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New Aria EVO X Lineup:
No. 1: This is a two-way design, in a bookshelf/compact monitor cabinet, with ONE mid-bass driver
No. 2: A 3-way, floor standing design; TWO 6 1/2” bass drivers
No. 3 THREE 6 1/2” bass drivers.
No. 4: bending the rules a bit here - TWO 8” bass drivers

Each of these speakers is designed with the same materials. Deciding which one is right for you will depend on a number of things, including the size of your space, listening distance, and the other components in the system.

The Arias series also features a center channel and bi-polar surrounds for a complete home theater system.

Build

The cabinets are made of ultra-rigid MDF, which is a very common material used for speakers for its rigidity and consistency. But you will notice that the sides of the speaker are NOT parallel. This is to avoid standing waves and unwanted resonance in the cabinet. The model we have here is an example of their Prime Walnut finish. There is also high-gloss black. And the newest finish is the high-gloss moss green.

On the floor-standing speakers, the attachable bass is made of an aluminum alloy, to decouple the speaker from the floor. The floor spikes are adjustable and can be used to level and angle the speaker if needed. And it features a waveguide for the bottom port. The 3-way speakers are both front-ported and bottom-ported. This is going to give us more impact in the bass as well as even bass dispersion in the room.

Drivers:

They all feature the signature TAM tweeter. Made of an aluminum-magnesium alloy, these tweeters are very rigid and very light for excellent transients. The “inverted-M” shape is something you will see in every Focal speaker. This design helps the tweeter keep its shape at high volumes and frequencies and helps with widening the sweet spot. The waveguide used also opens up the horizontal listening plane. Again, proper positioning will give you the most out of these speakers, but the loss of detail is so much less when you do move from the best listening position.

The midrange and bass drivers are using Focal’s well-known flax-sandwich cones. These drivers have very natural damping qualities. This is one of the biggest contributors to the near-warmth and fullness that these speakers are known for. The midrange drivers are also using Focal’s Tuned Mass Damper, keeping the midrange moving in a predictable, piston-like motion. This driver handles a lot of the frequencies with the most information for human ears, making the speakers very pronounced and intelligible.

Lastly, the speaker is finished with a leather effect on the front and back. It looks great and it helps the baffle to be less reflective.

Specs

These are 8-ohm speakers. Specs for each speaker can be found on the Focal website, but they are all relatively efficient—92dB.

Listening Impressions

These speakers are just too easy to listen to. If you’ve been experiencing harshness in the speakers you’ve listened to, this speaker addresses this. However, to call it “warm” would be too oversimplify. The “warmth” we experience in other speakers is often a result of resonance in the cabinet or a roll-off from the tweeter. This is not happening in the Aria Evo X.The tweeter more than exceeds the limit of human hearing. If there’s audio information up there, these speakers are playing it. But these speakers are very fast, which is why we hear so much detail that might have been hidden before, without the consequences of dominating high-frequencies OR bass notes masking the mid- and upper-ranges. In a word: dry. They do not embellish the upper frequencies and they do not over-push the lows.This adds up to an ease-of-listening, because the fatigue we can experience with bright speakers is simply not there.

Vocals were so natural and so clear, the cymbals and transients were precise and easily placed in the recordings. Bass, ever-present and smooth. Without a subwoofer, these sound fantastic. But there’s not many speakers I wouldn’t recommend adding a subwoofer to. If you do add a subwoofer, you will need one that reaches very low with excellent power in order to keep up with the performance of these speakers.

Amplifier Pairings

We also put these speakers on different amps to see what the best pairing would be. On a tube system, we doubled-down on the richness and immersiveness that these speakers offer. It was an incredibly musical sound. However, when placed on an excellent solid-state amp, there was so much precision and edge-detail. This was where we found just how transparent these speakers are. Traditionally, you will see these paired with 120W - 200W solid state amps.

#FocalAriaEvoX #AriaEvoXNo3 #FocalLoudspeakers

0:00 Intro
1:15 Lineup
2:22 Build/Design
4:23 Drivers
7:00 Impressions
9:42 Amp Pairings
10:44 Summary