New Focal Grande Utopia EM

Heard it at Rocky Mountain. It has potential but did not sound special in any regard. They were using Boulder Amplification & Digital. No one was very impressed. Maybe it needed break in, better recordings. I will give it one more go.

What is the retail of the Grande & Nova if you know?

It is a tempting speaker, but not that tempting. Smart move though, they are going after the extreme top end. I will wait for it to come up used in 5 years. By then with inflation 90K will be chump change. I just hope my pay increase to compensate.

I just want to clarify a few things about the sound of the Utopia EMs. I have heard the original Grande Utopia BE years ago w. VTL tube electronics and I thought it very good. This time it wasn't. It was the 1st day of the show and certainly rooms sounded much much better on Sunday then on Friday. This is one thing experienced show goers do know. I did list caveats on my impressions above. Since I own Wilson Speakers I guess I must not like the spitting sound of BE tweeters that several rooms had on display (but not all). In that regard, I did find several much better rooms than the Utopia EM. I was also sitting in the center spot but towards the back.

I felt the Symposium Speakers were incredible. The Bass needed to be improved & I am not sure of the limits of the bass. The Utopia EM must have incredible bass. I also felt the speed of the YG acoustics room was faster and more lifelike in speed. And finally for looks there was nothing as beautiful as Scaena w. a custom paint job. If anyone has a place to upload all pictures from the show for everyone to look at I will gladly do so. I have high resolution photos from the 1st 2 days, and I used a compact the final day.