Tower Speaker Reviews

Setup
I initially set up the Focal-JMlab Diva system in the same locations I used for the B&W 700-series system I reviewed in the September 2004 UAV. The Divas were positioned about 9 feet apart, to the left and right of my projection screen, at least 3 feet from the nearest wall, and toed-in toward the center of the main seating area. I placed the Center just below the screen on a low stand that tilted it up slightly (when positioned on the too-tall Center stand provided by Focal-JMlab, the Center was too high and blocked the screen). The Micros ended up near the rear of the room, on their dedicated stands (an expensive option at $1200/pair, but solidly built and a perfect cosmetic match for the Micros). The Sub Utopia Be was positioned in the room's right front corner.

Onscreen
The Diva Utopia Be system performed beautifully on a wide range of soundtracks. In fact, if you've seen my review of the Sony STR-DA9000ES receiver (UAV, December 2004), you've already had more than a sneak preview of what the Diva Utopia Be system can do.

The system's bottom end was rarely prominent unless it needed to be. It went over the top only when exciting the low-frequency modes in my room that I know well—and even those seemed less troublesome than usual. But when bass extension was required, it was there, from the rumble of the ships and battles in Star Wars Episode II to the deep bass undercurrent that throbs through much of Hellboy (which contains some of the deepest bass I've heard from any DVD this year). But that brief description doesn't really do justice to the system's overall bass reproduction. It was often the little things—the slamming of a door, the clomping of heavy footsteps down wooden stairs—that surprised me by how right they sounded. Not boomy, but fast and clean.

The system also displayed an outstanding combination of natural detail and a lack of compression that was often startling in its impact. The detail was evident at even the most minute scale, such as the jangling of keys or the ambience of the spaces depicted onscreen. Most of the "big things," of course, are produced artificially in the creation of a soundtrack, but the way in which those things are reproduced can be just so much noise unless they're reproduced in a way that at least sounds believable. They must have a jump factor that makes your first reaction one of excitement, fear, or some other emotion apart from "Turn it down!" While the Diva Utopia Be system sounded great at even modest levels, its sublimely clean sound encouraged me to turn the system up.

But that clean sound could be unforgiving on even slightly bright soundtracks. It may even exaggerate the problem somewhat—not enough to compromise the pristine, almost ethereal sound of that beryllium tweeter, but enough to be audible as an added crispness.

The Diva Utopia Be also produced that elusive "bubble of sound" that's so critical to the best reproduction of film soundtracks or, for that matter, of any well-recorded multichannel recording. It did a fine job of this with the Sony STR-DA9000ES receiver, but really came into its own with the Anthem Statement D1 surround pre-pro and P5 5-channel amp. It reveled in the extra power that the P5 provided—imaging, spaciousness, impact, and high-frequency smoothness all improved. But the improvements brought by the separates were definitively of the let-it-all-hang-out audiophile variety. While moving up to first-class separates improved the speakers' clarity and inner detail, a flagship receiver such as the Sony will wring from the Diva system 90% of its capabilities.

Not all was perfect, however. I heard some occasional coloration in the sound of the Center Utopia Be, and a clear change in timbre as I moved off-axis. The timbral change was most obvious in the voice region. This off-axis problem is an obvious result of the horizontal configuration of the woofers and tweeter—a common shortcoming of many center-channel designs, though seldom of one in this price range.

The separate coloration issue (though I'm sure the off-axis response deviations contributed to it) was dependent to a certain degree on the program material. It was mostly evident on film soundtracks, where slightly nasal or canned-sounding dialog is not uncommon. And the fact that the Center had to be mounted below my projection screen, putting it just over a foot off the floor, must have contributed to this.

