FOCAL / JMLAB GRANDE UTOPIA MINT CONDITION

The JMlab/FOCAL  Grand Utopia is an absolutely stunning accomplishment in every regard. It was able to let music sound like music-at levels high, low, and everything in between. It was dynamic, detailed, fast, and most critically-beautifully musical. Truly one of the world's greatest loudspeakers. (Now-where'd I put that lottery ticket ...?)

This was the Conclusion of Jack English in his Review for the STEREOPHILE MAGAZINE in 2012.

Read FULL REVIEW of these Loudspeakers made by Jack English in 2012 to STEREOPHILE MAGAZINE in the Bottom of Page)

I have for sale one (1) pair of Loudspeakers FOCAL / JMLAB GRANDE UTOPIA in MINT CONDITION, (9/10) for sale ( only the Driver's covers that are in wood have very minor marks).  These Loudspeakers were barely used, because they were in a listening room of a Vacation House. So I estimate these Loudspeakers have a usage of approximately 1,000 hours Maximum. The ORIGINAL PRICE OF THESE LOUDSPEAKERS WAS $75,750.00.

I am the First and Only Owner of these Loudspeakers. These Loudspeakers have always been exquisitely cared for in a tobacco-free environment and temperature controlled environment.

The serial numbers are consecutive  980 7318 Ba110  and  980 7310  Ba111. 

The Focal / Jmlab (Made in France) Speakers are considered the most musical Loudspeakers on the market regardless of the price of Loudspeakers more expensive and can be heard for long hours without the danger of fatigue or tiredness.

You can not buy anything NEW (No New Loudspeakers for $18,450.00) that plays as well as these Loudspeakers. Only Loudspeakers Costing Between $120.000,00 and $150.000,00 sounds so good as these TRUE FLAGSHIP AND TRUE STATMENT LOUDSPEAKERS.

None of OTHERS  Loudspeakers costing $18,450.00 are REFERENCE LOUDSPEAKERS, as these  my GRANDE UTOPIA, they are VERY SUPERIOR IN ALL Championships.

These Speakers are Ultra REFERENCE and cost $75.750,00 New in 2002. The Vintage is 1998

The Loudspeakers that came to replace these my GRANDE UTOPIA are the Focal Grande Utopia EM and cost $200,000.00.

The sound of these GRANDE UTOPIA EM is no better than mine, it is simply DIFFERENT.

I have the original boxes (Crates)  for shipping these my Loudspeakers that I have here for sale.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

Dimensions (HxWxD) cm = 175cm X 50cm X 75cm (69" Height by 20" Width by 30" Deep)

Finish: Black Porshe Origin Paint + Anigre Wood + Tauri Wood

Internal Volume of the Low-Medium Compartment = 50 Liters

Internal Volume of the Woofer = 250 Liters

Woofer Charging Type = Low Reflex Front

Frequency Response in the axis = 20hz to 25khz in -3db

Sensitivity (2.8V / 1m) = 95 db

Maximum Level SPL = 118db

Nominal Impedance = 4 ohm

Minimum impedance = 3.2 ohm

Maximum Squeeze Program = 500W

Number of Speakers = 5

Number of electric roads = 3

Crossover Crossover Frequencies: 400khz / 3000hz to 18db / Octave

Comment Filter = "Air" wiring without PCBs and classified components

Bicablage: Bicablage in cable of 8mm2 in Copper 100% Pure

Positioning: Ground on Rollers

Gross Weight: 180Kg

Packaged Weight: 260Kg

GRANDE UTOPIA  (EXPLANATION STEP BY STEP OF THESE LOUDSPEAKERS)

The New Standard in Five (5) Areas:

a) The Grande Utopia: 

Elevates The State of Loudspeaker Art in Several Areas: Basic Materials development including advanced diaphragm materials and magnetic assemblies, cabinet shape and driver configuration, resonance control and visual aesthetics.

b) The New SANDWICH "W" diaphram material in four (4) advanced Drivers:

"SANDWICH W" is the result of FOCAL'S longstanding expertise and continual efforts to improve driver response. This revolutionary composite diaphragm consists of two layers of spun glass surrounding and ultrarigid core of Syntactic foam originally developed for high-stress aviation applications.

c) The GRANDE UTOPIA  Woofer:

