JM Labs original utopia speakers


Does anyone out there own these. They are the ones with the light wood side panels and a wood strip at the tweeter. They listed for about 30k when they came out. I am interested in purchasing a pair, but havent been able to find out much about them in comparison to the latest versions, which are quite a bit more expensive.
manitunc
Personally I think the older models were more musical than the newer ones. The tweeter could be a little hard sounding though so pairing with the right amp is critical.
Ive owned both and between the two I would buy the B series...just depends on what you have to pay really
Am I nuts, but back around 1998-2002 I always felt the original JMLabs Utopias were awesome (I heard the plain Utopias and the Mezzos several times at dealers and the Stereophile NYC shows).
Since then, when I heard the Be models and forward, something was always off, like too much forward bass or some piercing high frequencies or a bit of metallic sound, reminding me a bit of Wilson or B&W. Does anyone else have this impression?
You have good ears.Recently read somewhere that measurements show bass and highs are amplified +6db
I still own a pair of the original Utopias. Some complained that the tweeter could be a little bright. Wrong. The tweeter is extremely transparent and revealing of inferior sources, cabling, etc. If anything in your system is bright, the tweeter will tell you so in no uncertain terms.

I heard the follow-up BE model and did not like the beryllium tweeter at all. It had a rising HF characteristic around 10k, then dropped like a stone afterwards. No thanks.