Focal Diva Utopia

Verdict

Sometimes you don’t get what you pay for when you spend very big money on audio equipment. This is not one of those times.

Introduction

Focal and Naim have been siblings for the best part of a decade now. And for the last five, they’ve been involved in developing what Focal seems pretty sure is the finest, most complete ‘music-streaming-system-in-a-pair-of-stereo-speakers’ product around.

It’s fair to say that as individual concerns, neither of these companies has anything to prove – so how do things work out when they put their heads together? Is the Focal Diva Utopia more or less than the sum of its considerable parts?

Availability

The Focal Diva Utopia has been on sale since October 2024, and in the United Kingdom it costs £29,999. In the United States it’s an even more punchy $39,999. Australian pricing has not been confirmed at time of writing – but it’s likely to be AU$59,999 or something quite like it.

This, it almost goes without saying, is a huge amount of money for a music streaming system within a pair of stereo speakers. Obviously the Diva Utopia has a party-piece or two to try and justify its asking price – but let’s not pretend it’s going to have to be a hell of a party if it’s going to do so…

Design

• 121 x 42 x 56cm (HxWxD) high-density polymer cabinet
• Grey felt finish with more colour options to come
• 64kg per speaker

Even if it looked like any other pair of speakers, at 121 x 42 x 56cm (HWD) and 64kg per side the Diva Utopia would be quite imposing. But I think it’s safe to say these don’t look all that much like any other speakers – not even other Focal Utopias.

The Diva Utopia cabinets are made from high-density moulded polymer, and are structurally reinforced to deliver a rigid, almost inert structure that zealously rejects vibrations. Each speaker sits on an injected aluminium base that arrives pre-fitted with castors which makes unpacking them a sight easier than it otherwise would be – they can be removed in favour of the hefty floor spikes Focal also supplies.

The distinctive shaping of the cabinet, especially towards the top where the tweeter is housed, is reminiscent of the rest of the Utopia range – but because they’re finished in a fair quantity of hard-wearing, good-looking grey felt rather than the more usual high-gloss colour or wood veneer, the Diva Utopia enjoy an appearance that’s unlike any other speaker of this size.

The striking nature of the look is accentuated further by the way the felt seems to float above the main cabinet, and the beautifully defined gaps that allow the illuminated Focal logo to take centre stage. 

Features

• 800 watts of Class AB amplification
• 32-bit/384kHz and DSD128 resolution
• 27Hz – 40kHz frequency response

The Focal Diva Utopia is a three-way bass reflex speaker with a quite significant complement of drivers and an equally notable amount of power to drive them.

The tweeter near the top of the cabinet is a 27mm pure beryllium M-shaped inverted dome tweeter behind an elaborate double grille that seems to change colour between red and black depending on how the light catches it. Further down the front baffle there’s a 165mm W mid/bass driver with a tuned mass damper surround and the sort NIC (neutral inductance circuit) motor that Focal’s been keen on for a while now.

Each of the side panels of the cabinet houses a couple of 165mm bass drivers arranged in a push-push layout. And in case four bass drivers per speaker seems a bit tentative, low-end reinforcement is provided by a downward-facing bass reflex port that fires against the fixed boundary of the aluminium plinth that supports the main body of the speaker.

Each speaker is home to 400 watts of Naim’s finest Class AB power. 75 watts amplifies the speaker, and the mid/bass driver gets the same amount. The remaining 250 watts is divided between those four sideways-facing bass drivers. The upshot is, according to Focal, a frequency response of 27Hz – 40kHz.

Like most ‘all-in-two’ music streaming speaker systems, one speaker has a fair bit more responsibility than the other – and you only need to glance at the rear panels to find out which is which here.

Each Diva Utopia features a large radiator on its rear panel that’s more than a little suggestive of Naim’s monstrous Statement amplification, with a mains power input and RJ45 speaker link socket beneath. One of the speakers also features another RJ45 (for Ethernet), a Type 2.0 USB-A slot, a digital optical input, a line-level stereo RCA input, and an HDMI eARC socket. The lack of a dedicated phono stage for use with a turntable is a bit of a miss (because anyone spending this sort of money on a system is likely to expect the works), but otherwise this is a full house of physical connectivity.

Wireless connections are taken care of by Bluetooth 5.3 with aptX Adaptive codec compatibility, and dual-band Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi brings compatibility with Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect and TIDAL Connect – and the Diva Utopia is UPnP-compatible, too.

