Utopia Skala / Alto speakers anyone hear them both

Elviukai,

Could you elaborate a bit on your statement about Diablo being the golden egg of the line. Am I to assume that you think it represents the best value in the Utopia III line? Any thoughts on comparisons to other stand mounted monitors? Specifically, two other European models: Raidho Ayra C1.0 and Tidal Amea.

Diablo is 100% like grand EM in higher midrange and hights, the only diference to my ear is dynamic, because it has atenuated tweeter by 9db. Actualy I have ablity in home on my equipmnet to compare Diablo,Scala, Maestro(which is unreleased to public yet ) and yep.. - grand EM(Grand EM without 16' inch Em woofer just top 11 inch woofer ) side by side. If i would be customer i would buy Diablo(because it cheap for what it offers) or Nova EM, nothing worong with scala ,its very good sounding just no major diference in bass comparing with Alto , if talking about Maestro its just for bigger or “bass hungry” rooms, but its not Scala with aded woofer - sounds diferent from Scala in midrange, its more like grand EM, but still nothing revoliutonary change in bass from Scala just more extended and punchy . Nova is EM is another major improovement and step . however in that price range there lot of other fine speakers. Grand EM is for big boys with big rooms.. as for my opinion if there were released not Scala but Scala with EM it would be very sucesfull speaker and offer one of the best sound and technology for the money. I still think diablo is very good value for the money I tested Sonus faber audiotor M and even big cremona M against the diablo and it was clearly that diablo is better speaker it has the same musicality as sonus faber even more, but it does it on high end way-not coloured . One negative thing for the diablo is that it no very sensitive(arround 84-85db/w/m which is not bad as for monitor) and needs at least 30wats an shines with 100w amps

As for raidho and Tidal I can not say anything as I do not familiar sonicaly with theese brand (at least Tidal) so you need to hear them by yourself and compare.

Elviukai,

Thanks for your insightful comments on the Diablo. However, both Sonus Faber models are lower priced than the Diablo and SF does have a reputation for being colored although in a very pleasing way. Have you read Chris Thomas' review in HiFi+ (there is a link to it on Focal's website) and if so, do you concur with his observations?

saying coloured i ment not only by tonal balance,its also for fundamental discortions. I do not read too much rewiews while I find them very enjoyable to read i still better trust my own ears.. I drop quick look at that rewiew now- its prety accurate and they are also right about new speakers sounds mad. Diablos woofer have special asymetric spider which is very hard/stiff when new.when I first time hooked it on generator it sounded muddy and hard, I even was able to hear swisting mechanical noises from spider and surround . I hope dealers run them on generators before showing to public, if the burning them by listening music it can took 500-800 hours at least.

Maybe it was just me, but when I heard the last generation Nova Utopias BEs at the NYC show, the bass seem to pummel me,
a real pounding sound.
Whenever I read about JMLabs,
I never seem to read many comments about the bass, with
most discussion centered on the tweeter.
But I always liked the JMLabs on vocals, especially female ones, and thought the 1st generation Mezzos were sweet.
So I would be curious about the bass on the new generation
models. Thanks.