Upper Bass driver and dual Midrange units benefit from a unique variant of basic "SANDWICH W"  composition precisely tailored to meet each driver's pass-band requirements. The Tickness and density of each diapragm's foam core varies as does the spun glass laminate on the diaphram's rear surface. The Front surfaces of all diaphragms are finished with identical layer of very fine glass mesh. The audible benefits includes sharper resolution of musical transients as "SANDWICH W" has very rapid propagation characteristics and does not store detail-smearing energy.  

d) Low Bass reproduction:

The 15'' inch woofer is loaded by a separated 8.83ft3 sub-enclosure vented with horizontal laminar flow slot located alt bottom of the cabinet. This driver uses JMlab's proprietary  "AUDIOM" configuration in wich a dual layer of twelve 3'' magnets provides an excepcionally well focused magnetic field for the voice coil (magnet structure weight: 3,3Kg). In addition, this configuration allows rapid hest dissipation for increased reability even under prolonged high output conditions. (Total weight of the driver: 14.2 Kg). Flat Ribbon copper wire 3'' coil with fiberglass former/3db cut off frequency : 20 Hz.

e) Upper Bass/Lower Midrange Capability:

The 11'' Upper Bass/Lower Midrange Driver handles the frequencies from approximately 80hz to 400hz. It is housed in a separeted 1.77 ft3 infinite bafle Sub-enclousure located at the top of the cabinet. A Double magnet struture weighting 2.8Kg combines with a 2.6'' edewound flat ribbon cooper Voice Coil for precision reproduction of this critical range. Total weight of the driver: 6.8 Kg.

f) Mid/High Frequency reproduction:

Dual 6.5'' midrange units, each with precisely shaped phase plug, located immediately below and and immediately above the tweeter in D'Appolito configuration. These drivers handle the critical 400 Hz to 2.500 Hz range. Each motor assembly includes a 560g (weight) magnet and a 1.6'' (diameter) edge wound, flat aluminum ribbon wire voice coil. The Mid/High Array is housed in an isolated sub-enclousure for total immunity from lower frequency crosso-modulations that would otherwise detract from delicate musical nuances. The two drive units are themselves each mounted in  separated encousures, decoupled from each other.

h) New High Efficiency Tioxid Tweeter:

An advanced version  of JMlab's/Focal  famed Tioxid Tweeter provides a coherent point source for all high frequencies. Tioxid, developd by JMlab's/Focal consists of a layer of 7um of Titanium Dioxide Vapor-Deposited over a pure Titanium Substrate. Located at EAR LEVEL, the 1.2'' inverted dome driver uses an efficient and Compact motor assembly featuring a High strengh neodymium magnet and a Pole piece TELAR 57. This RARE MATERIAL was selected because it is almost impervious to magnetic flux as its saturation threshold exceeds 2.15 Tesla. The voice Coil mounted in the centre in 3/4'' diameter and magnetic field in the gap is 2 Tesla !  This gives excepcionally high sensitivity of 95 db without any additionbal (Short-Horn) loadingv by front plate.

Neodymum's excepcionaly powerful magnetics Characteristics allowed Focal designers to reduce the Tweeter motor's size to conform to the spacing requirements of Midrange-Tweeter-Midrange Array. Conventional magnetic materials would have kept the tweeter further from each Midrange than was optimum for the level of phase coherence called for the GRANDE UTOPIA's  demanding design brief.  The Tweeter front plate is 5mm thick aluminum. A Phase correction device is placed over the centre of the dome (i.e flatten) response. Two small threared projections allow fixing without exterior screws being visible.

REVIEW BY MAGAZINE STEREOPHILE  BY  JACK ENGLISH ( MARCH 2012)

Focal-JMlab Grand Utopia loudspeaker

Jack English  |  Mar 29, 2012  |  First Published: May 1, 1996

image: https://www.stereophile.com/images/312grandeutopia.jpg

When you wish upon a star,

Makes no difference who you are;

Anything your heart desires,

Will come to you.—Jiminy Cricket

12-21-92-17-52-46. Big deal, another $100,000 lottery winner. Where's Jean-Phillipe? Probably off getting us something to drink. Who can blame him? I can't believe people sit around dreaming and waiting to hear all these winning numbers. J-P, you out there?

Young, good-looking, bright—J-P had a lot going for him. He certainly didn't need to sit here listening to winning lottery numbers. Ah, there you are. What are you mumbling about?

