Focal Elear and Utopia

Mmmm... But modded HD800 vs Utopia... that is the question. SD-mod + copper cable + SBAF-mod changes the HD800 quite a bit. And you can build one like that for well under 1000 Euro / USD these days.

But I agree nonetheless - well done Focal!

 

No cable, acoustic mod or eq are going to increase clarity or resolution. Only shift (with the aim to improve) around tonality and fix diffuse image for HD800.
If the Focal would be better only at tonality, I'd not be interested, at all.

 

Oh I didn't mention my HD800 is modded. I'm using the SDR and a foam ring and trapezoid. No rugliner.

In terms of value proposition the modded HD800 certainly wins hands-down. Whether the Utopia is worth the extra cost is up to the individual to decide.

 

Oh good, because that's a quite important distinction!

And if so well done indeed Focal!

 

I've had the Elear loaner for 3 days now and wanted to give short term impressions and then follow up with a bigger picture after they are off to the next person. Listening with black widow.

Fit and feel of this headphone excellent. Actually feels like it could be worth $1000.

My biggest fear was about the 5k upper mid dip, and I heard it right away, but it wasnt as bad as I thought it was going to be. It might be black widow is a bit more forgiving, it might be the types of music I listen to hiding it (no female vocals, no violins). But its there either way, just something to weigh when comparing this to others.

As a couple of others have mentioned, I am having a big of trouble adjusting my brain to this headphone. I am getting fatigued rather quickly. This fatigue leads to a bit of a dull headache. Ive been trying to power through it the last two nights, and hope to have the breakthrough that others have had as well. Wondering outloud, but is this caused by the 9-10k spike that are on measurements here and worse on Tyll's rig?

Those were negatives, lots of positives though. This headphone is more resolving than hd650 and much more forward, where the hd650 was laidback. If i had to choose between the two I think I would take the HD650 as the flaws are much much smaller than Elears, and HD650 sounds neutral in comparison. Elear is very bassy heavy, and the mids hide a bit, but with the bass shelving circuit, its sufficiently cuts the bass enough for the mids to move back in and sound more natural. Better soundstage than HD650, a bit better separation, but need more time to accurately quantify.

 

Auditioned both Utopia and Elear for about 30mins. Source from my phone or AK100 feed to a Questyle Amp. Not sure what model is that though. Not really a fancy setup since the source is directly played from 3.5mm output feeding to an amp.

Elear : Since I was A-Bing with Utopia so the weakness of it is pretty obvious, muffled mids and lacks of airiness. Compared to HD650, Elear is more dynamic and details, clearer, wider soundstage but that doesn't mean better. The intimacy and fluidity of HD650 is kind of special and joyful to listen at, not to mention better depth although closed soundstage.

Utopia : A few friends commented that Electrostatics are weak at low level information. Yes as a L700 heavy user I can partially confirm that. Was playing the same jazz track I am familiar with Utopia able to produce background noise apparently, until I mistakenly treated it as real world noise and put down the cans just to confirm my hearing. With my L700 the same noise are there too but it's soft and will not catch attention as much as the way Utopia did. The reason I agreed the claim partially is because with Elear this will not happen. Noise were there too but hardly draw your attention. I can't really explain this, perhaps the low level sound Utopia produced is closer / more intimate even it's soft..Overall Utopia is very clean, fast, highly detailed, realistic soundstage although not very wide..do almost everything right, bass is sufficient but I wish it hits harder probably with a good amp can help to slam harder.

Conclusion, Utopia is as good as sr009. If you don't like ethereal sounding of stats then Utopia is the Top cans you should chase over. If I have piles of cash to spend on either 009 or Utopia I would go for Utopia. Not because of better SQ but much less hassle to deal with..Probably just throw a cheap schiit amp and that's it. However the price tag of Utopia is real high. My currently L700 + modded 007tii amp + Mojo is not far behind from Utopia actually. In fact the tonality, transient is more similar than different. Abit dissapointed with Elear though..think it's because the Utopia sits next to it.

 

Hmmm got me apprehensive, thank you very much for your impressions. I hope ill be able to test it in the future, since after Tyll i had my hopes up about getting this as new headphone but this has put me on my conscious place and ill wait until i try it to decide.

 

Quick impressions since I've only been listening to my Elear for all of 12 hours or so, but it seems to play much nicer with the low-Z Jotunheim compared to the higher Z Torpedo, Ragnarok, and Vali 2 that we had at the last NYC meet. The bass intrusion on the mids seems much more controlled and it seems to be synergizing extremely well with the Jodie's forwardness. The soundstage also seems much more precise than my first listen compared to the HD650.

In terms of negatives, I've noticed more sibilance compared to my first listen, but I'm not getting any fatigue (I'm not particularly sensitive to treble though). Now I can see what @Serious was talking about at the last meet. Can't pick out the dip in the upper mids as clearly as I could in the last NYC meet (might have to do with amp pairing) but I wish the treble was smoothed out a bit overall.

Extremely fast, extremely resolving (even more noticeable through the Jodie since I heard them the first time), and extremely comfortable.

Really happy with my purchase so far despite the lukewarm impressions at our last NYC meet, and looking forward to trying it amp with my other compliment of amps in the near future if I can stop listening to it with the Jodie.

 

Fell in love with the utopia. So much so i made my order and patiently awaiting for it to arrive. It would be interesting to collate all the different amp combinations and to get a rough idea of the amps that pairs exceptionally well with it.

 

Sheesh, don't put these cans down next to each other. 4 metres, really Focal?? Took ages to sort his out...

 

I've got a 2m aftermarket cable on deck to use with my (pending) Elear for this very reason. I'm a desktop listener, so all that extra length just gets in the way. Probably a boon to some, though.

 

The the two cables identical?

 

Not at the headphone end.

The Elear use 3.5 TRS jacks. The Utopia uses Lemo connectors.

 

Hello!

Do you know of any place in London that has the Utopias on demo?

Cheers.

 

You could give these people a call:

http://www.audiosanctuary.co.uk/focal-utopia-headphones.html

..I know they have other stuff like HD800S for demo, so it's worth a shot.

 

Not too far out of London, Paul & Wendy at highendheadphones.co.uk have a demo pair of Utopia and Elear (and just about everything else).

 

Thanks for this! This is exactly what I needed. A Utopia ready to be demoed and bought 20 minutes away from where I live.

Or else I could try to find a hifiolics anonymous group to resist the urge to

 

Christ, I should have arranged a commission with them before posting

I was half-thinking of paying them a visit on Saturday to give the HD800S a listen, along with the HE560 (calm down at the back). It's a bit of a pain for me (into Clapham and back out again, wrong bit of Surrey), but quite easy. I should probably worry, too.

 

Let's do it this way. We meet at audiosanctuary, you buy my HD800S that I just put up for sale here. I take the plunge on the Utopia on the same day!