Like a siren song… Alain Pineau, PLP Design - France - 1 September 2009

May 2008, like very often at the time I was in Saint-Etienne at Focal to work with the teams on the new 2009/2010 ranges.
At that time, the Utopia line design was nearly finished for us, technicians were putting the finishing touches on the “Grande”.
The program of these days of discussion about design/BE was still very dense, and I hadn’t had the chance yet to listen to the prototypes made during the previous weeks, neither to see the brand new finishes.
I was devoting myself to the new projects and I entirely trusted the team to finish what should soon become the new worldwide acoustic reference… That morning, my path unexpectedly guided me to the listening room. The door was half-opened and I could hear a liturgical song of an incredible softness, like a siren song… I forgot my very tight schedule, I was like hypnotized, I came into the room and I discovered for the first time in front of me, a pair of Grande Utopia alive, perfect and majestic in their black lacquer! My strongest emotions was not to discover at last the true face of this creation, it was rather to hear it and to listen to it. Time stopped, I was transported to a marvelous world by two giants that became invisible. Their first sound to me was a nun song, so peaceful, so enveloping, so powerful, an almost divine call.
Since then, I had the chance to listen to it several other times, but this very first time, filled with surprise and smoothness, I was in heaven…