Anyone heard the new Focal Grande Utopia EM?

Yea the new Focals look nice but it they don't knock the old models out of the water they will be WAY over price. I though the Alto (at the time 18,000) was about $8,000 over priced. $25,000 for a pair of Altos is a joke. I could name at least 5 speakers that are BETTER for half the price.

As for highend audio pricing them themselves into extinction..... I don't know. It if all the big brand's prices keep going up unjustified (no real increase in manufacturing cost, etc.) it will leave a lot of play for smaller lesser know brands to step in and under cut them.

As much as I like the idea of Focals (they look great! and are efficient). I don't think I would every buy a pair. The sound was just not there for me. I thought they (Alto, 1037) lack driver integration and the bass need to be smoother. For small scale music like Jazz the driver integration was not an issue. But for big flowing music like classical and large scale rock it was an issue.

Here is a site with some good pictures, it is in Japanese though.
http://www.avcat.jp/avnews/index.html

I am not sure in what type of setups you have hear dthe Utopias but comparing it to the usual suspects made them shine as the clear winner for me and i listen to mostly classical music. Real and complete dynamics without exageration of the lower octaves or fatiguing top end. Real staging, trasnsparency, and just plain enjpyable. The prices do seem to be going up. For example, the W/P 8 is now $30k. I think it makes the purchase of everything in life has gone up and european product seem to have suffered from the currency situation. But then, why has Wilson raised their price? The bottom line is we all are buying toys for our hobbies and the monies spent is not going to put us in the poor house or we would put the entire hobby aside permanently.

James63- "here, here"

The Wilson Sophia was 12.5k when the Alto was released. Revel Studio same price.

Even Dynaudios competing C4 is 18k, 25% less then the current Focal---for a european speaker with just as good cabinets and drivers. SophiaII and StudioII are 16k now to put their recent reiterations in perspective.

Bar81 may not think 31k for Focals' lowest 3-way is expensive, but i find a basic 3 way costing as much as a 3-series appalling and terrible for this hobby.

KR

ps. i have Focal car audio speakers which are a bargain but if they double in price, they would never sell

Pkancel:

"I am not sure in what type of setups you have hear dthe Utopias but comparing it to the usual suspects made them shine as the clear winner for me and i listen to mostly classical music."

I heard them in a good but nothing special set up. I heard the 1037s on Arcam mono blocks and CD player, 15X22X10 room, speakers were 3 feet off the rear wall and 3 feet off the side walls. Most of my auditioning of Focal speakers were of the 1037s (three, 2+ hour auditions of the 1037) because they were local. I made a trip one time to go hear the Alto (one, 1 hour audition). Room was about 15X25X8 I was unfamiliar with equipment used other than the amp was a pricey Krell amp (WAY out of my budget... so I did not get the details).

Now I am not knocking anyones choice and Focals are very good speakers. The things I did not like about them are minor but at their asking price I felt the need to nitpick (if they were $5000 less I might own a pair...).

There was one time during the audition (of 1037s) that the lack of driver integration stuck out for me.I was listening to Nora Jones' album "Its not too late" I believe the song was "Im not your friend". While she was singing a part of the song her voice came straight out of the tweeter. It was very directional and I could pinpoint the source of the sound coming from the speakers. In other parts of the song her voice shifted from the midrange back to the tweeter (the sound stage shifted).

I believe the problems I heard were caused by overly steep/low crossovers (third order at 2kHz). I did not hear this problem on the two other speakers I auditioned the same week (B&W 802D, Thiel 3.7). Both the 802D and 3.7s have first order crossover for the tweeter. The 802D's mids would cover the upper part of Nora Jones voice anyway (crossover=first order at 4kHz). I did not spend a lot of time with the Alto because it sounded like a pair of 1037s with better bass...

Anyway I really love the look of the new Focal line. I hope they sound as good as they look! At a rumored 130,000 euros ($191,000 @ 1:1.47 conversion rate) for the Grande Utopia EM they are fare beyond my reach (or desire...).

Does anyone know what the official price for the Grand Utipia EM is?