Focal Sopra 1 replacement

I can sell my Focal Sopra 1 speakers for a good price. What would be a good replacement to use with my Naim Unity Nova? I don’t like warm sounding speakers.

Well that’s a very open question! You don’t like warm speakers which the Sopras aren’t so it begs the question why are you changing? Have you got a budget? 2nd hand or new? What is your listening area like! Are your speakers placed close or further away from the rear and side wall, how a speaker performs is really room dependent. Ideally you should be able to demo speakers at home.

But amongst your many options are Neat, Kudos, Dynaudio, Russell K, Spendor…….

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I like my speakers but I need some money right now so I would have to get other ones in the near future.
I have a 5 by 10 meter room, the speakers are placed in one half of that room to the sides. So they fill half of that room. On the other end of that room I have a naim muso 2, so that I have sound coming from everywhere and it prevents me from having to up the volume.

Okay a quick solution, Neat Iota Alpha?

What do you mean?

I must add to my situation that the rooms are quite empty which is never easy for good audio.

Not to big would be nice too.

Alpha II?

Well that’s all challenging, that’s a large listening area isn’t it? All the Neat speakers match well with Naim and the Iotas particularly well with the Unitis, so I suggest would be a good match.

Thanks for taking your time to help me.

Basically I have the idea that my system is wxtremely good, but that I don’t get the benwfit of it, while I am like 5 meters away from it on my couch. Bit how to rebuild this?

I should add that my right speaker is placed on big piled artbooks, 1,5 meter high and my left speakers stands on a sideboard. Both ofcourse with small things under the speakers.

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Are your Sopras set along your 10 meter or 5 meter wall?

They are set to half of the room on the long side.

This is the 5 by 5 side of the room, left of the picture is the other open 5 by 5 area where on the top side is a naim muso 2 that I use when I walk around to match volume

should I get my floorstands back? I don’t use them for esthetic reasons. .

These are the ones I used to use.

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Absolutely you should use the proper stands!

Will thay make a lot of difference? Also get the left one more to the right?

It still amazes me that people who spent serious amounts of money on their setup don’t take the effort to dive into the basics of speaker placement. Sopras and the Nova are serious pieces of the kit. But the speaker placement is absolutely cringeworthy in this case. They aren’t even at the same height!

Unless you really need the money, I would spend some time to experiment with speaker placement. I guarantee you that you might not want to sell your speakers anymore cause it could easily transform your experience of how they sound.

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You are very right and I do understand I need some serious spanking.
The result of the matter is that I have decided not to sell them and that I just picked up the stands from the shop that I sold them to. They still had them.
Is there a good guide or online help to guide me to a good placement? Other then my own ears ofcourse and my common sense.

Thanks for the comments, it helped a lot.

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Where I don’t condone violence usually, spanking is definitely acceptable in this case haha. As my avatar says “Strike first, strike hard, no mercy!” :winking_face_with_tongue:

This would be a good place start :grinning_face: LMGTFY

And this too:
https://share.google/aimode/DQhdNyJUvC4vaqtB5

Wow… If you keep them, you should definitely use the stands. First try them with equals distance between speakers and distance from listening position. Position them with enough room from the back- and side walls. Finally position them with a little toe-in (something like 10 degrees). Than spend some time experimenting: Move them closer together, change the toe-in, change the distance from the walls etc. It can be a bit of a painful process, but the rewards can be huge. It actually hurts a little bit to look at how the speakers are positioned now :slight_smile:

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ATC SCM 19 are very definitely not “warm” sounding speakers. They’re a good deal cheaper than the Sopras and for me, sound better, too. The SCM 20s are even better and correspondingly more expensive, but still cheaper than the Sopras.

Roger

I’m a bit confused! They’re Sopra 1 stands right? Why did the dealer take them without the speakers? Perhaps I’m missing something?

In any event put them all back together, experiment with positioning as suggested, and I think you’ll find you have a great system.

I got the stands back and I am positioning them more suitable to my ears. Sounds allready way better.

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Ah yes, that looks a lot better! Enjoy what you have…