Website author headshot
Cameron Oatley
ExtremeHiFi
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi

Note that this is a discontinued product. You may want to visit the brand's page here to browse their newer products.

What reviewers think

Bloggers and YouTubers have tried this product—so we've summarized their strongest opinions below. Links to full reviews follow.

Product Strengths

  • The Grande Utopia EM features a uniquely shaped articulated enclosure which Focal calls Focus Time
  • The speaker allows for fine-tuning the position of the tweeter relative to the midrange and bass drivers
  • It has a series of jumpers for fine-tuning the speaker in situ
  • The Grande's sub-bass woofer employs an electromagnetic motor system, whose separate power supply unit furthermore has six level-settings for balancing the overall performance to taste
  • The company's 27mm IAL2—'infi nite acoustic loading'—inverted dome tweeter is mounted on a precision-machined metal sub-baffle, and the rear of the dome and its surround operate into free air behind, loaded by a tuned cavity

Product Considerations

  • With certain music, the Grande Utopia EM can sound a little too sharp-edged, even 'stark'
  • The frequency response is highly uneven, with errors of ±4.2dB (200Hz-20kHz)
  • Pair matching over the same frequency range was poor at ±1.8dB, but the largest disparities were narrow-band between 5kHz and 6kHz—everywhere else the matching was to within ±1.0dB
  • Cumulative decay waterfall reveals a series of modes above 3kHz, presumably from the mid drivers
  • Focal claims a very high 94dB sensitivity for the Grande Utopia EM, but a measured pink noise result of 90.7dB suggests that this is around 3dB optimistic

Comparisons (according to reviewers)

  • The Grande Utopia EM overshadows the Wilson Alexandria XLF, and has a slightly larger footprint
  • The Grande Utopia EM weighs only 20 kilos less than a Steinway Model O living-room grand
  • It stands in comparison with the Wilson Alexandria XLF and Sonus Faber's Aida

Takeaway: The Focal Grande Utopia EM is a statement loudspeaker with an imposing presence and innovative design that allows for customized sound. With proper setup and high-quality source material, it can deliver a grand and immersive listening experience.

What are hifi reviews useful for? (1) Identifying products you should demo in person at a dealer. (2) Learning which products reviewers unanimously praise as the best they've heard (this means they probably are legitimately great). (3) Identifying a product's attributes that satisfy your idiosyncratic needs and tastes. Beyond that, we often discount what reviewers say because they heap praise on most products—and are often apprehensive about publishing strong criticism or comparisons between products. Further, they seldom have more than a few products on-hand, often relying on their memories to compare past products. Always listen for yourself.

All

Grande Utopia Em Evo

reviews

[{"title":"Focal Grande Utopia EM EVO Loudspeaker Review w/ Upscale Audio's Kevin Deal","link":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uiK1VgK6f0","source":"Upscale Audio High Fidelity","datePublished":"2024"},{"title":"Focal Grande Utopia EM Review","link":"https://reviewtechgame.blogspot.com/2014/07/focal-grande-utopia-em-review.html","source":"Tech Game Review","datePublished":""},{"title":"Focal Grande Utopia EM Evo Review « 7Review ","link":"https://7review.com/focal-grande-utopia-em-evo-review","source":"7 Review","datePublished":"2018"},{"title":"Focal's Grande Utopia EM EVO Loudspeakers and Naim ...","link":"https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/focal-grande-utopia-naim-statement","source":"ecoustics.com","datePublished":""}]
An excellent review of a great product
/
Publisher
/
3/1/2022
An excellent review of a great product
Publisher
/
3/1/2022

