Focal Diva Utopia streaming loudspeaker

By: Ed Selley [hi-fi+ Issue 237]

When Focal and Naim announced their merger over a decade ago, many couldn’t visualise an actual engineering liaison between the two companies. While both firms have been highly prolific in the ensuing years, the nature of those products is that they have been either ‘Naim’ or ‘Focal’. Only at the terrestrial end of proceedings, with the Mu-so devices (new ground for both firms), has there been any actual collaboration.

Until now, that is. The Diva Utopia sports a Focal badge, but the simple detail that the badge lights up indicates that there is as much Salisbury as Saint Etienne inside those cabinets. Focal’s Diva Utopia is an active speaker, wholly self-contained, rather than merely a replacement for speakers and amps in a conventional system. This category is going great guns at lower prices, but it’s more singular to encounter at £30,000.

Utopian dream

The Focal contribution to the Diva is entirely in keeping with the Utopia name. Like other range members, it sports a beryllium tweeter for high frequencies. Focal believes that beryllium’s combination of strength and lightness is unmatched by any other material (your irregular reminder that the only lighter periodic table members are gasses). The Diva is the first Focal speaker to use the ‘M’ shape profile in a beryllium tweeter. This development that first appeared in the automotive division increases the relative rigidity of the dome for the same amount of material used.

This hands over to a 6.5-inch composite midrange driver that shares a baffle with the tweeter. Like the tweeter, this is a Utopia pattern composite engineered for stiffness but, as a midrange unit, is lighter than a dedicated bass driver. To find those, you’ll need to look down the side of the Diva Utopia. Another four 6.5-inch drivers in counter-firing pairs sit on either side of the cabinet. These are aided in their excursions by a port integrated into the cabinet’s bass near the plinth. One of the reasons why the Diva carries that name is that an earlier passive Utopia model of the same name was the first in the range to mount a driver on the side.