By Michael Miguest
The one thing all Music Lovers should know with regard to ameliorating their high-end audio systems, is that one of the most important components are speakers. Your analog and digital sources are only as good as the electronics and the speakers they feed. Speakers are the final frontier between the music and your ears. An exceptional set of speakers combined with capable electronics will heighten your listening experience. Audio pundits/reviewers will have you breaking the bank purchasing a set of High-End speakers. Anyone looking to upgrade their High-End system's speakers might consider the generation II Focal-JMLab Utopia Speakers. In my opinion, this generation of their Utopia Line represents an incredible value now that Focal has its generation III Utopia line in the marketplace.
In 2005, I purchased a pair of Focal-JMLab Diva Utopia Be speakers. These were a part of the 2nd generation of Focal's Utopia Be line. I use a Citation 1 preamp with a VTL Ultra-Linear Deluxe Stereo 90 power amp running GE 6550 output tubes. My tube components in combination with my Focal Utopia speakers exhibit the kind of clarity, transparency and finesse that envelops you in an inimitable musical presentation.
Some of the most realistic sounds I have ever heard have come out of these Utopia Be speakers over the years. When I go to a concert, the music feels natural and beautiful and I experience a deep emotional connection.The Focal-JMLab Utopia Be speakers present music in a way that mimics a live experience. They are sonically (and physically) the embodiment of balance.
High quality reproduced music will evoke a whole gamut of emotional responses. It is this simple essence that has made music so ubiquitous and indispensable to the human experience. It can calm or excite; it can elevate, transport or restrict, seduce, shock or enkindle. It holds in its power the whole range of human feeling and sonically superior systems will elicit this emotional engagement. If we look at the dynamic range of real life and real music, it can travel from the quietest whisper to the loudest most intense crescendo in a fraction of a second. Such massive swings are impressive and compelling, but what really matters is the speed of response, the ability to demonstrate the dynamic tiny shifts in energy that gives a voice or instrument its expressive power and its ability to communicate.The generation II Focal Utopia Be speakers deliver these essential qualities in SPADES. They simply and accurately convey the sound of real music.
What separates the generation II Focal Utopia line from other contenders is:
(1) Beryllium Tweeter: Beryllium is 2.5 times lighter than Titanium yet 3 times more rigid and propagates sound 3 times faster. Beryllium allows a single driver to accurately reproduce frequencies over 5 octaves from 1khz to more than 40 khz.
(2) Focus Ring: The Focus Ring technology innovates by adapting a rare earth magnet of Samarium Cobalt which has a much higher Curie value. This very high Curie point compared to Neodymium makes it possible to preserve a comfortable safety margin against any risk of demagnetization.
(3) Power Flower: The Power Flower structure matches shaped plates to a Multiferrite magnetic circuit and guarantees the maximum performance of the driver thanks to a significant reduction in magnetic losses.
(4) "W" Cone: This Composite Membrane Technology uses a high tech structural foam covered by "glass" tissues. By varying the layers of glass tissue and the thickness of foam, it is possible to modulate the characteristics of the membrane avoiding the need to use corrective filtering elements. The sandwich "W" cone of the woofer is highly optimized over its range, in particular in terms of rigidity. This high rigidity allows the membrane to behave as a true piston reducing distortion to an absolute minimum. This results in exceptional dynamics free from compression even at high levels along with ultra low distortion and deep firm bass.
(5) Focus Time: The focus Time design is curved to follow the principle that all drivers should be an equal distance from the listener.
(6) Gamma Structure: This design insures maximum strength without restricting the movement of air within the interior. The speaker's enclosure reinforcements are designed to act as "wave guides" to prevent the risk of distortion caused by standing wave reflections reaching the rear of the cones. This results in a speaker with authoritative performance, superb dynamics and a more precise sound representation, free from the parasitic vibrations that can mask the detail within the reproduced material.
(7) OPC: The Optimum Phase Crossover technology insures the phase between each of the drive units is perfectly matched which allows a loudspeaker system to produce a stable wave front of energy allowing it to reproduce a realistic image of a musical instrument. This translates into a sound that is extremely coherent with natural timbre. Imaging is extremely precise and at the same time dispersion wide so that the results can be enjoyed over a wide listening area.
When you examine the many High-End Audio Speaker possibilities in the market place today, for example: Horns, Electrostatic, Planars, Ribbons and other conventional dynamic speakers, and their cost, in my opinion, nothing out there, including Focal's Utopia generation III series, can give you from a price/performance perspective what a "used " pair of Focal-JMLab Utopia Be generation II speakers can. Focal-JMlab Diva Utopia Be Surround Speaker System My next upgrade will be to either the ALTO or NOVA Utopia Be models.
Like the Denon 103 and 103r cartridges that I love and are undoubtedly "Giant Killers", so too are a pair of depreciated generation II Focal-JMLab Utopia Be line of speakers. They both deliver a "Rightness" to the musical presentation. Any Music Lover contemplating a speaker upgrade to their existing High-End Audio system would be hard pressed to find any better High-End speakers with this exquisite quality, exceptional value, and absolutely superb performance. In my opinion, the generation II Focal-JMLab Utopia Be speakers, if you can find a pair, represents one of the best Speaker bargains in all of High-End Audio today.