"12-21-92-17-52-46. I've won! I've won! I've won!" He shouted over and over, almost crushing me in a bear hug.

My oh my, J-P had really won a big one. And what was it he'd been dreaming about while buying all those tickets every payday for the last three years? Speakers! He'd wanted to own the best loudspeakers in the world, and now he could.

We talked into the wee hours that night. Should it be Dave Wilson's X-1/Grand SLAMMs, which earned Martin Colloms's raves in Vol.17 No.12, and ended up Stereophile's 1995 Product of the Year? Or might it be Arnie Nudell's Genesis Model One, the big brother of the Model II.5 praised by Robert Harley in Vol.18 No.1? How about Jason Bloom's attention-grabbing Apogee Grand, a hit at so many audio shows and the huge sibling of the Studio Grand I reviewed in Vol.18 No.5? Or maybe the futuristic B&W Nautilus, at whose splendor John Atkinson hinted in his Silver Signature review in Vol.17 No.6? Dipoles, bi-/tri-/quad-amping, ribbons, room size, musical tastes, other equipment...

We talked about everything audio with unbridled joy in our hearts. Then J-P looked at me. "What about the JMlab Grand Utopia?"

The what?

The what 

The Grand Utopia is the $75,750 flagship loudspeaker from French speaker manufacturer JMlab - Focal. No, that probably wasn't one that sprang to your lottery-obsessed mind, was it? Well, it had better in the future—the mighty Grand Utopia is one sensational loudspeaker, and must be counted among the handful of contenders for the very best in the world. But I'm getting ahead of myself.</i

Wilson, Avalon, Thiel, and Hales, along with 60 other loudspeaker manufacturers around the world, use Focal drivers in at least some of their speaker designs. In many of these company's models, the entire driver complement is sourced from the French firm. And Focal is well-known in the US—their hard-to-miss yellow PolyKevlar drivers show up everywhere.

If you guessed that JMlab is yet another company using Focal drivers, you'd be right—but not entirely. JMlab came first, having started in 1979 as a subsidiary of a family-owned precision mechanics business. Founder Jacques Mahul (the JM of JMlab), who had been the principal designer at Audax, had become increasingly dissatisfied with the drivers available to him. Like so many ultimately successful audio designers, he decided to roll his own for JMlab.

In 1980, responding to numerous requests, Focal was formed to make and sell drive-units. In subsequent years, Focal introduced the inverted-dome tweeter, the 15" Audiom bass driver with 12 separate magnets, Polyglas and PolyKevlar cone materials, advanced cast-aluminum baskets, and the Tioxid titanium-dome tweeter. A growing line of automotive products followed, as did the acquisition of the SEBAC woodworking factory for cabinet construction.

Innovation has been the life's blood of Focal; they have continued to develop groundbreaking products. Other speaker manufacturers have paid close attention and continue to take advantage of Focal's technological advances. But all of this technology has actually been developed to advance the performance of JMlab's own loudspeaker lineup. The Grand Utopia is the latest step in this continuously evolving development—in essence, the field-test laboratory for the next generation of Focal drivers.

My first thought was that the $75,750 Grand Utopia was simply related to the Wilson Grand SLAMM. After all, almost all of the X-1's drivers are made by Focal. But when I put the question to Jacques, he seemed taken aback. It turns out that JMlab represents approximately 75% of his business, Focal a mere 10%. Worldwide sales of Focal drivers are handled primarily by distributors. In most cases, he doesn't even know who's buying the drivers. More important, their 15% market share makes JMlab the top speaker manufacturer in France. (Their primary competitor is Cabasse.) After nearly three years of intensive research, JMlab debuted the Grand Utopia both as a matter of national pride and as a showcase for Focal's new Sandwich W technology, which is used in all of the drivers, with the exception of the tweeter: two layers of spun glass surround an ultra-rigid layer of thin syntactic foam originally developed for high-stress aviation applications. The stated benefits of the new technology are rapid propagation, greatly diminished energy storage, and state-of-the-art freedom from detail smearing.

The Grand Utopia and the Grand SLAMM aren't all that similar, therefore. While the Wilson may indeed represent the best implementation of current Focal drivers—as well as remarkable breakthroughs in cabinet construction and driver integration—the Grand Utopia provides a glimpse of Focal's future. Not one of the Utopia's drivers is currently available to anyone other than JMlab (though they're likely to find their way into the Focal catalog at some point in the future).

