Review: Focal Chora 806 Bookshelf Speakers

Video Transcript

"Hey everyone, it's Adam with World Wide Stereo. Today's product video is going to be on the Focal Chora 806 Bookshelf Speaker. Before I get started I just want to remind you please subscribe to our YouTube channel, and I love getting all of your comments and questions. You can always do that in my product video in the comment sections below. So, let's get started. This is the Focal Chora 806 Bookshelf Speaker. This bookshelf speaker from Focal is in their Chora line.

And when you look at the Chora line, one thing you're going to notice is this driver right here. This is a new driver for Focal all made in France by hand. That's the takeaway. I went to France a little while ago to visit their factory, and gosh seeing everything made by hand, all the craftmanship is really awesome. But, this is their new driver here called a Slatefiber driver. It follows suit with how they make all of their other drivers in that it's, kind of, like an ice cream sandwich.

The vanilla layer is in here made of a recycled, nonwoven carbon fiber. And then, the top and bottom layers, the "chocolate layers" are a thermoplastic polymer, kind of gels everything together and holds the speaker together. It's a really tremendous speaker. It sounds great. Very fast, very accurate and natural sounding. Everything you want in a really good quality speaker. In the Bookshelf Speaker, you do get a one and a half-inch woofer and you get the one-inch aluminum and magnesium inverted dome tweeter.

The inverted dome tweeter is something you may not have seen in other places, but Focal does it all over the place. It gives you a really nice wide dispersion angle and a lot of accuracy, and not a lot of harshness out of the tweeter, so. Altogether a great package. You got the bass port on the front here which is awesome for set up because you can put it, kind of, closer to the wall. Ideally, speakers do like to be further out in the room but if you can't do that, because that sometimes doesn't look good, you can be okay with putting it closer to the wall and still get great bass response because that porthole's on the front.

When you do purchase these speakers, I just want to give you a hint, you want to, kind of, break these speakers in, and the best way to do that is just to have continuous music on them for about 20 hours. Just let them play and after about 20 hours if you did a before and after, you'll notice that the speaker just sounds more natural. The bass is warmer, and thicker, and richer, and the tweeter will kind of calm down and everything.

It will be a little harsh out of the box, and that's typical of all speakers. But, after that 20 hour break-in period, the speaker will really start to settle in and be really excellent for you. The speaker's available in a few different finishes. You have black, what you see here. So, you get a nice gloss black front, and, kind of, a textured wrap on the side here. You have a dark wood which has a dark wood on the side. And then, kind of, almost a color that matches the Slatefiber here which is a grayish-blue color.

And a light wood, which the front will be a nice cream-colored white and the side panel is like a light maple. That's a really beautiful speaker. So, there's a grill that is available that comes with the speaker and you can put it on. There's a couple magnetic points here that you got to, kind of, line up just to get it to stick on there. Just like that. So, your typical speaker binding for this right here on the back. You can either unscrew this, put the wire up in there and tighten it down, or what I would recommend, the speaker will ship with covers that come over these plugs right here.

And you can just use a sharp knife or your thumbnail whatever and then pry those out of there. And you can get banana plugs and actually plug the speakers in which is a much better, more secure connection. Some of the key specifications of this speaker. It's 89 dB sensitive. The recommended amplifier power is about 25 watts to 120 watts. And, it has a frequency response of 58 Hz to 28,000 Hz. The speaker itself you can either sit on a bookshelf or a stand, or a piece of furniture.

There is, and I would recommend if you can do it, an optional floorstand for it because the floor stand will have an angled plinth so the speaker will actually sit back a little bit. And, by tilting the speaker back you're going to physically time align the sound coming to you. See, sounds that come out of the tweeter and sounds that have come out of the woofer travel at different speeds and if you lean it forward like this, you'll probably get the tweeter coming at you before the mid-range and woofer information because they travel faster.

So that angle that Focal has put on the speaker stand will allow the woofer to have a chance to arrive at the same time as the tweeter giving you a much better, more realistic musical experience. This is the Focal Chora 806 Bookshelf Speaker. If you'd like to learn more about it, you can click on the product link in the description below or call or email us at any time. At the time of this video, this product is currently on display at our Montgomeryville showroom.

If you'd like to come in for a demo, we'd love to have you. We offer free shipping, a 60-day return policy, and we are authorized dealers for everything that we sell here. Please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel. This is Adam with World Wide Stereo reminding you to listen to music every day. So long."