Utopia lll

Myths develop over the years

The Grande Utopia story started in 1995 with a major innovation: the W composite sandwich cone.
It went on in 2002 with the Grande Utopia Be that introduced the pure Beryllium inverted dome tweeter. Other important inventions distinguished those two reference loudspeakers, which are
still existing in the 2008 Grande Utopia. But nothing that can be compared to the W sandwich or the Beryllium, showcase of Focal’s know-how, Focal, designer and manufacturer of the best drivers in the world.
The 2008 technological break concerns once again the driver – at the heart of Focal’s know-how – with the Electro-Magnet woofer technology. Such a decisive step that it gives its name to this third generation of Grande Utopia.
It’s a new milestone that is added to the long list of innovations coming from the previous generations of Grande Utopia: “W” cone, Focus Time, Multiferrite, Beryllium, Power Flower, OPC, Gamma Structure, all Utopia’s patrimony is taken up in its entirety, enriched with new technologies.
To preserve this heritage, the 2008 Grande Utopia had to be immediately visually identifiable, keeping its imposing aspect of a reference loudspeaker, without being massive. To reach our first goal, we kept the Focus Time structure and the separate blocks for each driver, the true aesthetic signature of the Grande Utopia. To lighten the shape, the delimitation between the blocks is more important. Simplifying the object in the extreme and eliminating what could be aesthetically superfluous. Handed over to Pineau & Le Porcher agency, with which Focal-JMlab has been collaborating since 2003, the Grande Utopia EM’s design is all purity and clarity – obvious. That’s a truly amazing feat for a loudspeaker that now reaches 78” (2m) high and weighs 573lb (260kg)…