Montreal, Canada (March 10, 2026)—Studio DMI, a Las Vegas audio production hub housing four Focal-equipped studios, recently brought in Haverstick Designs to upgrade one room for Focal’s Utopia Main monitors.
Opened in 2019, the 3,000-sq.-ft. complex includes a Dolby Atmos-certified all-Focal mixing studio, and now also a room featuring the Focal Utopia Main 212 soffit-mounted monitors. The Utopia Main monitors are surrounded by premium acoustic treatment and top-tier pro audio hardware. Studio DMI is home to Grammy-nominated mix and mastering engineer Luca Pretolesi, whose stereo mix room features Focal Trio11 monitors.
“The Utopia Main 212s feel like part of the room,” Pretolesi says. “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.”
He continues, “The Focal Utopia Main sound has an expensive, shiny top end, a very detailed midrange, and a very warm—and not fatiguing—bottom end. 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, it takes like weeks, but I was mixing the same day on the Utopia Main 212.”
Pretolesi adds: “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.”
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The room upgrade was designed by Haverstick Designs, no strangers to Focal monitors. But this was the company’s first Utopia Main soffit install. “When we are working on a design to soffit mount a set of speakers, the information provided by the manufacturer is crucial to make sure we get every detail correct,” says Gavin Haverstick, owner, 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.”
He continues, “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 that they provided. I had also spoken to numerous trusted colleagues and mix engineers that have heard them in more controlled environments, and the reviews have been nothing but positive.”