Focal has always felt like a brand that does things its own way. Take a look at a pair of the company’s Grande Utopia Em Evo floorstanders, complete with their articulated rear ‘spines’ and £220,000 asking price, and you’ll get an immediate feel for a company that is comfortable in its own skin.
Founded in 1979 in Saint-Étienne, France, Focal has anchored its core reputation to luxury high-end speakers, stereo systems and headphones, seeking “to enhance listening experiences and restore the authenticity of artists’ work” by “pushing back the boundaries of musical reproduction”.
A noble aim on paper, but what interests us most about Focal is its approach to that “boundary pushing” production. Described as a shared French philosophy, so much of the brand’s output seems to remain rooted in a human-led, almost artisanal approach.
Focal’s headquarters are still located in Saint-Étienne, a facility from which the company assembles, primarily by hand, its loudspeakers, speaker systems and headphones.
As France is only a short flight from Heathrow, we hopped across the Channel to delve deep into Focal’s audio production and, crucially, the people behind it.
Made in France: flax drivers and crafted cabinets
In this age of all-encompassing automation, what is perhaps most striking about Focal’s production philosophy is its apparent focus on human craft. From cabinets to drive units, humans remain central to Focal’s overarching manufacturing process.
Unlike most of its key rivals, practically all of the company’s drivers are made in-house, with much of the work done by hand. Focal favours a flax sandwich cone for many of its drive units, manually constructed using French-sourced flax fibres sandwiched between two layers of fibreglass, chosen for its combination of rigidity and lightness.
The cone is then cut using a precision laser cutter, while a magnet, voice coil, spider and surround are added later to support the driver.
Why flax? As Louis Gibout, Focal’s deputy brand, digital marketing and retail director explains, the chosen material affects the resultant sound: “Flax has a warmer sound colouration. That’s why we deliberately choose one membrane or another, depending on what we want to do.
“We have two floorstanding speakers, the Kanta and the Sopra. One uses a flax membrane and a beryllium tweeter, the other uses a beryllium membrane and a beryllium tweeter. One customer will want a warmer feeling [of the flax], and one will want a more analytical approach. Two different versions, two different philosophies.”
That brings us on to beryllium, one of Focal’s signature materials reserved for the company’s more rarefied ‘M’ dome drivers. According to Focal, the brand’s signature ‘M-shaped’ unit profile helps to reduce the stress on the membrane during movement, resulting in less distortion and unwanted colouration at high frequencies.
While Focal’s new ‘Prism’ tweeter has moved away from beryllium, the brand’s affection for the material runs deep. As our guide explains, this is an element that provides an exceptional stiffness-to-weight ratio, granting outstanding movement control and precision in the upper sonic reaches.
The one problem? It’s a pretty nasty material to work with: “When people are working with beryllium, they are in a cosmonaut suit, because [the dust] can be very dangerous. We’ve not had any issues in more than 20 years, but still, we are very, very cautious.”
Just as humans remain firmly embedded in the production process of Focal’s drivers, they are equally important when it comes to quality control.
Here, the process blends man and machine, with each driver on the production line undergoing both an electrical test via audio signal analysis and a more personal test with the good old-fashioned human ear. As Gibout explains, actual human beings are essential to ensuring that each product meets the required standard:
“[We need] to keep a human process in the quality process. When you hear Focal products, you know it has been tested individually throughout production.
“Our production staff are able to recognise from what they hear where the issue is coming from. You know that every speaker [driver] has been tested individually, and when it’s assembled, it is matched with another speaker to make sure you get the best matching possible.”
This human element applies to everyone at the company. We are told that each new staff member, no matter their role or job title, spends two days in production as part of their onboarding process, from helping produce a flax membrane to assembling the drivers.
“It’s part of the journey. We want people to feel that and to know that what we do here is subtle, requires technical training and cannot be done by everybody, to make sure we have this know-how from the production of the driver membrane until the high-gloss finish [is applied].”
Obviously, Focal isn’t going to be left behind the times for the sake of tradition. Once a speaker is assembled, it is tested in one of the most Batman-esque anechoic chambers we’ve ever seen. It features a hydraulic platform upon which samples can be mounted, raised and then measured using lasers to assess the speaker’s frequency response, distortion and directivity.
A lot of the facility has a refreshingly low-key, artisanal feel to it, but such a high-spec anechoic chamber, complemented by some very sophisticated listening rooms, hints at a blend of the traditional and the cutting-edge.