The one thing all Music Lovers should know with regard to ameliorating their high-end audio systems, is that one of the most important components are speakers. Your analog and digital sources are only as good as the electronics and the speakers they feed. Speakers are the final frontier between the music and your ears. An exceptional set of speakers combined with capable electronics will heighten your listening experience. Audio pundits/reviewers will have you breaking the bank purchasing a set of High-End speakers. Anyone looking to upgrade their High-End system's speakers might consider the generation II Focal-JMLab Utopia Speakers. In my opinion, this generation of their Utopia Line represents an incredible value now that Focal has its generation III Utopia line in the marketplace.
In 2005, I purchased a pair of Focal-JMLab Diva Utopia Be speakers. These were a part of the 2nd generation of Focal's Utopia Be line. I use a Citation 1 preamp with a VTL Ultra-Linear Deluxe Stereo 90 power amp running GE 6550 output tubes. My tube components in combination with my Focal Utopia speakers exhibit the kind of clarity, transparency and finesse that envelops you in an inimitable musical presentation.
Some of the most realistic sounds I have ever heard have come out of these Utopia Be speakers over the years. When I go to a concert, the music feels natural and beautiful and I experience a deep emotional connection.The Focal-JMLab Utopia Be speakers present music in a way that mimics a live experience. They are sonically (and physically) the embodiment of balance.
High quality reproduced music will evoke a whole gamut of emotional responses. It is this simple essence that has made music so ubiquitous and indispensable to the human experience. It can calm or excite; it can elevate, transport or restrict, seduce, shock or enkindle. It holds in its power the whole range of human feeling and sonically superior systems will elicit this emotional engagement. If we look at the dynamic range of real life and real music, it can travel from the quietest whisper to the loudest most intense crescendo in a fraction of a second. Such massive swings are impressive and compelling, but what really matters is the speed of response, the ability to demonstrate the dynamic tiny shifts in energy that gives a voice or instrument its expressive power and its ability to communicate.The generation II Focal Utopia Be speakers deliver these essential qualities in SPADES. They simply and accurately convey the sound of real music.
What separates the generation II Focal Utopia line from other contenders is:
(1) Beryllium Tweeter: Beryllium is 2.5 times lighter than Titanium yet 3 times more rigid and propagates sound 3 times faster. Beryllium allows a single driver to accurately reproduce frequencies over 5 octaves from 1khz to more than 40 khz.
(2) Focus Ring: The Focus Ring technology innovates by adapting a rare earth magnet of Samarium Cobalt which has a much higher Curie value. This very high Curie point compared to Neodymium makes it possible to preserve a comfortable safety margin against any risk of demagnetization.
(3) Power Flower: The Power Flower structure matches shaped plates to a Multiferrite magnetic circuit and guarantees the maximum performance of the driver thanks to a significant reduction in magnetic losses.
(4) "W" Cone: This Composite Membrane Technology uses a high tech structural foam covered by "glass" tissues. By varying the layers of glass tissue and the thickness of foam, it is possible to modulate the characteristics of the membrane avoiding the need to use corrective filtering elements. The sandwich "W" cone of the woofer is highly optimized over its range, in particular in terms of rigidity. This high rigidity allows the membrane to behave as a true piston reducing distortion to an absolute minimum. This results in exceptional dynamics free from compression even at high levels along with ultra low distortion and deep firm bass.
(5) Focus Time: The focus Time design is curved to follow the principle that all drivers should be an equal distance from the listener.
(6) Gamma Structure: This design insures maximum strength without restricting the movement of air within the interior. The speaker's enclosure reinforcements are designed to act as "wave guides" to prevent the risk of distortion caused by standing wave reflections reaching the rear of the cones. This results in a speaker with authoritative performance, superb dynamics and a more precise sound representation, free from the parasitic vibrations that can mask the detail within the reproduced material.
(7) OPC: The Optimum Phase Crossover technology insures the phase between each of the drive units is perfectly matched which allows a loudspeaker system to produce a stable wave front of energy allowing it to reproduce a realistic image of a musical instrument. This translates into a sound that is extremely coherent with natural timbre. Imaging is extremely precise and at the same time dispersion wide so that the results can be enjoyed over a wide listening area.
When you examine the many High-End Audio Speaker possibilities in the market place today, for example: Horns, Electrostatic, Planars, Ribbons and other conventional dynamic speakers, and their cost, in my opinion, nothing out there, including Focal's Utopia generation III series, can give you from a price/performance perspective what a "used " pair of Focal-JMLab Utopia Be generation II speakers can. Focal-JMlab Diva Utopia Be Surround Speaker System My next upgrade will be to either the ALTO or NOVA Utopia Be models.
Like the Denon 103 and 103r cartridges that I love and are undoubtedly "Giant Killers", so too are a pair of depreciated generation II Focal-JMLab Utopia Be line of speakers. They both deliver a "Rightness" to the musical presentation. Any Music Lover contemplating a speaker upgrade to their existing High-End Audio system would be hard pressed to find any better High-End speakers with this exquisite quality, exceptional value, and absolutely superb performance. In my opinion, the generation II Focal-JMLab Utopia Be speakers, if you can find a pair, represents one of the best Speaker bargains in all of High-End Audio today.
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