Focal Utopia monitors: Diablo vs. Micro Be

Thank you Elviukai. That's extremely helpful. I spent a good year auditioning speakers before choosing the Mini's and I still like them. But when pretty much everything I read proclaims that these third generation Utopias easily blow away the Be's, my interest is peaked. That said, I agree with those that consider it critically important to get the synergy between a speaker and amp right.

I would not consider word "blow away" right here. I still miss that very ultra top end "hotness" that previuos generations before II and III) had.

I believe that main reason for theese claims is that 3rd generation have more relaxed tweeter from all past series which alows speakers to be designed "fast" but also relaxed. The xover changes on focal team probably also is a key- when measuring and listening to utopia III Diablo and Maestro models i see now more "human factor" and less measuring perfection than previuos generations. And I like that. its not that hard to make speaker that measures flat, but its much more hard to "spoil" speaker with special selected on long tuning months dips and peaks which makes speaker sound more involving and still honest and REAL. I have never been a big fan of Hi-fi enginiered speakers in high-end. I that price tag I want as much "human factor" as it posible. Because final receiver is my ears, not microphone. When transmitter type is similar to receiver there is good posibility that speakers will push a tear or few from me in my favourite record :-)

Elviukai, my last answer to you regarding the output of my Accuphase E-550 amp into the Focal Micro Be speakers was too intransigent. Sorry, you seem to be knowledgeable in this regard. Please read further for clarifications.

Of course, the concept of nominal impedance is a vary vague concept that practically tell you nothing about important parameters like the lowest impedance, the frequency where it occurs, phase angle, etc. Not to mention that the impedance of a speaker as seen by an amp also depends on many other parameters, e.g. cables, how loud the speaker is played, room temperature, position of the speaker in the room, etc.

Since you have measured the speaker (I did not) you are probably right that my amp will delivery more like 60 watts when driving my Micro Be speakers. However, at the levels that I listen this is not a problem for my amp, i.e. according to the onboard meters my Accuphase has more than 20 dB of headroom (before clipping). This was actually the point I made in my answer to Phaelon.

You probably read quickly my answer to Phaelon and missed this point. This bother me a bit as this seemed not to be the first inconsistency in your answers (I have read many of your post about the new Focal Utopia line). The most striking example in this regard are your posts about the differences between the 2nd and 3rd Focal Be tweeters. In this thread you write:

"I would not consider word "blow away" right here."

whereas in a different thread. i.e. "Utopia Skala / Alto speakers anyone hear them both", you write:

"Scala is much better.its deisgned by another enginier in Jm Lab the tweeter itself is 3x better than old ones."

Regards,
Paul

hi NVP, you post wasnt intransigent, neither mine(I hope so) Structure of this forum is quite free from science and objective data(its audiophile forum) and inviting to write (and also read) fast.

as for my(I belive other poster) phrase "mind blowing" and that scala better 3 times there is no contraction. its how we imagine this phrase. for me diference in scale reproduction from Diablo vs Micro Be is small but stll significant, diference form Diablo to Maestro is big, diference between Diablo and Grande EM is even more bigger. but there is nothing to "blow" even mind. mind blowing diferencies can be between triangle titus and some custom 2800 pounds line arrays with aditional 800cm2 cone area as subwoofer section, with overall cone size 134 times bigger than triangle. also theese arrays will lilkely "blow" you of your socks in some materials ,which neither Titus or Grande EM will do- they are bot limited in its structure. this diference can be heard and felt by my, my wifer, my wifes grandma, and grandmas kid kids.. and however diferencies in utopia III and previuos utopia generations is noticeable. for me- in midband=which sounds faster and smoother and more integrated. With Alto in some records I just can easily pin point localisation of sound origin- tweeter. And I hate that. With Scala (which is identical in structure and its nature Alto ) speakers starts "dissapear" and midband blends to wholeness and convince listener to performance. at least for me. No metter how clean and transparent speakers sounds-if there is no 3D image they will not convince me in performance. so yes Scala performs three times(300%) better in this respect for me. but nothing to be "blown".

Does anyone know of a qualified technician located in the Chicago area that could re-cap my Micro BE’s as described above by johnsonwu?