How the experience of spending an afternoon listening to great components in dedicated rooms is all but gone. Well, if you live near Miami, Florida, that isn’t entirely true.
I was recently invited to an event at CasaHiFi in Miami’s historic Coconut Grove district. They have just become a Focal Powered by Naim dealer and they held a day-long celebration for members of the press and friends of the store on June 21st, 2022.
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A bit of background: Focal and Naim were for many years, distributed in the US by Audio Plus Services. In 2019, Focal and Naim’s parent company, VerVent Audio Group, acquired Audio Plus and created Focal Naim America and Focal Naim Canada as its subsidiaries. Since then, they have opened 24 Focal Powered by Naim locations in Korea, France, the US and many other countries. CasaHiFi in Miami is termed a shop-in-shop which means they sell other brands besides Focal and Naim, though none were on display during my visit. They are fully equipped to create custom installations ranging from basic two-channel rooms to dedicated theaters, and everything in between.
Secrets has reviewed many Focal products over the years. Check out the latest article from our esteemed Dr. John Johnson about the Aria 906 Bookshelf Speakers. Naim has also been represented in these pages with their uniquely styled amplifiers and streamers.
Arriving at CasaHiFi bright and early Tuesday morning, I was greeted by a lovely pair of Focal Stella Utopia Evos and Diablo Utopia stand-mounts in a striking blue metallic finish. In between were three sets of Focal headphones – Utopia, Clear Mg and Celestee. By the way, there is nothing here that cannot be demoed. Every product on display can be auditioned.
Our tour began with an introduction to and by CasaHiFi owner, Antonio Gaspard. He talked of his association with Focal/Naim and his no pressure approach to business. He has a wealth of experience selling and installing high-end AV and lists many celebrity clients on his impressive resume. The room we were in was one of two isolated spaces in the store. It is well appointed and comfortable, and has a two-channel system featuring Focal Sopra No3 speakers and rack filled with Naim electronics. Other models from the Sopra series are here too. The rack, called Naim Frame, is occupied by an NDX 2 Network Player, NAC 282 Preamp, Supercap Power Supply and a NAP 300 Amplifier with external power supply. By the way, all the flat panels you see in the photos are OLEDs. There is no expense spared here. Only the finest equipment is on display.
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The room treatment consisted only of the diffusion panel seen in the middle photo above. The sound was incredible though. The Maestros produced a ridiculous quantity of bass in the drum & bass demos I listened to. Classical selections like Brahms’ Symphonies were mesmerizing. I was amazed there was no sub in use. Listening to music from World of Warcraft: The Horde made my clothing flap in the breeze. I felt as though I should be wearing a bearskin and dragging a huge club behind me…
Next up were the two open spaces that made up the front of the store. These are furnished like typical living rooms open to the back and sides with little opportunity for acoustic treatment. The middle space housing the Grande Utopias could be separated by screens that came down from the ceiling. ***Check out the video for this neat feature in action.
Now I must dedicate a few words to the Focal Grande Utopia Evos on display. I have seen these speakers at several trade shows but never had the opportunity to hear them. You’d expect that they’d only be demoed in a special dedicated space with lots of room treatment and tuning. But CasaHiFi simply set the time alignment to focus the sound on a couch about 10 feet back from the wall. The space behind the couch is open. To say they sounded incredible would be to engage in understatement. I had to recalibrate my brain to accept that such large speakers could sound so intimate and clear at such a close distance with no efforts made to isolate the space.
Driving the Grande Utopias was Naim’s NAC S1 Statement Ultimate. This monolith consists of two monoblock amps flanking a two-channel preamp. The three components cost $99,999 each. Honestly though, if you’ve already spent $279,998 to put the Grande Utopias in your home, what’s another $299,997? This is easily the best two-channel system I’ve ever heard. I can’t imagine how it would be in an isolated and treated space. If anything can realign one’s sensibilities and perceptions, the Grande Utopias are it.
Naim offers lifestyle products too. The Mu-So QB is a beautifully designed cube with a neat wave shape and a fabric finish topped by the signature Naim volume dial gently backlit by a white LED. Not only does it sound great, but it also sports some serious engineering underneath that grill. Note that each of the five drivers points in a different direction to maximize dispersion and sound stage size. Two racetrack passive radiators flank the sides to provide plenty of bass without the need for a noisy port.
