Focal Elear and Utopia

I had some good quiet time with the Elear this week and to my ears the upper mids are indeed problematic to the point of being a deal-breaker for me. The suckout there, along with the elevated bass, kind of weighs the sound down so, whist it's clearly quite dynamic, I just didn't find it very engaging. I didn't futz with any EQ, but my modded and EQ'd HD800 was preferable in every meaningful way imho.

 

Planning to buy my Utopia soon, any recommendation on which vendor to purchase from?
I'm thinking http://www.audiosanctuary.co.uk/ to save some money, but not sure how warranty service will work. Anyone experience with AudioSanctuary care to chime in?

 

I demoed it with some prog-metal and math rock out of a Torpedo III during the big meet and every once in a while the lead guitar would sound super veiled, like the guitarist was on the other side of a wall from the rest of the band. I think the suckout only happens in a very narrow band, which might make it difficult to fix with EQ without messing up everything around it.

 

Thanks for your feedback. It's a showstopper for me.

I'm now thinking about selling all my headphone to go with the Utopia.

 

Lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/5egoip/frankenlears/

 

I'm afraid to ask how much Utopia pads will cost as a separate item...

 

It's right there in that Reddit link posted above...

"Utopia pads are available for $4000, and they come with a free pair of headphones"

 

We may be able to do some pad swapping on the Elear and Utopia at the NY crew mini-meet this weekend. If so, will report back.

 

Thanks

 

But don't get your hopes up. The NYC Dream Crushers already have it out for the Elear...

 

Well this dream crusher definitely does NOT have it out for the Utopia. But that price. Just ouch.

 

Hehe....
Get ready for another round of bashing, lol

Although I now like the Utopia on briefly listening,
I don't think I could live with the soundstage proximity. Almost as close as the Flow.
Also,
The upper end end registers seem to be hampered by the extra long shitty stock cable.
So top end air and shimmer seems a bit subdued..
I will leave it up to the NYC Dream Crushers to explain further lol

 

I just contacted my headphones dealer and the Elear are $790 for the black Friday. Geez it's hard to resist..

 

LOL seriously @Maxx134 ?!? did you compare the top end shimmer on the utopia with a shorter vs a longer stock cable? you'd need to do that comparison in order to make that kind of assertion. if not, what kind of test did you do to test that?

as an aside, the stock cable actually seems pretty well made to me. i guess you could always mod the stock cable if you feel like it's longer than you need, or if you find that the length hampers the sound in some way.

 

The "bigger is better" soundstage crowd isn't going to ogle over the Utopia soundstage, IMO. Personally, I don't find the HD800 soundstage better and subjective preferences will always vary. But I do agree that talking about the "shitty" stock Utopia cable rather than a wild assed guess in passing would be preferred. I think it's 22 AWG stranded copper. If we reduce it by 2 feet in length, then going from 10' to 8' terminated into a 80R load, that'd probably be a difference of 0.0001 dB at 20 kHz plus or minus an order of magnitude? If anything is subdued in the top end, I'd probably look closer at the source chain before the headphone in this case.

 

Yep its all based on my assumptions and intuition which I rely on.
Hehe

I was comparing a cymbal crash shimmer and decay with the Utopia to a modded HD800..
I have kept in mind the difference in tonal balance of the HD800 which naturally will show more,
But I also know that the Utopia should have given me a similar shimmer and decay albeit at a lower level.

So I am still fairly convinced the dam long cord is not optimal.
I will find out for sure when I fix my friend's silver norne cables for it and compare.
Then I will post back if my judgement was correct or I am losing it..

My guess is that as unorthodox as my methods are, I will have a point.

 

This :

 

Switching to a silver cable will not provide any data with regards to the stock copper cable length. You will really only be able to offer an opinion of one cable vs a different cable afterwards. I do think silver will have some small effect, likely in the brighter direction you seem to prefer. I cringe at the thought of silver on the Utopes, though. And incidentally, those megabuck Kimber Axios cables that are available for Utopias are OFHC. I think they can be closely approximated via DIY for a 3rd of their retail price.

 

I would not want anything - silver cables, amp, DAC or otherwise - making the Utopia any brighter.