The cruel hand of quality control
While driver production and cabinet assembly are performed in Saint-Étienne, Focal’s sister workshop in Ébénisterie Bourgogne manufactures the cabinets and finishes for the likes of its Utopia and Sopra high-end loudspeakers.
While the cabinets are put together in France, certain woods and materials may be sourced from further afield. If you want a signature White Ebony finish, that comes from a rare tree species from Southeast Asia; the deeper, rich tone of ‘Ziricote’ is taken from sapwood grown in Mexico and Central America.
Luckily for us, the Saint-Étienne team have panel samples a little closer to hand, demonstrating the seven or so steps involved in producing both painted and high-gloss wood effects for its MDF exteriors.
For the most part, the process is again done by hand, often starting from a panel of MDF which is rough cut and sanded before a layer of gloss or paint is added, a process which is then repeated until the smooth, unblemished effect is realised.
“We use MDF because it’s very stable and the density is always the same. If you use real wood, you can have unwanted grains and hard spots, and it’s not very good for the vibration of the product,” explains Paul Weill, Focal’s special projects manager.
To Focal, it seems that how a pair of speakers looks is almost as important as how they sound. Perhaps the most striking example of this apparent commitment to quality comes at the end of the production process, wherein the hopeful speakers are exposed to blue, yellow and white lights to reveal any scuffs, scratches or marks that might have blemished their paintwork.
If nothing is found, the speaker is pretty much good to go, but if a sufficiently major imperfection is uncovered, the speaker is disassembled and sent back to Bourgogne so that the whole process can start all over again. Ouch.
Given that a pair of Utopia can take up to a month to craft, it’s a brutal test, but as Louis Gibout tells us, one that must be passed every single time: “We know how much speakers like these are. For the customers, it’s an investment, it’s an emotion, it’s a commitment to the brand, and the brand needs to deliver this quality.”
Arts and crafts: leather jackets and peacocking speakers
Sometimes, a pair of Focal Diva Utopia isn’t exclusive enough. Sometimes you need a pair of speakers that is utterly distinctive from the rest – a pair that is unique.
That’s where Focal Crafts comes in. Take a short walk from the company’s main facility, and you’ll find yourself standing in a small but airy workshop that could just as well be mistaken for an artist’s studio or fashionista’s boudoir as opposed to a wing of an international hi-fi brand.
This is the Focal Crafts atelier, wherein some of the brand’s most exclusive and sometimes eccentric creations are crafted – and, if they are really special, displayed. Such kooky creations include Diva Utopia speakers clad in leather, another sporting a peacock feather finish, one covered in denim (yes, they have a pocket), as well as a Scala Utopia Evo floorstander wrapped in luxuriant faux marble.
The Focal Craft division is responsible for creating some of the brand’s most entrancing exclusives, including a set of Diva Utopias adorned with Capiz shells and another covered in sand and mineral flakes designed to catch the light at different angles.
For those looking for the ultimate exclusivity, you can collaborate with Focal’s design team to come up with a set of speakers to your own particular aesthetic tastes. Focal’s designers will work with you to create a specially commissioned exterior, generally reserved for its reference-grade loudspeaker lines.
There are, however, some rules. All panels must be the same colour and type, and certain aspects of the speaker, such as the glowing company logo, must remain untouched to preserve brand identity.
We cheekily ask whether some customers’ tastes are simply too, well, tasteless to merit a custom paint job, and are gratified by the honesty of Paul Weil’s reply:
“Yes, [but] our work is to move them in the right direction. If something is very terrible, we have no problem saying no. This is why we have pictures and examples of what we can do.”
Sometimes, practicality plays a part in the materials chosen. We are told a story of a customer who wanted a wireless stereo speaker system clad in green marble; not only was it too expensive, but its thickness also prevented each speaker from connecting via their Ultra-Wideband connection. Happily, a thinner marble-effect solution was found.
Earlier this year, Belgian projector manufacturer Barco announced an agreement to acquire the Vervent Audio Group, the parent company of Focal and Naim, ending the main stake ownership of Alpha Private Equity.
We hope that change in ownership will not profoundly affect how the company is run, and that whatever happens, Focal continues its apparent commitment to human-led research, development, construction and quality control.
In a world that is moving faster than most of us can manage, it’s reassuring to see that real people remain the key components in the brand’s quest for great sound.
MORE:
Read our Focal Mu-so Utopia hands on review
Best hi-fi systems: CD, vinyl and streaming music players for the home
Best soundbars: options for every need, recommended by our experts