As well as the new cone material, the 15" Sandwich W woofer uses Focal's proprietary Audiom configuration—a dual layer of 12 3" magnets—and a rubber surround instead of the foam used in Focal's earlier and current implementations of the Audiom approach. This +31-lb driver is mounted in the bottommost of the speaker's six separate subenclosures, many of which are reinforced with lead. This particular subcabinet has a volume just under 9 ft.3, with a slot-shaped port located at the very bottom of the front of the cabinet. Its baffle is angled upward.

At the top of each cabinet is an 11" upper-bass/lower-midrange driver, mounted in a sealed box with a downward-angled front baffle and a volume of just under 2 ft.3. The crossover is located in its own subenclosure behind this upper-bass/lower-midrange box. Its cover plate, on the top rear of the cabinet, can be removed to provide easy access to the crossover's air-core inductors, polypropylene capacitors, close-tolerance resistors, and point-to-point wiring. This plate also provides access to the speaker's lone control—by moving a single jumper, the tweeter output can be increased by 1dB for use in unusually dead listening rooms. (At the manufacturer's suggestion, the crossover plate was removed for this review to eliminate possible resonances.)

The dual 6.5" mids and 1.2" inverted-dome tweeter are arrayed in a D'Appolito configuration between the bottom woofer and upper woofer/mid subenclosures. Like the woofer baffles, the lower mid is angled upward while the mid located above the tweeter faces downward. In the center is the vertical face of the tweeter's subenclosure. The net result of the angled front baffles is to present a curved front surface optimized to focus the sound at a point located at the apex of a 10'/side equilateral triangle. The tweeter, an updated version of Focal's Tioxid design, uses a diaphragm with a layer of titanium-dioxide vapor deposited over a pure titanium substrate. The pole-piece is made of Telar 57 alloy and the magnet is neodynium. Due to the extraordinary difficulties in producing the virtually carbon-free Telar 57, the retail price of these tweeters would be approximately $2000 each. As the mirror-imaged speakers are designed to fire straight ahead, a vertical-phase correction baffle is mounted in front of the tweeter to provide flat response 30° off-axis.

Each Grand Utopia weighs 397 lbs and stands just under 6' tall. Each speaker rests on four casters (only the front two rotate) and contains dual sets of WBT connectors with removable jumpers for bi-wiring/amping.

The design effort has carefully taken into account how the final product looks as well as how it will be used. As a result, all of the technology is built into a single box. The cabinet is visually subdivided into three sections, the dual mids and tweeter making up the central portion. The front baffles on each woofer, the top and bottom portions of the cabinet, are finished in Porsche black lacquer, as are the sides of the center section, which are made of 1.2"-thick African Anigre over dual layers of 1"-thick MDF. The front baffle of the center section and the sides of each woofer's subenclosure are finished in a lovely Brazilian Tauri using solid wood pieces with every edge beveled. There are no conventional grille covers, as JMlab feels none are sufficiently sonically transparent. When not in use, additional solid Tauri panels can be mounted on the separate front baffles to transform the cabinets into stunning monolithic wooden sculptures.

Initial impressions 

I first heard the Grand Utopias at their world debut at Stereophile's HI-FI '95 Show in Los Angeles. At first listen I was very impressed, despite my unfamiliarity with the Pass Laboratories pre- and power amps and Mike Moffat's Angstrom DAC. The presentation was big, powerful, and effortless, as well as being tight, quick, and coherent. Not surprisingly, bass foundations and dynamic contrasts sounded compelling. But when I returned for the second of many visits, the setup had been changed. The speakers now fired diagonally into the listening area instead of their earlier, more conventional positions parallel to the side walls. I was not as impressed with this setup.

My wish comes true... 

After numerous conversations, my wish to get a real crack at these monstrous speakers finally came true. While moving the shipping crates about and getting the speakers out of them was a laborious task, it was nonetheless straightforward, given adequate amounts of muscle power. In my case, this was handled by a bunch of my always-helpful nephews (footnote 1). Once in the listening room, the casters made it easy to experiment with placement. Experiment I did.