Manufacturer details

  • Product type: Bass-reflex 4-way column
  • Woofer: Electro-Magnetix 16" (40cm) "W" woofer
  • Medium: 2x Power Flower 6.5" (16.5cm) "W" midrange drivers with TMD suspension and magnet
  • Tweeter: IAL2 pure Beryllium inverted dome 1" (27mm) tweeter
  • Response at -6dB (Low frequency point): 14 Hz
  • Frequency response (+/- 3dB): 18 Hz - 40 kHz
  • Minimum impedance: 3 Ω
  • Nominal Impedance: 8 Ω
  • Recommended amplifier power: 50 - 1,500 W
  • Sensitivity: 94 dB
  • Height: 2012 mm / 79.81 in
  • Width: 654 mm / 25.75 in
  • Depth: 880 mm / 34.62 in
  • Weight: 265 kg / 584 lb
With its outstanding technological heritage and unique style, Grande Utopia is an exceptional high-fidelity loudspeaker. It is Focal's most accomplished concept and one of the best loudspeakers in the world. At 2 metres high, it delivers sound of unrivalled finesse and precision.
Excellence from excellence. With its outstanding technological heritage and unique style, Grande Utopia is an exceptional high-fidelity loudspeaker. It is Focal's most accomplished concept and one of the best loudspeakers in the world. At 2 metres high, it delivers sound of unrivalled finesse and precision.
Manufacturer Site

Brand highlights

Taking a step back to look at reviewers' thoughts of the brand's entire lineup—not just this product—what stands out most is the following:

  • Focal monitors are noted for their "mid-forward" sound, guiding users toward balanced mixes, particularly in the midrange frequencies, which aids in crucial EQ and dynamics decisions.
  • They integrate an inverted dome tweeter crafted from Aluminum/Magnesium or Beryllium, optimizing high-frequency dispersion and minimizing distortion through back wave absorption.
  • Focal frequently employs flax or "W" composite sandwich cones in their mid-bass drivers, providing a lightweight yet rigid diaphragm construction that delivers exceptional definition and controlled bass.

Theva

  • Positioning: The entry-level series in Focal's high-fidelity lineup.
  • Description: Features Focal's signature technologies like the TNF tweeter for clear treble. Compared to the Aria Evo X, offers a more budget-friendly option with simpler cabinet designs. While it lacks the advanced materials found in the Kanta series, still provides a solid performance for its price range, suitable for basic home audio setups.

Aria Evo X

  • Positioning: Sits in the mid-range of Focal's lineup, offering a balance between performance and affordability.
  • Description: Features flax cone technology, providing natural sound and excellent dynamics. More refined than Theva, offering better build quality and soundstage.

Kanta

  • Positioning: A premium series, offering advanced technology and design.
  • Description: Known for their innovative design and use of materials like the Flax sandwich cone and Beryllium tweeter, delivering precise and detailed sound. They offer a more sophisticated sound profile than Aria Evo X, with enhanced clarity and warmth.

Sopra

  • Positioning: A high-end series, just below the flagship Utopia line, focusing on compactness and performance.
  • Description: Excels in sound transparency and precision, featuring technologies like the Infinite Horn Loading system for improved treble. They offer a richer harmonic experience than Kanta.

Utopia III Evo

  • Positioning: Focal's flagship series, representing the pinnacle of their speaker technology.
  • Description: Renowned for their exceptional sound quality and luxurious design, incorporating technologies like the Beryllium tweeter and W composite sandwich cone. They surpass Sopra in every aspect, offering groundbreaking soundstage and detail, ideal for large dedicated listening rooms and those with no budget constraints.
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Avg. Product Price
$100,001+
Used For Sale
239
 Available (Scroll Down)
Brand Popularity
10
 of 900+
Badges
Top 50 Brand
Top 250 Brand
Products Listed
79
Founding Year
1979

Our take on the brand

Focal is a French hifi brand that makes their own drivers in-house, including their highly-regarded beryllium tweeters and unique slatefiber mid/bass drivers made from recycled carbon fiber. Their speakers and headphones feature distinctive technologies like their "W" sandwich cone design for optimal driver performance and Mimi Sound Personalization that adapts audio to individual hearing profiles.

