Chario Academy Sovran
The Academy Sovran combines tonal neutrality, natural bass, and a wide, precisely focused soundstage in a beautifully engineered two-box floorstander. Audiophilia admired its effortless dynamics and realistic instrumental colour, while Stereophile found its bass unusually musical and its room behaviour remarkably forgiving. It is a sophisticated speaker for hearing recordings with compelling honesty.
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Deliciously Crispy
Sound Quality
94/100
Build Quality
93/100
Value for Money
88/100
Pros
Exceptionally neutral, natural tonal balance with convincing instrumental timbre.
Wide, deep imaging and strong instrument separation; recommended toe-in sharpens image focus.
Disciplined, realistic bass remains musically accurate and relatively consistent across placement changes.
Substantial, luxurious cabinet construction with solid hardwood/HDF architecture and praised workmanship.
Cons
Does not deliver ultradeep bass or exaggerated chest-thump; its low end prioritizes accuracy over spectacle.
Best imaging requires careful toe-in and a suitably spacious listening setup.
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What Reviewers Are Saying
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 94/100
Reviews portray the Sovran as an exceptionally neutral, natural and musically involving loudspeaker rather than one tuned for immediate hi-fi fireworks. Its strengths are tonal truthfulness, controlled and convincing bass, expansive imaging, and an unflustered command of demanding recordings.
Bass
94/100
Stereophile found the bass unusually consistent as the speakers were moved around the room, calling it nonmechanical, natural and as musically accurate as it had heard at any price. Audiophilia similarly praised its dry, balanced and realistic low end, including convincing bass drum and tuba weight, though it cautioned listeners seeking exaggerated chest-thump that this is not that kind of presentation.
Mid
94/100
Audiophilia repeatedly describes the Sovran as completely neutral and highly natural, with recordings and performances drawing the listener in rather than being reshaped by the speaker. The reviewer also praised its handling of musical subtlety and its convincing separation of instruments.
Treble
92/100
Direct discussion of the upper frequencies is limited, but Audiophilia says the treble is as neutral as the midrange and bass, with no indication of glare, etch, or added brightness. The overall tonal balance was consistently described as natural and true to the recording.
Soundstage Imaging
94/100
Audiophilia found that the prescribed toe-in sharpened image focus, then praised a wide, deep soundstage, excellent instrumental separation, and imaging "like a champ." Stereophile also notes that positioning can be used to favor greater depth or a stage extending wider than the speaker spacing.
Dynamics
94/100
Audiophilia reports that the Sovran handled challenging material with ease, including Ann Mortifee's very wide dynamic range and demanding piano passages. There were no reports of compression, strain, or a loss of composure when the music became more demanding.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
93/100
The Sovran combines solid walnut or cherry upper cabinetry, an HDF baffle, and a separate lower bass enclosure in an unusually substantial two-box structure. Audiophilia calls the speakers gorgeous and says even a glance or touch conveys confidence in the workmanship, while Stereophile details the carefully executed cabinet and driver arrangement.
Value for Money
88/100
At the reviewed price of $20,000 per pair, Audiophilia considered the Sovran a distinctive, very highly recommended luxury speaker, praising both its Italian-level workmanship and long-term musical appeal. It is clearly a costly purchase, but the review presents the finish, technology, and musically truthful performance as a persuasive justification for buyers in this class.
Reviews & Sources
Professional reviews and sources for this product's Watt'n Potatoes analysis.