The sheer size of the Grand Utopias made them a bit uncomfortable in my 13'-wide listening room. Ideally they should be used in a larger room, where they can be well away from the rear and side walls while still having a good bit of space between them. I was simply unable to achieve JMlabs' prescribed setup of 10' between the cabinet centers while still leaving enough distance from the side walls. As I tried different placements, I did try to maintain a set of distances proportional to those suggested. As is typical in my room, I did have the speakers a third of the way into the room and far from the rear wall. If I moved the cabinets too close together, soundstaging simply wasn't realistic, with center-stage bunching apparent. With the speakers moved as far apart as possible, lateral staging improved dramatically but sidewall reflections and bass reinforcement became more problematic. While I was able to tame the sidewall reflections with floor-to-ceiling Soundwall absorption panels, the final sidewall placement was the best compromise with respect to bass characteristics.

Focal-JMlab Grand Utopia loudspeaker Page 2

In most cases I prefer to aim speakers directly at the listening position; I find this often yields the optimum soundstaging dimensionality and image focus. Doing so with the Grand Utopias was the wrong decision: the treble balance suffered, but in a manner opposite to what often happens. In this case, the amount of high-end energy decreased when I was looking directly at the front face of the cabinets, no doubt because of the plates mounted on each tweeter. Optimal treble performance was best, as intended by JM, well off-axis—in this case, with the speakers aimed straight ahead.

My last set of early trials with the speakers concerned top-to-bottom coherence. Initially, I was unhappy with the noticeable phenomenon of multiple drivers (re)creating music. Moving my listening seat back a bit farther than normal proved to be the solution. At a certain distance, everything meshed together in a far more satisfying fashion.

One issue that I expected to be a problem turned out not to be one. At first, I assumed that: 1) I was shorter than the average expected Grand Utopia listener; 2) my listening chair was too close to the floor; or 3) the tweeters were too far from the floor. Once again, I assume JMlab didn't want my (or your) ears directly on the axis of the tweeter and its damping plate.

One of my biggest surprises occurred during setup. In my experience, most true high-end speakers are terrible at low levels. But as I effortlessly moved the Grand Utopias about, I continuously played music through them, and, no matter how low the volume, I enjoyed it. These huge monoliths were extremely adroit at playing softly. This may be related to their tonal balance and high sensitivity; they had body and life even at unrealistically low levels.

As nutty as it may seem, these monsters were superb for background music. Many visitors to my listening room were shocked at the delicacy these 800 lbs of loudspeakers were capable of. A great example was the ethereal voices from the Anonymous 4 (An English Ladymass, Harmonia Mundi HMU 907080). Non-audiophiles in particular seem to always expect a BIG sound out of big speakers, regardless of source material. Solo acoustic guitar, acappella voices, and wispy new age material consistently shocked visitors to my listening room.

Adding to its wonderful ability to sound delicate was the Utopia's emotional splendor in sounding beautiful. The caressingly sweet upper reaches of a violin were a constant case in point from both LP (eg, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Chesky RC4) and CD (Midori, Live at Carnegie Hall, Sony Classical SK 46742). The Grand Utopia's upper limit was well above my own hearing capabilities in terms of quantity or output but, more important, it had a believable quality of fullness, detail, focus, speed, and everything else I forced myself to listen for.

This was harder than I expected. It was always the music I was actually listening to—it took a great deal of effort to pay any attention to the speaker. But when I did, I was captivated by appropriately splashy cymbal onslaughts (Dave Brubeck, Time Out, Classic/Columbia CS 8192), wailing top-of-the-neck guitar attacks (The Essential Jimi Hendrix, Vols.1 and 2, Reprise 26035), and staccato keyboard pyrotechnics (Nojima Plays Liszt, Reference RR-25). Once I paid attention to the treble performance, I could find no fault. Shortcomings came from source material and other equipment, not from the speaker itself. Though changes in speaker cables and amplifiers were immediately obvious in the top end, the speaker simply reproduced whatever it was fed—and feed it I did.

But it was the opposite end of the frequency spectrum that was the most initially arresting. The Grand Utopia's bass extension went on forever, rivaling that of any other speaker—including subwoofers—I've ever had in my listening room. But it didn't just dig deep, it did so with the same naturalness I heard in the treble: it was rich as well as simultaneously fast and detailed. Pumped up to real-world volumes, the bass lines on Ben Harper's Welcome to the Cruel World (Virgin 39320-2) jumped on my chest and grabbed me by the ears, shouting for attention. Michael Murray's attacks on the Cavaillé;-Coll organ at Saint Quen de Rouen made Vierne's Symphony 3 (Telarc CD-80329) shake the very foundation of my listening room, air thundering through the pipes in a controlled fury evocative of a hurricane or cyclone. In this case, big speakers made big bass! The bottom end was so strong my initial reaction to the Grand Utopias was a feeling that they were bass-heavy. Over time, I realized that they were nothing of the sort—it was just a problem of listening to home hi-fi. The overwhelming majority of speakers are bass-deficient. Only in comparison with any number of other speakers did the JMlabs sound bass-heavy. Compared to live music, they could really handle true low-frequency information.