I’ve saved the best part of CasaHiFi for last. This is something that really speaks to me – a dedicated theater. Yes, I have a theater in my home but it’s nothing like this. Walking in, the first thing you notice is there’s nothing on the floor except a throw rug and a couch.
The entire space is powered by Focal 1000 series in-wall and in-ceiling speaker arrays. Up front are left and right channels with the center behind an acoustically transparent screen. Two arrays adorn each side wall and two more are behind the listener. In the ceiling are four height channels. Dolby Atmos is therefore supported in a 9.9.4 configuration. What is that 9 doing in the center? You mean there are 9 subwoofers? Actually, there are 12 in a 9-channel configuration. Each array has either one or two subs flanking it for a total of 12 subs. Each one has the same surface area as a 10-inch driver. Not only is the bass prodigious, but it is also controlled and focused where it needs to be. You can also see the room treatments, bass traps in the front corners and diffusion panels with more bass traps on the walls and ceiling.
Running all this goodness is Focal’s Astral 16 Processor/Amplifier. It’s an amazing box that has 16 total channels, 12 of which are amplified internally. It is therefore a receiver. A receiver that costs $19,999. It runs Dirac Live room correction and has tremendous tuning flexibility. As it was explained to me, Dirac is the starting point. Then manual adjustment is added to create the final product. It supports different listening modes that can use some or all the speakers in different ways. The sound stage can even be rotated, for example, to use two of the wall arrays as left and right channels to send sound into an attached space like a kitchen. I also got a demo of “party mode” where bass is focused on the front of the room to create a dance floor while making it possible to carry on a conversation in the back of the room. The possibilities of this system are literally endless.
I finished my day with a party given for the press attendees and friends of the store that lasted well into the evening. Music was coming from multiple parts of the store creating a fun and inviting atmosphere. CasaHiFi is a very special place to experience the best in audio. A large group from Focal came in from France and Canada to help celebrate and to finalize the tuning of all displayed products.
This was a truly pleasurable experience for me, and I learned a tremendous amount not only about Focal and Naim products but the high-end approach to selling audio. CasaHiFi is not about moving boxes or high-pressure. They will let you spend as much time as you want listening to products and discussing your individual needs. They even offer in-home trials for those not ready to commit in the store. Whether you want a basic pair of speakers, or a nice set of headphones, or a complete custom cinema; CasaHiFi is ready to work with you to achieve audio greatness.
If you want model and price breakdowns for all the products pictured, here they are with accompanying photos and links to their product webpages.
Focal Headphone Bar
Utopia 2020 – $4400
Clear Mg – $1499
Celestee – $999
On each side of the Headphone Bar
Focal Stella Utopia EM Evo – $74,999 (Metallic Blue)
Focal Diablo Utopia EVO – $10,499 (Metallic Blue)
Along back wall behind the Headphone Bar
Naim Mu-so 2nd Generation – $1799
Naim Mu-so Qb – $1199
Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition ($3799) with the Focal Stellia ($2999)
Focal Kanta Room
Focal Kanta No2 ($10,998 pair) with the Naim Uniti Atom ($3799)
Focal Kanta No3 ($14,998 pair) with the Naim Uniti Nova ($6899)
Focal Grande Utopia Room
Focal Grande Utopia EM EVO – $279,998 pair
Naim Statement
$299,997 (3 pieces @ $99,999 each)
Naim NDX 2 – $8,799
Focal Sopra Room
Focal Sopra
Sopra N°3 ($25,998), N°2 ($20,998 pair), and Sopra N°1 ($11,998 pair) with stands ($2,198)
Naim Frame
Naim NDX 2 – $8,799
Naim NAC 282 – $8,599
Naim Supercap – $8,599
Naim NAP 300 with power supply – $15,999
Focal Home Theater Room – 9.9.4
Focal 1000 Series In-Wall and In-Ceiling
(x9) 1000 IWLCR Utopia – $7,599 each
(x12) 1000 IWSUB Utopia – $2,899 each
(x4) 1000 ICLCR5 In-Ceiling – $2,299 each
Focal Astral – $19,999
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