A big, spacious sound, tonally neutral, with impressive dynamics, and powerful bass for the size of the speaker." That was my capsule description of the sound of Focal's Chorus 826W 30th Anniversary, and it also describes the Aria 936, which is all of those things—and more. As befits its somewhat larger size and additional woofer, the Aria 936 reaches further down into the bass, without the bass sounding boomy or bloated. No longer having samples of the Chorus 826W on hand for comparison, and thus having to rely on my memory and listening notes, I may be on thin ice here, but I'm comfortable saying that the sound of the Aria 936 is more detailed and more transparent, and its highs are particularly clear and extended without sounding in any way forward or clinical. Soundstages are bigger, and aural images within those soundstages are more precisely defined.