To answer the latter concern—or at least the near-floor portion of it—I used the position equalization built into the Anthem Statement D1 pre-pro to simulate placement atop a large television. While that does not precisely duplicate a near-floor location, it does duplicate placement close to a large surface. The sound definitely improved. While few users will have access to such a compensation network short of full system equalization, mounting the Center on a higher stand behind a perforated projection screen should produce roughly the same improvement (apart from any negative effect on the speaker's balance from the perforated screen).

But these minor concerns I had with the Center detracted little from my overall enjoyment of the sound of the Diva Utopia Be system with the best movie soundtracks. The speakers produced a huge, coherent soundstage that was not challenged by any program material I could feed it at any sane level.

Music Hath Charms
With all the great things I heard from soundtracks through the Diva Utopia Be system, I was a little surprised that my initial reaction on hearing it with 2-channel music (with the subwoofer active) was a little less enthusiastic. The sound remained extremely clean and sweet, but was a little too warm and rich. Imaging and soundstage depth were securely handled, but neither was particularly remarkable. That overly warm midbass balance also resulted in a subjective loss of clarity through the midrange and treble.

The first step I took to get around this was to move beyond the basic test-tone setup for the main/sub balance and take some in-room measurements. These led me to employ one of the Anthem pre-pro's more useful features: an adjustable bass-notch filter. I dialed in a deep (–20dB!) but extremely narrow (4Hz) dip at about 65Hz.

The sound was now noticeably more open, though still a little sweet and lacking in that see-into-the-soundstage openness that makes music spring to life. At this point it's worth considering why this never bothered me with video material and, in fact, why the system actually sounded a bit too bright on some soundtracks. I do sit slightly to the left of the center axis for video watching to make room for a projector (which can be moved out of the way for sweet-spot 2-channel listening) and such a position change can sometimes alter the sonic balance. But with most speakers I haven't heard quite this much difference. The best explanation I can offer is that many soundtracks are overripe in the highs, slightly exaggerating the excitement factor in a way that naturally recorded music will not. But I'm not entirely happy with that explanation; the Revel F32 system that Steven Stone reviewed in UAV in December 2004, and which I installed in my own system for a listen post-Diva, was sweeter-sounding than the Focal-JMlab speakers (though a bit less detailed) on some of those same soundtracks.

Faced with the possibility of trying out a long sequence of other gear with the Utopias to determine if the limitations I was now hearing originated somewhere else in the system, I first tried a simple replacement: swapping out the Monster M1500 interconnects that linked the front channel pre-pro outputs to the Anthem amp. In their place, I reinstated my long-term reference interconnects, CZ-Gels from Madrigal.

Those of you who don't believe in cable differences should feel free to go grab a snack at this time. For the rest of you, I'll just say that this substitution made the difference between a sound that I respected and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. The air and space were back. High-frequency details, from percussion to the delicate fingering of guitar strings, were superb, clearly showing the pedigree of those beryllium tweeters. The midrange remained free of any recognizable coloration: no boxiness, nasality, or that amusical, mechanical resonance that's sometimes referred to as "cone cry." The perspective was just right, neither excessively laid-back nor in-your-face. And image depth now comfortably resided in audiophile country. In short, I was in loudspeaker heaven.

Or almost. The bass, while still extended and potent, was just a little less crisp and well-defined on music than I'd like. Nor did it energize the room in the very deepest bass—down to below 25Hz—in quite the same way as the two most impressive subs I've had in my studio, the Revel B15 and the MartinLogan Descent. While I'd had no reservations about the Sub Utopia Be's performance on soundtracks, musical bass, which is inherently less over-the-top, can be far more revealing.

The ML Descent was long gone from my studio, but the Revel was still on hand. Swapping it for the Sub Utopia Be cleaned up that midbass considerably and further opened up the sound. And with the Revel sub in position, the notch filter in the Anthem processor could now be switched out; the Revel has its own parametric equalizers that were set to optimum for the sub's location in my room. (You might ask if it's fair to compare a sub with parametric equalization to one without. It is if the EQ-less sub is considerably more expensive—as is the Sub Utopia Be.)