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Brand Page

Our interview with the brand

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What competes at this price?

Burmester
BC150
150000
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2021
The new BC150 loudspeaker model by Burmester is now making the innovative leaps in sound quality, technology, and design from the Signature Line possible for other product lines. Within this loudspeaker model, elements of the BC350 loudspeakers from the Signature Line were incorporated.
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Burmester, a high-end audio brand renowned for its German craftsmanship, designs and handcrafts its components in Berlin. Known for its distinctive industrial aesthetic with chrome finishes, the brand supplies premium sound systems for Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.
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Our Summary

Product Strengths

  • Detailed, exciting, dynamic, and transparent sound
  • Vanishingly low cabinet coloration, contributing to speed and detail
  • Lung-emptying, bowel-clearing, demolition-grade bass
  • Bass integrates well with the rest of the frequency range for an integrated musical performance
  • Voices have breath and contour, yet the result always retains a minimum of warmth

Product Considerations

  • Room acoustics should be a strong consideration, as the BC150 reveals room issues
  • Needs a lot of quality electronics upstream
  • Requires firm control and ample current capacity from the amplifier

Comparisons (according to reviewers)

  • The BC150 sounds more like a Burmester B38 with greater abilities to scale

Takeaway: The Burmester BC150 is a high-precision audio instrument that is both musically communicative and musically analytical, offering a detailed and transparent listening experience. It offers clarity and purity of sound, and brings music to another level.

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Our take on the brand

Burmester, a high-end audio brand renowned for its German craftsmanship, designs and handcrafts its components in Berlin. Known for its distinctive industrial aesthetic with chrome finishes, the brand supplies premium sound systems for Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer
Product Page
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Borresen
M3
283975
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Released
2023
The M3 speakers are the perfect blend of form and function, which reflects the excellent and highly productive partnership between two great minds in the audio industry – Michael Børresen and Flemming Erik Rasmussen. The sleek and elegant design of these speakers, combined with their outstanding audio performance, makes them a testament to Audio Group Denmark's commitment to audio excellence.
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Børresen Acoustics stands out for its iron-free magnetic motors and cryogenically treated metal components, which reduce inductance for clearer sound. The brand's speakers feature unique elements like zirconium-based 3D-printed baskets and a patented ribbon tweeter design, combined with series crossover networks for phase-locked electrical current across frequencies.
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Our Summary

Product Strengths

  • The M3 presents music with an unprecedented degree of individuality and specificity, without sacrificing tonality, texture, or body
  • Remarkable level of resolution
  • Astonishing transparency and is resolute
  • Accurate tonality and represents timbre faithfully
  • Exceptional high-frequency detail and speed due to a planar tweeter
  • Accepts only banana terminations

Product Considerations

  • The planar tweeter misses the very last measure of extension, shimmer, and effortlessness accomplished by the very best available today
  • Low-frequency extension was limited to the high 20 Hz, low 30 Hz range

Comparisons (according to reviewers)

  • Compared to Magico M9, the M3 has recalibrated the resolution yardstick by which all other loudspeakers must be measured and compared
  • Compared to Von Schweikert Audio ULTRA 9s, the M3 has recalibrated the resolution yardstick by which all other loudspeakers must be measured and compared

Takeaway: The Børresen M3 loudspeakers boldly represent the realization of striking potential in audio and push known boundaries. People who choose the M3 will enjoy a specific level of playback that is unavailable from other loudspeakers.