But here the threads begin to weave together into the pattern of my ultimate evaluation of these speakers. Like other good big speakers, the Grand Utopia could reproduce great bass. Driven by a pair of Classé 1000s bridged for mono, they produced extraordinary bass. But unlike many other big speakers, the Grand Utopias didn't always sound big. They only sounded big when the music warranted it. Images were never larger than life unless they'd been recorded that way (eg, Johnny Hartman's Once in a Lifetime, BeeHive BH7012). Solo performers and delicate instruments were reproduced with the appropriate scale and level of accuracy, the same fine realism, as full orchestras and live rock concerts. The monstrous Grand Utopias handled Suzanne Vega (99.9°F, A&M 54001) with kid gloves, and gently unraveled the complex array of unusual sounds from Andreas Vollenweider's Eolian Minstrel (SBK/ERG 27897-2), sounding as petite and delicate as each respective source.

As I've mentioned, these speakers were surprisingly good at low volume levels and astounding at high levels. They were also terrific at getting everywhere in between. Given their high sensitivity, it was not much of a surprise that these beauties were sensationally dynamic, putting back the jump in reproduced music that is all too often missing. They simply had that magical ability to spring to life with the vibrancy of something real—as evidenced in the awesome street-smart bombast of Sergio Mendes's Brasileiro (Elektra 61315).

My little son and I samba'd all over the house, the speakers easily passing Bob Deutsch's Listening From Another Room Test. Heck, had the weather been better, we might have danced right out into the street, subjecting the JMlabs to the Listening From Outside The House At Unlawful Volumes Before Being Arrested Test. More critically, the Grand Utopias were excellent at re-creating all of the subtle micro volume levels of music. Ella Fitzgerald's "Cry Me A River" (Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!, Classic/Verve V6-4053) provided a lovingly natural example. But most important of all, they handled all of these levels and transitions in a totally effortless manner. One of my all-time favorite tests of this particular phenomenon is John Handy's Excursion in Blue (Quartet Q1005CD). It was captivating. It was music.

The combination of bass, dynamics, and overall sense of power made these the ideal choice for all sorts of music, including the always demanding organ. Oh, the splendor of John Eargle's recordings! (Sampled on Engineer's Choice, Delos DE 3506.) As I listened, I was struck by how much was being revealed in all these masterful organ works about where they had been recorded. The spaces themselves had weight and volume, a sense of heft rarely properly captured. Live recordings weren't simply spacious because they had a light, airy character. There were halls and rooms filled with ambient noise, decaying sounds, and reverberant fields. In contrast, many other speakers have sparkle but little body in portraying naturally occurring waves of sound in real space.

While the music never ceased to enthrall me, I was occasionally reminded of the presence of the speaker cabinets. Unlike the best minimonitors, the huge Grand Utopias never entirely disappeared into the soundstage. Oddly, this wasn't because sounds were clearly coming from the drivers, as they do with certain other speakers, it was the soundstage that was bounded, as opposed to the individual sounds being so directionally sourced. The cabinets themselves often defined edges or parts of the soundstage, with performers placed with well-focused precision between, behind, or within them. Width and depth were both good, and my hall seat was a bit back (which I prefer), though neither at the back nor the front of the hall.

For some small-scale performances, speakers with a closer perspective provide a more intimate relationship with the artists. Given the distance to the listening seat required to achieve proper overall coherence with the big JMlabs, I don't think this is a characteristic they would be are capable of achieving. But having said that, the Utopias were fully capable of precisely placing sounds all over my listening room when playing Roger Waters' QSound-mixed Amused to Death (Columbia CK 53196). I generally regard this as an indication of a product's overall phase performance; everything I heard led me to believe phase was still another attribute handled adroitly by these speakers.