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Specifications
- Low Frequency Load
- Vented NRS Exponentional Hourglass
- Vent Geometry
- Bi-dimensional Hyper-Exponential Hourglass Type
- Configuration
- 3-way Reversed Vertical Alignement Free-Standing
- Drivers
- 1 Tweeter 32 mm SILVERSOFT dome NeFeB motor 1 Woofer 170 mm ROHACELL Full-Apex Poly-Ring NeFeB motor 2 Subwoofer 200 mm Natural Fibres Poly-Ring NeFeB motor
- Sensitivity
- 90 dB SPL normalized to 1 m / 2.83 Vrms / decorrelated L/R pink noise ITU-R BS 1116-1 compliant listening room
- Low Frequency Cut Off
- 35 Hz @ -3dB referred to C4 WETS
- Doublet Crossover
- 100 Hz
- Mid Hig Crossover
- 1180 Hz / LKR4 Derived (Δf = 45°)
- Rated Impedance
- Modulus 4 Ω (min 3.0) Argument ± 36°
- Cabinet
- Solid walnut and HDF. The structure comprises two cabinets: the lower contains two subwoofers; the upper contains one woofers, and one tweeter. The two wood cases are separated by four cylindrical proprietary-engineered elastomeric puffers acting as vibration decouplers to dissipate mechanical energy by orthogonal elongation
- Size & Weight
- 1220 x 240 x 440 mm (H x W x D) / 47 Kg
- Speakers Orientation
- Speakers should be tilted inward facing the listener
- Listening Distance
- Optimum speaker-listener distance > 3.0 m
- Listening Layout
- A carpeted floor in front of the speakers is recommended
- Side and Back Walls
- Should be at least 1m away from the speaker front baffle
- Suggested Amplifier
- Normal Amping. - 180 W/4Ω Max Average Power Bi-Amping. - 120 W/4Ω Max Average Power
Manufacturer's Description — Chario
ACADEMY
SOVRAN
3 way Floorstanding / 2 Pieces
The first three-way loudspeaker system able to control energy diffusion at low frequencies, using Chario Loudspeakers prioprietary Doublet adiation principle. A decisive step ahead, laying the theoretical foundations for a different approach to sound issues in small environments. Natural wood changes shape depending on ambient temperature and relative humidity.
In other words, it adapts to climate conditions, generating outright tensions inside its fibres, which modify the macroscopic layout. This fact is well-known to master cabinet-makers, who actually adapt techniques when assembling the various parts of any prized solid wood cabinet. Firstly, the right board has to be chosen and cut using precise criteria to avoid creating isolated and incompatible sections.
Secondly, the right storage area and drying process are defined for the rough wood. Thirdly and lastly, the sections are assembled in a precise order, to allow the moisture-absorbing capacity of each element to develop over time, settling to achieve soundness, not breakage. That’s why the CNC machines only cut and mill. The rest is time-honoured craftsmanship…
The Acoustic Doublet
The Acoustic Doublet proprietary theory that was developed for the Academy Sovran project allows even small-scale systems to use speaker/room interferences that will give listeners wave-fronts containing spatial information.
This type of information is linked to the size of the source and length of wave emitted and it’s unlikely to be conveyed to the listener by bookshelf loudspeakers, since a physical distance of at least 1m is needed between sources.
This is one of several reasons why Sovran adopts Reversed Woofer/ Tweeter Alignment, which keeps the woofer as far as possible from the subwoofer and at the same time provides the best angle for modelling the energy response around the second crossover region
HOURGLASS DUCT
Academy Sovran
The pressure that pushes the air inside the reflex duct is extremely high. To view the phenomenon you can exploit the analogy of hydraulic lines that push the water upward. As the salt loses fluid pressure and this in turn reduces the speed, turning a powerful jet and turbulent in a weak jet and silent.
Similarly, to the air in a reflex duct at a high speed of the particles corresponds to a whirling motion, while a low speed of the particles ensures a laminar flow silent. Obviously it is not advisable to reduce excessive air velocity, otherwise it also reduces the power of the acoustic wave emitted, renducing the action of the reflex port.
The theory itself as a maximum value of 130 km/h because they do not occur disturbances worthy of note, suggesting at the same time a duct with a cross section increasing at the ends. In the photograph aside, the view of the integral reflex duct section with Hourglass.
Verified Dealers
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Authorized dealers for Chario Academy Sovran
- Alen Audio — in-store — Extramurs, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain (website)
- Alma Music & Audio — online and in-store — San Diego, California, United States (website)
- AMPL’HIFI — online and in-store — Nîmes, Occitanie, France (website)
- Audio Creativ — in-store — Riedenburg, Bayern, Germany (website)
- Audio88 — in-store — Singapore, Singapore (website)
- Aug & Ohr — in-store — Zürich, Zürich, Germany (website)
- AV Luxury Group — online and in-store — Las Vegas, Nevada, United States (website)
- David Lewis Audio — in-store — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States (website)
- FME Elektroakustik — in-store — Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany (website)
- frank prowse hifi — in-store — Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia (website)
and 11 more verified dealers