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Our take on the brand

Børresen Acoustics stands out for its iron-free magnetic motors and cryogenically treated metal components, which reduce inductance for clearer sound. The brand's speakers feature unique elements like zirconium-based 3D-printed baskets and a patented ribbon tweeter design, combined with series crossover networks for phase-locked electrical current across frequencies.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer
Product Page
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Wilson Audio
Alexx V
154000
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Released
2021
The original Alexx loudspeaker, launched in 2016, quickly gained critical acclaim throughout the industry. Alexx benefited from several elements developed during the five years Wilson Audio's founder David A. Wilson, and his unwavering R&D team, brought to life his magnum opus: the WAMM Master Chronosonic. Now, five years after the monumental accomplishment of the WAMM, Alexx V builds upon the original Alexx's success by offering a completely re-engineered performance envelope without greatly increasing the footprint. Comparing the overall size of Alexx V to the original, Alexx V is only 1" deeper and 1" taller while maintaining the same width.
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Wilson Audio is often considered the quintessential American high-end hi-fi brand, a staple in premium audio dealerships across the country. Many reviewers use Wilson speakers in their own home systems, reflecting their reputation for outstanding dynamics, bass depth, and the ability to reproduce classical music with remarkable realism. Wilson focuses on creating an uncolored sound, aiming to replicate the experience of live, unamplified performances.
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Our Summary

Product Strengths

  • Sublime image size and expansiveness, coupled with an ability to be driven as hard as your ears or your amps can take
  • A sense of balance to the sound of the Alexx V makes renewal possible, expressive and articulate from the deepest bass to the highest treble
  • Trickle-down benefits from the WAMM Master Chronosonic and Chronosonic XVX
  • Bass performance is otherworldly
  • The Alexx V has the ability to uncover and continue to deliver micro-details at extremely high SPLs, even after that slam of a transient

Product Considerations

  • Some power behind the throne is needed, because the loudspeaker's impedance plot drops to two ohms at 250Hz
  • The dome tweeter does sacrifice the last ounce of micro-detail, compared to the insane resolving power of the best diamond and beryllium drivers
  • The choice of finish needs to be considered with care
  • Cable management can impact performance

Comparisons (according to reviewers)

  • Compared to the original Alexx, the Alexx V is a massive improvement—closer to a baby XVX in so many ways
  • Compared to the Alexia 2, the Alexx V was more than a mere additive sum, a step-function improvement
  • Compared to the Wilson XVX and WAMM Master Chronosonic, the tweeter is effortless and resolving by normal standards, but no match for the extraordinary levels of detail retrieval

Takeaway: The Alexx V offers a sublime listening experience with excellent balance and dynamic range that allows the listener to get closer to the music. It is a worthy contender for those looking to upgrade their listening experience.

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Our take on the brand

Wilson Audio is often considered the quintessential American high-end hi-fi brand, a staple in premium audio dealerships across the country. Many reviewers use Wilson speakers in their own home systems, reflecting their reputation for outstanding dynamics, bass depth, and the ability to reproduce classical music with remarkable realism. Wilson focuses on creating an uncolored sound, aiming to replicate the experience of live, unamplified performances.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer
Product Page
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Linn
360
110180
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Released
2023
360 is audibly invisible. It produces a performance with unprecedented clarity and realism, that's entirely absent of sonic colouration. Incorporating innovative drive unit and amplifier technologies, 360 turns out our lowest ever levels of audible distortion. The honed curves of its cabinet are partnered with meticulously matched drive units to deliver the cleanest possible dispersion characteristics.
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Linn is a hifi brand known for its modular designs, particularly the Sondek LP12 turntable where users can upgrade virtually every component over time to maintain performance across decades. The brand stands out for developing its own technologies in-house, including the Organik DAC with FPGA processing and Space Optimisation, which models room acoustics without needing microphone measurements.
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Our Summary

Product Strengths

  • Excellent imaging, providing a strong stereo image for multiple listeners due to wide dispersion and Space Optimisation+
  • Flexible and capable of playing all kinds of music, getting out of the music's way, and suitable for both large and smaller rooms
  • Dynamic, detailed, and can play at a wide range of volume levels, from quiet listening to near PA levels
  • Features a new driver array, including a Beryllium dome tweeter, thin-ply woven carbon fiber midrange (used on NASA's Mars Rover), and aluminum-magnesium alloy bass units
  • Incorporates new amplifier technologies—'Power DAC' for the lower bass and 'Adaptive Bias Control' for the mid and treble—reducing distortion

