Focal has expanded its Focal Crafts atelier with three new bespoke finishes for the Focal Diva Utopia, the French manufacturer’s flagship active wireless loudspeaker built around Naim electronics. Natural Sand, Capiz Pearl and Plume each replace the standard side panels with a hand-worked material, turning the Focal Diva Utopia from a high-end audio system into what the brand calls a contemplative work of art.
Focal Diva Utopia: from wireless flagship to art object
Focal Crafts is the in-house atelier where Focal pairs its acoustic engineering with external artisans and material specialists. Rather than a simple colour option, each Focal Crafts edition of the Diva Utopia is built around a distinct craft: mineral coating, shell marquetry and featherwork. According to Focal, every side panel is unique, since none of the three techniques can be reproduced identically twice by hand.
Natural Sand: mineral texture shaped by hand
The Natural Sand finish is based on a blend of plant polymers, sand, sunflower oil and mineral quartz, coloured by a materials specialist with natural pigments. The mixture is applied to the wooden side panels with a spatula and knife, in successive layers, then sanded and sealed with an eco-friendly varnish. The result is a finely grained, sand-like surface where light settles differently on every panel.
Capiz Pearl: the shimmer of the sea
For Capiz Pearl, Focal Crafts turns to capiz shells, selected individually for their shade, thickness and iridescence before being cut and glued one by one like a mosaic. A colourless satin varnish then fixes the material without dulling its glow. Focal describes the result as a living surface: since no two shells are identical, no two Diva Utopia Capiz Pearl speakers will look exactly alike.
Plume: featherwork as sound art
The most experimental of the three is Plume, developed with the Parisian feather workshop Plumavera. Natural feathers, chosen for their delicacy and ethical sourcing, are dyed by hand with a gradient from midnight blue to black before being attached one by one to the cabinet. “A speaker is a unique object that can be handled, which means you have to be extra meticulous when attaching each feather,” says Beatrice Bost-Le Mouel of Plumavera, who worked on the finish. Focal previously explored bespoke finishes on the smaller Diva Mezza Utopia; Plume pushes that same philosophy further with a technique the brand had never applied to a loudspeaker before.
Underneath the new finishes, the Focal Diva Utopia itself is unchanged: a 3-way active wireless design combining Focal’s beryllium tweeter and cabinet expertise with four built-in Naim amplifiers, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and network streaming via AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and UPnP. Focal previously brought a similar three-finish treatment to the smaller Diva Mezza Utopia, and the standard Diva Utopia was reviewed as one of the most ambitious active wireless systems on the market.
Pricing and availability
Focal has not published pricing for the Natural Sand, Capiz Pearl or Plume editions; as with previous Focal Crafts releases, these bespoke finishes are expected to be quoted on request through Focal’s retail network. The standard Focal Diva Utopia is priced from $39,999 per pair. Full details on the atelier and its finishes are available on the official Focal Crafts pages.
Key specifications
- Type: 3-way active wireless loudspeaker with integrated Naim amplification
- Tweeter: beryllium inverted dome
- Frequency response: 27Hz-40kHz (+/-3dB)
- Peak SPL: 116dB at 1m
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect, UPnP
- Dimensions (per speaker): 1210 x 420 x 560mm (H x W x D)
- Weight: 64kg per speaker
- Focal Crafts finishes: Natural Sand, Capiz Pearl, Plume – price on request
