FOCAL JMlab Diablo Utopia Be
Stand mount monitors
It's been not so long from we had reviewed Focal's Micro Utopia. The Micro Utopias scored well, they earned two remarks, however: we did not like their conservative design and we felt that their lateral imaging was constricted. The devil (or diablo?) heard our laments and here we are, few months later, looking at a brand new pair of Focal Diablo Utopia Be. In Saint-Etienne, the Focal's hometown, they completely rebuilt the Utopia concept to something far more thrilling.
Function and form
The upgraded inverse dome beryllium tweeter (IAL2 stands for Infinite Acoustic Loading) boasts of covering everything from 2.2kHz to 40kHz. The midrange driver continues to exploit the Focal's unusual magnet assembly, the Power Flower technology. Each driver works into its own chamber in very stiff and carefully braced cabinets.
Bass management
The Diablos deliver springy and well articulated bass that is seamlessly integrated with mids. However, to prove that a small speaker can deliver big sound the Focal's engineers opted for extra bass weight. The Diablo Utopia are quite bottom end heavy on some recordings, in result. Not bad for late night listening sessions but sometimes the bass becomes too prominent in the mix. This type of voicing can be helped a bit by moving the speakers forward in a room, far from its boundaries.
Clarity & delicacy
From the very first tones playd through the Diablo Utopia Be it is clear that this Focal has improved over the Micro Utopia in ambience - the soundstage is more breathing, the decays are clearer, the microdynamic nuancees more apparent. The sound exhibits better cohesiveness and continuity, acoustic instruments play at a higher level of tonal accuracy, and the whole sonic picture is more relaxed and natural.
The mids are extremely resolved and 'neutral', yet a bit less colourful than I am used to. Thus I missed more passion and fire from the Diablos, to my ears there were parhaps too dry, too technical sounding, though obviously correct in what they did.
Tonal accuracy
As already mentioned, the airy openness is the Diablo's most powerful weapon. Whatever familiar CD I dropped in the player I savoured megapixels of information. It did not stop to amaze me how much hidden details I could hear on my discs. The Diablos can draw very precisely the transient edges which is great with acoustic music, but it is jaw-dropping with electronic, like with Kraftwerk's beats and clicks on their Minimum Maximum album.
The extra light in high octaves lends spark to female vocals, guitars, horns, pianos...just to anything. With the Diablos I have never had the feeling that they are sufficiently extended, it was like they had a supertweeter integrated. When I switched back and forth between the Diablo Utopia Be and other speakers (I had another 2 pairs of floorstanding models available plus the Micro Utopia) I found that I quickly developed a kind of addiction to the new Utopia's highs.
Spatial resolution
The Diablo Utopia play into quite a narrow sweet spot. They favour only one listener at time which handicaps them for home theatre installations where one expects the opposite.
The Diablos are good in lateral soundstaging, even though the sound travels outside the speakers only here and there. In my concrete set up there were a little bit too forward which resulted in slightly compressed depth of image.
Recommended resellers
CZ: Horn Distribution, Praha, +420 272 656 485
Manufacturer's website: http://www.grande-utopia-em.com
Associated components
- Sources: YBA CD300, Meridian G08
- Amplifiers: YBA Passion AMP300, Mark Levinson No. 432, Meridian G02 preamplifier
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Wireworld Equinox 5 (speaker cables) and Eclipse 5 (interconnects), Cardas Golden Presence, Neutral Reference, Cross and Crosslink
- Power conditioning: PS Audio Powerplant
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