Product Considerations

  • The midrange dome is exposed, which might be a concern with children
  • Owners of previous Linn systems may find the price difficult to accept
  • Some audiophiles may prefer Linn to trawl its past rather than building its future, and they will want an Isobarik
  • Some audiophiles may not be able to see past the LP12

Comparisons (according to reviewers)

  • The 360 offers significantly improved imaging and soundstaging compared to the Klimax 350

Takeaway: The Linn 360 is a high-end loudspeaker that provides excellent sound quality and flexibility, making it a great choice for enjoying music with friends or for personal listening sessions. Its innovative design and technology deliver a detailed and immersive audio experience.

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Our take on the brand

Linn is a hifi brand known for its modular designs, particularly the Sondek LP12 turntable where users can upgrade virtually every component over time to maintain performance across decades. The brand stands out for developing its own technologies in-house, including the Organik DAC with FPGA processing and Space Optimisation, which models room acoustics without needing microphone measurements.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer
Product Page
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Magico
M7
375000
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Released
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The Magico M7 is a four-way, six-driver floorstanding loudspeaker capable of astonishing performance. Featuring the latest Magico drive-unit technology, an organically shaped carbon-fiber-and-aluminum enclosure, and the latest Elliptical Symmetry Crossover, the M7 is a tour de force of advanced loudspeaker engineering. The M7 was conceived by Founder and CEO Alon Wolf as a more accessible version of the semi-active M9.
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Magico is one of the leading American hifi brands, celebrated for its speakers' precision, clarity, and transparency. This reputation is built on the founder’s meticulous focus on eliminating vibrations, a design principle that customers claim significantly enhances sound quality. Their speakers incorporate carbon fiber and aluminum, along with custom-made drivers, to deliver a highly transparent listening experience. Magico’s sound is incredibly revealing, though some listeners may find it unforgiving with poorly recorded material. These speakers are favored by reviewers and audiophiles who prioritize transparency and accuracy above all else.
Expand Details

Our Summary

Product Strengths

  • The Magico M7 delivers the highest sound quality by the reviewer's metrics
  • Described as 'vivid' due to a comprehensive lack of distortion, low compression, rich texture and detail, and coherence across the spectrum and image
  • Soundstaging hangs in space with a realistically large soundstage window and deeper stage depth, approximating real sound in a real performance hall
  • Superb instrumental definition with a tonal density that removes a filter, revealing the believable richness of each instrument combined with high definition and low etch
  • Voicing is resolutely flat in terms of frequency response, so well-balanced recordings sound impressively right

Product Considerations

  • The M7 might require bigger amplifiers to reach the dynamic levels of the best horn speakers
  • It will not be a good fit for listeners who need frequency colorations to reassure them that their expensive speakers are doing something

Comparisons (according to reviewers)

  • Vs MBL 101X, the M7 does a more believable simulation of the stage because it's rather clear about performer locations, but the MBL-101X gets the image off the speakers more reliably, but at the price of some placement precision and air

Takeaway: The Magico M7 speakers deliver a rare and significant sonic achievement with a focus on distortion minimization. These speakers set a benchmark across almost all important sonic dimensions, making them worth considering for serious audio enthusiasts.

Video review

Our take on the brand

Magico is one of the leading American hifi brands, celebrated for its speakers' precision, clarity, and transparency. This reputation is built on the founder’s meticulous focus on eliminating vibrations, a design principle that customers claim significantly enhances sound quality. Their speakers incorporate carbon fiber and aluminum, along with custom-made drivers, to deliver a highly transparent listening experience. Magico’s sound is incredibly revealing, though some listeners may find it unforgiving with poorly recorded material. These speakers are favored by reviewers and audiophiles who prioritize transparency and accuracy above all else.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer
Product Page
Product Page

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