 906 was also reviewed highly by Amir here, and it's significantly cheaper than in US.

Good performance + great price (on the perceived value) + made in France are main reasons I bought them. all thanks to ASR.
Yep, the cost of oversea freight have gone up stupid. It really hurt these great brands. As far as I remember Focal has always had a very strong presence in Canada, or at least in Québec, maybe due to the French language connection somehow and the location of their North American headquarters (before and after the Naim merger). At the moment on a quick search I see 719CAD. Still reasonable but even with conversion, a bit higher than US prices which shouldn't be since the point of entry should be here unless I missed some moves.
 

AudioSceptic

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This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of Focal Chora 816 floor-standing/tower speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $499.
View attachment 272090
Despite the low price, the speaker is beautifully finished with a curved port and beautiful light oak finish:
View attachment 272091

A magnetic grill covers the dual woofers but leaves the port and tweeter alone as there is nothing to damage there.

Speaker is made in France which again, is surprising given the low cost.

The design is 2.5 way, seemingly aimed at home theater applications. Past 2.5-way designs we have reviewed have had issues so let's see if they persist here as well.

Note: by experimentation, I arrived at the reference axis at the upper rim of the mid-woofer below tweeter.

Focal Chora 816 Measurements
Let's start with our usual anechoic frequency response measurements:
View attachment 272092

At "macro" level the response is good with more or less flat on-axis. There are however small chewiness especially in midfrequencies. And somewhat elevated treble. Sensitivity is high at 91+ which is a benefit of large enclosure of a tower speaker. Bass extension is down to 45 Hz or so (F6). Measuring each driver at point blank gives us more insight at the reasons for above:
View attachment 272094

With cabinet/port and lower frequency woofer resonating, we get fair bit of variations in mid frequencies as noted. Nicely though, the mid-woofer (blue) resonances are at higher frequencies and lower amplitude so not as destructive.

Early window reflections average out to smoother response but with a pronounced peak around 8 kHz. Given how broad it is, it will be pretty audible:
View attachment 272097

It shows up clearly in predicted in-room response:
View attachment 272098

So we are going to have some brightness but otherwise, response is pretty smooth.

Benefit of the 2.5 way design comes from two woofers holding hands to produce much more power relative to distortion they produce as each working in more linear region:
View attachment 272099

View attachment 272100

Horizontal beamwidth is fairly controlled which was a pleasant surprise:
View attachment 272101

From memory, I thought it narrowed sooner than typical 2-way designs:
View attachment 272103

Vertically there is good bit of narrowing so best to position your ear at the upper rim of the mid-woofer:
View attachment 272104

Impedance curve is complex due to the design but has a typical 4 ohm low point:
View attachment 272105

Waterfall display shows fair bit of resonances:
View attachment 272106

And here is the step response for fans of that:
View attachment 272107

Focal Chora 816 Speaker Listening Tests
Upon power up, I immediately noticed the extra sharpness. Mind you, it was pleasant in the way it brought out so much detail but still, it was too much. Per measurements, I dialed in a single filter for that:
View attachment 272111

The sound was still a bit bright but I wanted to keep that character there so did not play with it more. On bass heavy material, the response from speaker went down low enough to activate the room mode I have at 105 Hz so I quickly dialed in a dip for that (not a fault of the speaker). That tightened the bass and now the sound was very enjoyable. What really impressed me was the incredible dynamics and power handling of this speaker. Powered by my 800 watt amplifier, it played effortlessly with impressive, gut feeling bass. Sub-bass response (below 30 Hz) was there and only slightly distorted. Certainly far, far above any 2-way speaker I have tested in this regard. And probably the best sound I have heard out of a tower speaker at this price point!

I sat there in amazement and enjoyed track after track. Yes, small filters for the various resonances in mid frequencies would likely make things better yet. But I was satisfied enough to not want to mess with them.

Conclusions
The positive look and feel of Chora 816 put me in good mood for testing of the speaker. On the other hand, once I saw the 2.5-way designation, I thought we were going to have problems. It seems that Focal has managed to keep most of the negatives of this approach to acceptable levels while bringing its high output capability to the table. The tweeter plays a bit bright. I imagine this is by design to give it some "showroom sound." In that regard, it is much more tasteful than others in its price class. A single filter was enough to deal with that. Alternatively you could toe out the speaker to accomplish something similar (I always listen on-axis).

Story becomes very convincing when one considers the low price and manufacturing in France! Clearly Focal knows what they are doing in their vertical integration to bring such a solution to market.

The Focal Chora 816 is an easy recommendation for me given its amazing power handling, great looks and very good performance at low price. It is now my favorite in this price range (and even higher).

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I see that this is available for £600/pair in black at Richer Sounds here in the UK. Can it really be only $500/pair in the USA? I don't normally like black speakers but this looks really good (also available in "dark" or "light" wood but I assume those are vinyl wraps not wood veneer) <https://www.richersounds.com/focal-chora-816-black.html>. Anyway, seems almost too good to be true!
 

dasdoing

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does the port even doing anything usefull? at the 1m inroom meassurement (distorsion graph) it's influence seams to be gone allready?
 

PeteL

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Maiky76

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If you compare these EQ with the 2 computed by @Maiky76 you see a few differences. The blue one is going lower in frequency which is not useful, it is
under Schroeder frequency and that part needs to be corrected in-room. The blue one is less sharp at 600Hz and doesn't try to fix the dip. I am not sure
it is very audible.

View attachment 272168
It looks to me that the you are not computing the my EQ correctly at least at LF.
The the first BQ is a high pass with a Q>>0.7 so there is actual gain, circa 2dB@60Hz.
On this graph the LF looks wrong...
 

tomtoo

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Question to the experts.

Where comes this second impedance maxima that the tweeter shows from?
 

Aerith Gainsborough

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The few Chora I put my hands on all had mediocre finish quality, with cheap vinyl wrap, that sometimes even lift off...
Not too fond of the cabinet design with the sharp edges either but I think the blue "slatefiber" cones look neat. :D
 

lordhumungous

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I have the Chora 826 and its a great speaker. Doesn't surprise me on the measurements of the 806
 

lordhumungous

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I've always found the woofer part of focal speakers to be quite impressive, this looks to follow that trend, but their tweeters never sounds right to me.
Yeah I do think they are a little over the top . Amir is right by using equalization to get them better.
 

Multicore

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I was happy to see Amir's R2R again. It felt like meeting an old friend by chance encounter. And things just got better from there. A well engineered big box for a very good price.

One of my friends, picked this up at my recommendation, about a year back
No detailed objective reviews could be found online
From whatever objective information, I could found on the net
I felt that, this was a good value
He has been happy with them & now the objective data from this review, justifies my reccomendation
Yes, isn't it interesting how that works? I know how you feel. Now imagine hypothetically that Amir had reviewed it as a dud. Have you thought about how you and your friend would deal with such a review?
 

eddantes

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1678970475547.png

Any reason to choose this over F35 - Similar speaker - in size, configuration and price. Meh...
I'm sure it's nice enough, and in the EU it might be a better deal, but I vote ... meh.
 

pierre

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It looks to me that the you are not computing the my EQ correctly at least at LF.
The the first BQ is a high pass with a Q>>0.7 so there is actual gain, circa 2dB@60Hz.
On this graph the LF looks wrong...

Bug found! Thanks for notifying me.
 
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