Focal Elear and Utopia

When some of you mentioned the annoying AV guy I thought you were just being petty..after reading it can someone punch that guy in the face!

I'm meh about the 4K Focal. The Elear is where it's at in terms of excitement. Lots of comments on how warm and lush it is which is my kind of sound but theres so many people getting over excited over headfi it's hard to see what's what.

 

LCD-4 and HD800 on 45CA



I wish Jude posted an uncompensated graph like this one by Audeze.

 

I went up to The Source yesterday and compared the Utopia to my modded HD800, and briefly to the HE1000. I was using a WA5 with a QP1R as source/dac.

I agree with @abernardi it is smoother/lusher than HD800, but I did not find it offensively so in this regard. I thought it was better than HE1000, which I view as too soft/smooth/polite. The macrodynamics were impressive - it gives the music a large sense of scale. The bass was a little higher in quantity and more extended than HD800, but also softer. Again not as soft as HE1000.

My biggest problems were with the midrange and instrument seperation. I felt it was lacking in midrange clarity compared to HD800 and instruments are more smeared together. So its not going to unseat HD800 for me.

It's not quite as comfortable as HD800, but I found it plenty comfortable enough. I didn't notice the weight as an issue. Build quality is good - it feels solid.

 

Lol I wonder if he had anything to do with why they deleted @Arnaud's comment in that thread...

And @kevnin I'm curious as to what mods you did on your HD800. Because while I agree with much of what you said, one that I can't agree with is that the midrange sounds clearer on the HD800. When I was demoing the Utopia, I at first too thought it didn't sound as clear in the midrange but I changed my mind after some more listening.

 

The mods are the SDR mod, creatology foam ring and trapezoid, and dust covers removed.

 

For my part, I'm hopeful that the Elear manages to deliver capable performance at its (marginally) more affordable price point. I've not used a full-size headphone other than the HD 600/650 for several years now, but at $1k there's a decent chance that I could pick up the Elear this summer. Based on the preliminary impressions that I've read thus far, I think it might be a good match with my DNA Sonett + Bifrost 4490 rig.

 

He sure ain't winning any brownie points in my book ;-). Pissing all over my favorite brand and getting delusional about the future of personal audio ;-). When doubting his estat amp and source , he comes back with a list of power cords and interconnects, wtf! Thinking about, it all makes sense: he's a sales guy in a brick and mortar high end audio store (facepalm).
Shouldn't follow this thread, it's raising my blood pressure .
Arnaud
Ps: did not realized my post(s) got deleted, I sometimes get notified but not always (how honest is this).

 

... and Music Alchemist joined the Utopia impression thread. Can't get any better than that!

 

This is gonna be good.

 

Music Alchemist? this name sounds similar

 

potkettleblack: I found the weight of the Utopia to be a little overwhelming.

AV: Hello good fellow, am I right in saying you only listen to IEM's because you find headphones to be too heavy?

potkettleblack: Wut?!?

AV: Sorry I thought I heard you mentioning it at a meet. I'm just trying to get a grip of your preferences for no reason other than to make it look like you have some kind of personal defect.

 

I wonder if Music Alchemist has changed his desktop wallpaper to the Focal logo yet.

 

Sorry, I find this extremely funny because I was the person he was originally addressing.

On another note, not sure what happened but it seems like Arnaud's (snarky?) comment is back up now. Guess they're being slightly less strict now...?

 

Measured the Listen yesterday. Peak at 3.5kHz on the raw curve was only 5dB above baseline. To me, it made the sound too polite and boring. If they've settled on that tuning for the Elear and Utopia, I don't think they'll make the cut in the long run...unless you like milk toast reproduction.

 

Got the Elear coming but haven't managed to pry the Utopia out of the PR people's hands. Maybe I'll just go straight to Focal.

 

So there's a recall on Elear. I wonder if it's for Utopia also...the recall.