It’s worth noting that it’s not Roon Ready, though, which is another minor gap in its specification. Internet radio is on board, and Qobuz and QQMusic (for Chinese consumers) are also available via the Focal & Naim control app. All the digital stuff, whether received wirelessly or via a wired connection, is handled by a 32-bit/384kHz DAC that’s also compatible with DSD128. 

That app is just one of the available command methods available. The Diva Utopia ships with a Zigbee remote that will be familiar to anyone who’s purchased some Naim electronics in the last decade or so, and the system is also compatible with your native voice assistant of choice.

But really, it’s the control app that’s the most wide-ranging and useful – as well as the usual playback controls, saving favourites and assigning presets, checking for firmware updates and all that, it also features a comprehensive room correction routine into which the end user gets a remarkable amount of input. It also allows the user to enable or disable specific inputs to keep the homepage tidy, trim the output level of specific inputs, and lots more besides. Even in beta (as it was at the time I tested it) it’s a clean, logical and stable interface.

The Diva Utopia uses UWB (ultra wide band) technology to ensure latency between the two speakers is negligible when wirelessly connected. Joined this way, resolution tops out at 24-bit/96kHz – but use the supplied RJ45 capable to connect the speakers physically and that number rises to 24-bit/192kHz. 

Sound Quality

• Detailed, punchy and supremely adaptable sound
• Expressive and entertaining in equal measure
• Needs space in which to operate

I may as well get right to it here. Obviously the asking price means expectations are high, but the Focal Diva Utopia makes good on everything its specification (and, to a lesser extent, its appearance) promises. This is an extremely accomplished audio system, one that can take on any style of music and emerge victorious.

You probably won’t be staggered to learn that low-frequency presence here is considerable. What’s a little less predictable, though, is how deft and insightful the Diva Utopia is at the bottom of the frequency range – it can hit very hard if you ask it to play Go Ahead in the Rain by A Tribe Called Quest, sure, but it has the dexterity and insight to bring Danny Thompson’s bass-playing vividly to life during Kate Bush’s Watching You Without Me.

Harmonic variations are closely observed here, as they are throughout the frequency range, and control of the low end is such that rhythmic expression is always positive and convincing.

The opposite end of the frequency range is equally lavishly detailed, and tonal variations are expressed with absolute certainty. There’s plenty of bite and attack available, but even the most raucous and/or inexpensive recordings (think Call a Doctor by Girl and Girl) stay the right side of hard at the top end. And in between, the Focal deliver the midrange in the most naturalistic and revealing manner imaginable – a singer’s commitment, the details of their character and attitude, are made absolutely plain. So when you’re listening to a technician as accomplished as, say, Ustad Saami singing My Beloved is on the Way the immediacy and intimacy of the Diva Utopia’s rendition is sufficient to raise goosebumps.

Despite the numerousness of the drivers here, there’s no discernible crossover point – the system travels from the bottom of the frequency range to the top in the smoothest of manners and gives appropriate weighting at every point. Tonality, too, is confident and convincing – it’s carefully neutral, and consequently allows the tonal flavour of a recording plenty of expression.

The Focal’s ability to create a convincing soundstage is equally impressive – even if a recording features lots of elements, there’s always more than enough elbow room for each one of them to do its thing without sounding squeezed. But this ability to open a recording up and individualise specific elements of it is never at the expense of unity or togetherness – the Diva Utopia always serves up a recording as a convincing whole. And it can do so even if it’s rampaging through big shifts in volume or intensity – it may seem self-evident that a system with 800 high-quality watts on tap is able to track big dynamic shifts confidently, but the Focal is notably adept here too. 

And perhaps most impressively of all, the Diva Utopia does everything it does in the most unforced and authoritative manner. It never sounds even remotely stressed, even when playing at big volumes (and believe me, it’s capable of very big volumes) – it has an almost casual command of the music it’s playing, and never sounds less than musical and naturalistic.

In fact, about the only meaningful negative I can come up with is that you’ll need a fair amount of space if you want to let this Focal system really do its thing. I imagine that if you’ve got 30 grand to spend on an audio system then the chances are you have a nicely spacious area in which to put it – but for the sake of clarity, the Diva Utopia will overwhelm any room that’s less than big. Unless you like being oppressed by soundwaves, you’ll give this system the breathing space it needs. It is worth it, I promise you.   

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