As I tried to pay attention to the bevy of drivers, I became aware of still more audiophile traits that hadn't drawn my attention before. These babies were, as advertised, clean and fast. Transients sounded like transients, with clearly defined starts, stops, sustains, reverbs, and decays, as required. Once again, I was sucked in by the jump from the brass on the great direct-to-disc recording Sonic Fireworks, Vol.II (Crystal Clear CCS-7011), and was caught playing an armful of air-instruments along with Spyro Gyra (Catching the Sun, MCA 5108).

But as long as the JMlabs occupied center stage in my room, it was always the music I returned to. Lovingly, the harmonic richness of the bass and the sweet delicacy of the treble were both found in abundance where it mattered most—through the critical range of the human voice. I lolled in the textural palpability of Chris Rea's startling instrument as I journeyed with him on the "Road to Hell" (The Best of Chris Rea, East West 98382); reminisced with Richie Havens and his open-tuned acoustic guitar as we revisited the '60s (Collection, Rykodisc RCD 20036); marveled at the bell-like purity of Joan Baez (Vanguard VRS 9078); and got lost in the humanity of Laurie Anderson (United States Live, Warner Bros. 25192). The haunting splendor and vast complexity of the human voice were very much at home with the Grand Utopia, providing the luscious icing on the proverbial cake.

Stunning 

The JMlab Grand Utopia is an absolutely stunning accomplishment in every regard. It was able to let music sound like music—at levels high, low, and everything in between. It was dynamic, detailed, fast, and—most critically—beautifully musical. Truly one of the world's greatest loudspeakers. (Now—where'd I put that lottery ticket...?)

FLOOR LOUDSPEAKER REVIEWS

Focal-JMlab Grand Utopia loudspeaker Battle of the Titans

Sidebar 1: Battle of the Titans

Suddenly and unbelievably, the hottest market niche for loudspeakers is the hefty $75,000 to $100,000 range. At this essentially price-no-object level, the diversity of design approaches incorporate virtually every speaker material and technology currently available: vertical arrays, powered subwoofers, active external crossovers, and single-/bi-/tri-/quad-amplification, to name a few. As a consequence, one longstanding audio myth can be safely laid to rest.

It has been generally believed that price is the limiting factor in equipment design. The cheaper the product, the greater the number of compromises, and the more extensive the departures from perfect neutrality. Remove price constraints, it has long been assumed, and the greater the convergence toward the realistic sound of live, unamplified music itself. Having heard, on multiple occasions, every one of the contending loudspeakers currently fighting it out in this hotly contested niche, let me sum up my evaluation of this long-held assumption in a single word: hogwash.

At lower price points, most designers are forced to make similar compromises. With the elimination of price as a primary factor, the array of options available to designers becomes nearly limitless. What becomes much more prominent are such things as the availability of materials, the time and resources dedicated to the effort, and the ingenuity of the designers. Choice, not compromise, becomes the principal concern. Given this remarkable freedom of choice, we've learned at least two other irrefutable facts: first, the current crop of loudspeaker designers are brilliantly creative and open-minded; and second, the sound of reproduced music still has a long way to go before it truly re-creates the real thing.

While it would be the dream of many an audiophile to be able to conduct side-by-side comparisons of all of the contenders in this remarkable product niche, it is unlikely to ever happen. But given the contenders, I was most interested in hearing the Wilson X-1/Grand SLAMMs and the JMlab Grand Utopias in a controlled comparison. Thanks to the graciousness of Andy Singer, I was able to accomplish just that early one Sunday morning in New York at Sound by Singer, where not only were both of these stunning speakers made available, but all of the requisite level of ancillary equipment was on hand as well.

Both of these monster speakers feature single-box–like designs, high sensitivity, relatively benign loads, seemingly conventional drivers such as (different) 15" Focal (sub)woofers, and truly full-range frequency performance. The Wilson eschews woods in its cabinets; the JMlab embraces them. The Wilson requires meticulous installation and setup; the JMlab requires no complex setup and is remarkably tolerant regarding room placement and listening seat(s). Both make attention-grabbing visual statements (as do all other competitors at this price point), though I found the Utopia's' alternating wood tones and black finishes far more appealing.

