High-end monitoring has taken another step forward at Studio DMI in Las Vegas with the installation of Focal’s flagship Utopia Main 212 monitors, soffit-mounted as part of a major room upgrade designed by Haverstick Designs. The new system places Focal’s most advanced main monitors at the heart of the studio’s flagship stereo mixing space, delivering a powerful new reference environment for Grammy-nominated mix and mastering engineer Luca Pretolesi.

Studio DMI, a 3,000 sq ft audio production complex built for artists, producers and engineers, has partnered with Focal since 2019. The facility already houses four Focal-equipped studios, including a Dolby Atmos-certified mixing room featuring an all-Focal monitoring setup. The latest upgrade adds the Utopia Main 212 system to one of the studio’s control rooms, integrating the monitors directly into the architecture of the space through soffit mounting.

Pretolesi, whose credits include work with Major Lazer, Drake, Skrillex and Diplo, has long relied on Focal monitoring in his stereo mix room, which is equipped with Trio11 monitors. With the addition of the Utopia Main 212, he now has access to Focal’s most advanced main monitoring solution.

“The Utopia Main 212 feel like part of the room,” Pretolesi said following the installation. “It’s really nice to have speakers in the wall because now you feel it’s one piece: the sweet spot is literally the entire studio, it feels so big.”

The new monitoring system is paired with extensive acoustic treatment and high-end studio hardware, forming a reference environment designed for precision mixing and mastering. According to Pretolesi, the sonic character of the monitors immediately stood out.

“The Focal Utopia Main sound has an expensive, shiny top end, a very detailed midrange, and a very warm — and not fatiguing — bottom end,” he said. “The Utopia Main 212 and 112 are very loud speakers made for engineers, and they sound amazing. The learning curve usually on any pair of speakers takes weeks, but I was mixing the same day on the Utopia Main 212.”

Despite their power, Pretolesi notes that the monitors also excel at lower listening levels — a crucial factor for long mixing sessions.

“The coolest thing is to be able to listen to something that has a lot of power, a lot of space, but listen at 65 dB and feel extremely comfortable,” he added.

The redesign of the room was led by Haverstick Designs, a studio design firm with a long history of integrating Focal monitors into professional facilities. While the company has used Focal products in previous projects, the Studio DMI installation marks its first soffit-mounted implementation of the Utopia Main range.

“When we are working on a design to soffit mount a set of speakers, the information provided by the manufacturer is crucial,” said Gavin Haverstick, owner of Haverstick Designs. “Focal’s documentation for the UM212 speakers gave us everything we needed to ensure that we obtained the best performance out of the speakers in this redesign.”

Haverstick first encountered the monitors during a demonstration at the 2025 NAMM Show.

“I heard the UM212s and UM112s on the NAMM show floor in 2025 and I was blown away by the level of detail and the power they provided,” he said. “I had also spoken to numerous trusted colleagues and mix engineers who had heard them in more controlled environments, and the reviews have been nothing but positive.”

Integrating the new system into an existing room required careful planning. Soffit mounting large main monitors demands a precisely engineered wall structure designed to eliminate unwanted acoustic interactions.

“Anytime we are upgrading an existing room with soffit-mounted speakers, there are a lot of things that need to be considered,” Haverstick explained. “A soffit wall needs to be extremely massive with multiple layers of dense materials so that the wall doesn’t act as a baffle and interfere with the direct sound from the speakers.”

Speaker placement geometry also played a key role.

“We also need to get the angles as accurate as possible to optimize the equilateral triangle between the speakers and the listening position,” he added.

The project was carried out in collaboration with contractor Built By Rosetone, with whom Haverstick Designs has worked on numerous previous installations. The renovation also included updates to the room’s acoustic treatment to improve accuracy and address low-frequency performance.

Studio DMI has become known not only for its professional production capabilities but also for its educational initiatives. The facility recently hosted mixing and mastering workshops aimed at sharing industry knowledge and supporting the next generation of electronic music producers.

For Haverstick, the project represents another milestone in a long-standing relationship with the studio.

“Working with Studio DMI over the years has been such a joy,” he said. “That place feels like a home away from home because of the people that work there. I’m excited for this next season with the upgrades we did in Luca’s space, and I’m looking forward to hearing all the amazing music that will come out of that studio in the coming years.”

The Utopia Main range represents Focal’s most ambitious professional monitoring development to date. Consisting of the dual-13-inch UM212 and the single-13-inch UM112, the systems are designed specifically for soffit-mounted main monitoring in high-end studio environments. Development began in 2017 and draws on more than four decades of driver design research and two decades of innovation in studio monitor engineering.

Featuring newly designed midrange drivers, Beryllium tweeters and patented Tuned Mass Damper technology to reduce intermodulation distortion, the Utopia Main monitors are engineered to deliver precision monitoring even at high sound pressure levels. With the installation at Studio DMI, the system now joins a growing number of professional facilities adopting the flagship monitoring platform for critical recording, mixing and mastering applications.

Breaking: Focal sold to Barco – official announcement on the link.