Pre/Power or Integrated for Focal Utopia Scala?


Hi, been shopping around for quite awhile but would like to get more ideas from you guys. Budget is about $30k+.

Primary music is classical, jazz and trance. No vocals. Key emphasis on dynamics and tonality. I am not particular about soundstaging and so on but expect a degree of detail.

I have tried these few brands:
- Chord
- Spectral
- Karan
- Goldmund
- Passlabs
- Jeff Rowland
- Plinius
- Octave

Each has some plus and minus.

- I find Goldmund power to be very good but not convinced about their pre-amps which can be abit dry. In comparison, Spectral and Karan are abit heavier and have their own tonality.
- I also liked Plinius power amps but their highest end pre-amp has a performance limitation (though good for the price).
- Chord's pre was good but the power abit strange. Not the last word in aggressiveness but good otherwise.
- Octave, as a tube, is missing the low end bite of solid state and not that expressive.
- Passlabs and Jeff Rowland are abit slow for me.

I intend to give Gryphon and Orpheus a try and perhaps ASR.. hope to have some other recommendations.
quest88

Showing 2 responses by mceljo

Quest88 - My experience with audio equipment at the level your talking about is extrememly limited; however, the deal that I work with is a Focal dealer a I have heard the Scala a few times. I've actually listened to the Grande and Diablo models more.

What I can tell you is that when the Diablo and Grande were powered with Krell mono-blocks the sound simply blew me away. Those amps were sold and replaced with a Asthetix amps and even though they sounded good I was never blown away after the Krells left.

If it were me, I'd use Krell as the baseline and make another brand prove that they sounded better.

By the way, the Scala is a great sounding speaker. I've seen the Stella in the store, but have never been in long enough to get a listen. My favorite Utopia combo is actually the Diablo with a JL Audio subwoofer.
I don't know for sure, but I'd be surprised if it was anything other than Nordost and likely mostly Odin.