While I was forced to listen to the two monster sets of speakers in different listening rooms, both systems included the Krell KPS-20i CD player, CAT SL-1 Signature preamp, and the same pair of VAC Renaissance 140 monoblocks (they were moved from room to room). Cables differed, but included some of the cream of the current crops from NBS, Transparent Audio, and Yamamura/ART. Because the Wilsons were located in their accustomed places in the large rear listening room, it could be argued that they had a competitive advantage. To offset this seeming imbalance, the JMlabs had been set up the evening before by Andy Singer and Jacques Mahul, to both of their satisfactions. The choice of source material was mine, as were the conditions and timing of the actual listening.

The most startling and immediately obvious difference between these two truly full-range loudspeakers was their respective voicings. The SLAMM offered up a lighter, brighter sound, with greater emphasis in the mid-treble. Associated with this overall voicing were wonderful sparkle and air, a sense of speed and control, astounding resolution of inner detail, and an open, airy character remarkably free of such huge cabinets. Dynamic ability, macro as well as micro, was better than that of any other speaker I had ever heard. This stunning set of characteristics made the Wilson sound very lively and immediate.

In contrast, the Utopia offered a weighter, warmer sound with a greater midbass emphasis. As a result, harmonic structures were richer, orchestral weight greater, with more resolute foundations and low-end spaciousness. The Utopia was at least the equal of the SLAMMs in detail resolution, and was actually superior through the midrange. Given the different listening rooms and cables and the relatively short listening sessions, I'm hesitant to give the nod to the Grand Utopia. In any event, both sets of speakers allowed me to hear things from some of my familiar CDs that I'd never heard before.

The mid-treble vs midbass voicings were at the heart of much of what I heard. It was actually the treble from the Wilson that added to its airy, lighter sound, as well as providing a greater sense of freedom from the enclosure. The SLAMM's bottom was tighter, quicker, dryer. The faster bottom and more prominent lower treble provided a greater sense of control, resolution, and accuracy.

But all was not perfect. When pushed to lifelike volume levels (keeping that stunning dynamic capability firmly in mind), there was an occasional hardening. Depending on the source material, there was also a continuum of performance ranging from microscopic resolution through analytical presentation to aggressive and mildly irritating attack. Was this the source material, the ancillary equipment, or the room? Was the Utopia incapable of the resolution needed to show up these underlying shortcomings of other components in the system? Maybe, maybe not. Martin Colloms's review included terms such as "brash," "crispness," "leanness," and "hardness" when describing the Wilson's performance in different situations. This may well be the only meaningful area in which the SLAMM can be further improved.

The JMlab, with a nearly identical reported sensitivity, apparently went louder. I used the term "apparently" advisedly—the room sizes were not identical. In addition to the greater midbass prominence, deep bass was slightly but noticeably more extended with the Utopia.

Two differences in the construction of these phenomenal speaker systems struck me some time after this listening session. The Wilson does have the two additional ambience tweeters, which might have contributed to its greater upper-end openness and mid-treble emphasis.

When the dust settled, I was left in awe of both of these truly astounding loudspeaker systems. Yes, they were different from one another, but each was much more different than almost anything else on the market. The Grand SLAMM just might be the finest example of an accurate transducer that has yet to be created. But the Grand Utopia could just as readily carry the mantle of Most Wonderfully Musical Loudspeaker I Have Ever Heard. While I truly admired the Wilson, I don't hesitate in stating my preference for the spectacular JMlab Grand Utopia. For me, this is truly the ultimate desert island loudspeaker.—Jack English

FLOOR LOUDSPEAKER REVIEWS

Focal-JMlab Grand Utopia loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 2: Specifications

Description: Three-way, five-driver dynamic loudspeaker system. Drive-units: 15" woofer, 11" midbass/lower midrange, two 6.5" midrange units, 1.2" inverted-dome tweeter. Crossover points: 400Hz, 3kHz. Impedance: 4 ohms nominal, 3.2 ohms minimum. Sensitivity: 95dB/W/m. Frequency response: 20Hz–25kHz, ±3dB. Maximum spl: 118dB. Maximum program power: 500W.

Dimensions: 69" H by 20~" W by 30" D. Weight: 397 lbs.

Price: $75,750/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 6.

Manufacturer: Focal-JMlab, BP 201-42013 Saint-Etienne Cedex 2, France. US distributor: Prism Audio Group, Dallas, TX 75234 (1995. Audio Plus Services 156 Lawrence Paquette Industrial Drive, Champlain, NY 12919. Tel: (800) 663-9352 (2012). Web: www.audioplusservices.com.