Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Getting set for some music
On a rainy day in September, the speakers arrived on a large pallet, one box each plus a box for accessories (remote control, documentation, spikes, and so on). The speakers weigh 141lb each; buyers will be grateful that they're delivered on wheels and with a sturdy plywood ramp. Just open the box, remove some packing material, slide the ramp under the wheels, tip the speaker upright, and roll it out. The wheels are useful not just for uncrating but also for positioning. Once that has been accomplished, the screw-in spikes or feet can be adjusted with included tools to lift each speaker off its wheels so that the feet or spikes (user's choice) interface with the floor or carpet. The delivery guys—Terry and Justin—helped me unpack the speakers and took them upstairs to my living room.

I ended up with the speakers about a quarter of the way out into my large living room. Their rears were about 4½' from the back wall, their centers about 80" apart. My ears were about 90" from the center point between the fronts of the speakers. I toed them in a bit, but not so much that they fired directly at my ears. In that configuration, they presented a balanced if somewhat bass-forward sound and threw a wide, tall, 3D stereo image.

Listening to each speaker in turn, I was struck with how alike they sounded, indicating not just excellent frequency-response matching but also that their placement in the room wasn't messing with the sound much. Also striking: True mono content sat dead center, not spread unnaturally wide and flat (footnote 7).

These speakers put out a lot of sound. They'll do best in a large room, allowing for some distance to the listening seat. Given the somewhat omnidirectional projection of bass (the radiation pattern is actually more wide-cardioid, since there are no ports or radiators on the backs of the speakers, but the woofers fire to the side and true bass is everywhere once the room is energized; footnote 8), I'd keep them some distance away from the back and sidewalls.

Enough tech talk—how do they sound?
Although the Diva Utopia is a self-contained wireless streaming system, the point of the price (a dollar shy of $40k including DACs and amplifiers and the equivalent of cables) is the full-range, floorstanding speakers. Focal knows its stuff, and the company didn't skimp on parts or R&D. My first impression, diving right into my Qobuz playlists, was they make a big sound, and the bass goes low and hard. At the same time, the top end is refined and non-shrieky. The stereo imaging is as precise as the recording allows.

There's a magic volume level where music fills the room without sounding unpleasantly loud. At that point, I felt like I was in my studio with near-field monitors because the details were so clear and the stereophony so precise. The music was fully present, and when the recording allowed, life forces came forth.

I was surprised by the huge low end from these fresh-outta-the-box speakers. The bass got a bit less tubby after a few dozen hours of listening—not "smaller" but quicker and more detailed. For instance, in my Bass Test playlist on Qobuz (footnote 9), the remix of Paramore's "This Is Why" by British rock band Foals went from unpleasantly boomy to gut-punchy in a good way. Charlie Watts's kickdrum in the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" became crisper, with the tones of both the beater and the drum body better defined and more distinct from each other.

When driven hard enough, the Diva Utopia system can reproduce complex symphonic music in a large-scale and convincingly realistic manner. For overcompressed modern rock and pop, there is a comfortable volume level to push the beat and melody out without straining the ears (footnote 10).

Once turned up to that Goldilocks volume level, the Diva Utopia system really brought the music. That honest tonality I described earlier scales up, and I heard no evidence that the amplifiers were overtaxed at any listening level I dared try. My wife and I had fun listening to BBC regional streams, especially after we stumbled on a Friday afternoon program of 1980s Brit-pop and new wave on BBC Scotland. The Focal & Naim app offers BBC "Extra" quality streams of 320kbps, which sound quite good. We also sampled the offerings at BBC Manchester and BBC Wales, which weren't as perfect for Friday afternoon dancing in the living room.

I didn't enjoy listening to the Diva Utopia system as much at low volume levels—including sound from my TV, connected via TosLink—despite the built-in DSP loudness compensation. Sounds became indistinct, the music less dynamic. The phrase going through my mind as I listened was, the speakers "go inside themselves" at low volume; it felt like the 6.5" woofers just weren't moving enough air. Turning off the "loudness" DSP just made things worse. This may be partly the result of nonoptimal DSP settings, which could be improved in a future firmware update. Following the normal procedure to set ADAPT correction at a low volume level helped, but not enough. These Diva Utopias are not ideal for background music. That's fine: Most of the time I wanted to hear the system playing at room-filling SPLs.

