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Focal’s new Utopia speakers are gorgeous leaning towers of sound

Parker Hall
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Focal

Thinking of buying a new vacation home or European sports car? How about plopping down your down payment on a set of astonishingly beautiful speakers instead?

High-end French audio manufacturer Focal has announced two brand new top-tier additions to its Utopia speaker lineup, providing well-heeled audiophiles with yet another piece of incredible audio gear to lust after.

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The new Grande Utopia EM Evo and Stella Utopia EM Evo are the newest models from Focal to showcase the company’s most innovative speaker technologies. They integrate all the research the company has done since launching the highly acclaimed Utopia III model in 2008. The Grande Utopia is a four-way reference monitor, whereas the Stella Utopia is a three-way.

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That decade of research has bore an astonishing amount of fruit for the company. The new Utopia models feature the same electromagnetic woofers and beryllium tweeters that listeners loved in the previous model, but now showcase the company’s Tuned Mass Damping (TMD) technology, which provides ultra-flat response in midrange frequencies. TMD is also claimed to offer an even wider stereo image. The new Utopia speakers also have an even more stable magnetic field, courtesy of what the company called Neutral Inductance Circuit (NIT) technology. The company claims that these latest top-end models are “acoustic sculptures” that will bring your favorite music to life.

In terms of appearance, the new Utopia offerings maintain the same leaning-tower aesthetics that drawn a considerable amount of visual attention since the model was first introduced, with each driver in a floating segment that’s perfectly aimed at ear level for listeners in sitting position. The new models do come in more beautiful finishes than ever though: They can be bought in automotive-inspired paint colors such as Metallic Blue, British Racing Green, Black Laquer, and Carrara White.

Focal says that every component of the new Utopia line has been hand-picked from the highest-end suppliers in the world, and we’re not surprised when we glance at their price tags: The Grande Utopia EM Evo will cost $240,000 per pair, and the Scala Utopia Em Evo will cost $130,000 per pair. Both new models will be available for sale in September of 2018.

But listeners don’t have to spend such heinous amounts of money to get great sound from Focal; we’ve been taken by both affordable headphones and fantastic surround sound speakers from the company.

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Parker Hall
Parker Hall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…
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