Interesting morning today with Dave Speirs from Naim / Focal who brought along the new Sopra No 2 speakers. Following on from last year’s arrival, the Aria series, these are products that have been designed with Salisbury’s finest in mind as part of the voicing. “See them as a Naim / Focal product” we were told. So we did.
Yippee. Gone are the days of searching out the right speaker cable or mains lead in an effort to enforce the sonic union. These are as close as any high end speaker can get to being plug and play, certainly in the Naim context.
Mind you, Super Lumina cables never seem to let us down and the results were very engaging indeed. Vastly better than my aural memory of the Electra series in the same room, anyway, or the older Alto Utopias, come to that. Bass did not stimulate the room boom issues that plagued earlier Electra be examples in our larger room and the open treble is merely an extension of the whole, rather than something spot lit that needs taming. We felt the need to move them away from boundaries simply to let the bass ‘breath’ better.
Given how well Titans and Fact 12s behave in the same space, we were ready to be unusually critical.
Properly convinced, we’ve ordered the No 1 (stand mount) and No 2 floorstanders for demo use. Prices are £6599 including stands and £9599 respectively and I’m quite excited to get to start playing with them. Allegedly, they are very easy to drive and valve friendly too.
Colour choices are gloss white, black, orange or red or walnut veneer. We’ve plumped for white stand mounts and black floor standers.
And now, with them a week or two away, I’m wondering …
Alastair