Plugging in and turning on
My Oppo universal player, connected via TosLink optical, operated as expected and sounded great. I compared a few CD tracks to the same tracks/versions streaming from Qobuz and didn't hear any differences. I plugged a USB thumb drive with various files into the rear of the primary speaker, and the app quickly found the files and associated metadata. Playback sounded as expected, again no different from the same tracks from the same albums as played from Qobuz.

Bedel told me that the USB connection provides enough current to power a portable hard drive. I tested this with the Western Digital 4TB portable drive on which I mirror my music library. I played albums and tracks for several hours with no stalls, dropouts, or other problems. When I powered down the speakers and unplugged the drive, I felt around the back panel to see if anything had heated up from the current demand through the USB socket. All was cool to the touch.

Finally, I connected my record-playing subsystem to the analog inputs: Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge on Technics SL-1200MK7 turntable connected with a vintage SME cable to a ProJect Phono Box RS2 preamp. The Diva Utopia's ADC seemed to do a fine job of digitizing the signal from the grooves and the preamp. I especially enjoyed spinning Bob Ludwig's original cut of the Rolling Stones' Tattoo You. The room filled with rock'n'roll swagger. While I was at it, I pulled out Bob's original cut of David Bowie's Let's Dance, which sets a standard for punchy beat and always pulls me out of my seat. The title track and "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)"—wowzer!

The analog connection between the preamp and primary speaker did not induce any hum or hash that I could hear, ears close to the speaker and volume cranked up beyond comfortable listening level.

Listeners who like vinyl as well as streaming won't have to compromise with the Diva Utopia system, except in that the only analog connection isn't balanced. The same goes for someone with a large collection of CDs they haven't ripped to a server, as long as their CD player has a TosLink output. The only downside is all those connections, running cables from wherever the turntable or CD player resides to the rear of the primary speaker. In the setup described above, I used a 6' cable from my phono preamp to the rear of the primary speaker, which in my setup was the right one.

Bring it on home
The Focal Diva Utopia streaming wireless amplified speaker system is complex and expensive—though there's a lot built into it that you won't have to pay extra for, like DACs and (custom-matched) amplifiers. At this price (and size, and weight), I expected full-range sound that would fill my cathedral ceiling living room, including realistically large portrayal of dynamic orchestral music. I got it. The electronics handle the digital data, convert it, and amplify it in high fidelity, neutral but not cold- or thin-sounding. When cranked up enough to breathe, the Diva Utopias push precise and appropriately scaled sound out onto a wide-screen, well-defined soundstage. When it's fed a recording done right, the system sounds lifelike.

The biggest drawback I heard with the Diva Utopia is its inability to produce dynamic, compelling sound at low volumes—which hopefully can be improved with future DSP updates. But at realistic SPLs, this speaker system is fully engaging, with a "Wow" factor in both appearance and sound quality.

As of this writing, the Focal & Naim app wasn't as functionally complete or as user-friendly as Roon. (No manufacturer's app I've used so far is.) But the company employs engineers and software specialists with the skills to keep improving it and has a track record of steady forward progress. For now, I found the JPlay app more visually appealing and easier to find the music I wanted to hear.

With those caveats, I admire the Focal Diva Utopia for its new take on the premium, full-range, high-fidelity audiophile music-listening system. This is a bold and future-facing product. Buying it is a bit like being an early-days Tesla buyer. It performs familiar functions (like playing music from a variety of digital or analog sources) excellently, but its form factor and user interface are different from most familiar hi-fi systems. Its looks are unique, even for modern-day speakers. To fully embrace it, you must be comfortable riding the cutting edge.

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Footnote 7: "Wide mono" can be pleasant to listen to—I enjoy it—but Tom is correct when he suggests that from a technical point of view, it is a bug, not a feature.—Jim Austin

Footnote 8: As noted above, the woofers cross over to the mid-woofers at 200Hz.

Footnote 9: See open.qobuz.com/playlist/21395182.

Footnote 10: Ear strain with heavily compressed recordings played back at high volumes is not the fault of the Diva Utopia system.