Hi-fi legend Focal is launching an astounding Dolby Atmos soundbar – but can your living room handle it? | Daily Reports Online
- Mu-so Hekla has 15 speaker drivers in a 7.1.2 system with 660W of power
- Dolby Atmos (but no DTS), HDMI eARC, Ethernet and Wi-Fi
- Coming in 2026 for $3,600 / £3,000 (about AU$6,030)
The merger of French audio specialist Focal and British hi-fi specialist Naim continues to bear thrilling fruit: the new Mu-so Hekla takes its name from an Icelandic volcano and promises a similarly earth-shaking level of power for your home theater setup.
With 660W routed through 15 speaker drivers, this one-box 7.1.2-channel Dolby Atmos system is incredibly powerful; Focal says it’s ideal for rooms up to 40 square meters.
That power comes with a big practical consideration though – this thing is a lot heftier than the rest of the best soundbars. In contrast to the way something like the Sonos Arc Ultra can sit in front of your TV on a TV unit, this is more like the size of the old soundbases (remember those?) – only you can’t put a TV on top of it. It’s 4.65 x 39.37 x 11.61 inches (11.8 x 100 x 29.5cm) – is your living room space ready for it?
The Mu-so Hekla is launching this week, but at first it’ll only be available in the South Korean and Chinese markets. It’ll be launched globally in the first quarter of 2026 with a recommended retail price of $3,600 / £3,000 / €3,300 (about AU$6,030).
Mu-so Hekla: big sound, big box
There are seven speakers on the front of the Mu-so Hekla, two on each side and four on top, and the sound benefits from the Focal/Naim “Sphere” system, a combination of beamforming and crosstalk cancellation technologies.
The soundbar features the latest streaming board from the Naim Pulse platform, with access to the key streaming services, and it uses the same Focal and Naim app as the firm’s other streamers with widgets, smartwatch and voice assistant compatibility for both Apple and Google. It also supports multi-room and Party Mode.
Dolby Atmos is supported, but there’s no mention of DTS on the spec list, which may frustrate home theater fans – if you’re spending this much on a soundbar promising high-resolution sound, you’ve probably got 4K Blu-rays you want to hear in the best possible quality. The Hekla does include built-in intelligent room tuning for its sound, though.
Inputs are HDMI eARC (but there’s no HDMI passthrough port, annoyingly) and optical TOSLINK, and there’s also Wi-Fi and an Ethernet connector for wired networking. There’s also Bluetooth in basic SBC and AAC format, but… that’s barely in the spirit of this beast, is it?
RCA outputs enable you to team your Mu-so Hekla with a subwoofer for even bigger audio.
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