Focal Utopia Review (collective stream of consciousness)

I'm thinking that is the case. A little bit poor from Focal to have such a wide tonal variance in the headphones in manufacture and not to pick it up in testing/QC. For such an expensive headphone that really isn't good enough.

 

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/seven-focal-utopias-measured#TpZfm96MhEMW2kfd.97

Discuss and \ or wildly speculate as you will.

 

weird, the only SN with a "A1behG" rather then ''A1behF'' looks the closest to Tyll.

 

Not strange at all. The evidence so far suggests that his glowing review was not based on a representative sample. Moreover, the sample used by Bob Katz in his comparison to the LCD4 and considered to be bright by the panel of experts is in fact representative of old and new production. Presumably, that is the signature Focal was trying to achieve. Based on the plots, Focal's manufacturing consistency (with the exception of Tyll's original unit) appears to be pretty amazing.

Suprising result actually given that my early serial number unit does not sound at all bright to me and in my opinion has an appropriate level of bass. Perhaps this explains why deeply inserted etymotics sound tonally correct to me. Interesting also that in his original review Tyll stated that relative to the target response the peak at 3khz should have been a few dB higher ... exactly as is the case for what now appears to be Focal's intended response.

I wonder if this headphone will stay on the Wall of Fame and how this development impacts the purchase decision of those swayed by reviews. It is noted that Tyll gave no indication of his subjective impression of the brighter response units.

Expect a run on Elear pads for those trying to get the Utopia response closer to what Tyll heard in his initial review! I continue to enjoy my unit just the way it is.

 

Explains a lot. I was starting to wonder if my hearing was defective after I didn't like my Utopia and sold it.

I don't have much opportunity to try before buying in my part of the world, so the views of reviewers that I trust matter to me.

Maybe Focal should consider changing the tuning of the Utopia to better match the sample that Tyll used?

 

ok so, after a long time coming, i finally listened to Utopia with a vinyl source. holy balls this is amazing. i too felt the utopia had some shouty or peaky treble things going on, despite being overall slightly warm and full on the sound spectrum. this peakiness really comes out on digital chains, for example on the Yggdrasil and Gungnir Multibit even being fed with things like Lynx and Aries, and certainly with relatively aggressive (even somewhat warm) amps like the Torpedo 3 and Mjolnir 2. but hooking it up to vinyl and it's just becomes way more natural and pleasant. this headphone was made for vinyl. soundstage also is very realistic and 3-D (but those wanting the hd800 wide stadium thing will still be sad). mind blown. in short, Utopia + Vinyl = The Sex.

 

I'm a little surprised at the general pass on the insane price of the Utopia here. Typically a headphone that is anywhere over $1000 that at all violates neutrality appreciably is quickly labelled not worth the money. Here we have a $4000 headphone with some issues, nothing major, but also over all, it seems that it's strengths are not head and shoulders above even more humbly priced offerings so I wonder why this super expensive headphone does not get the rough ride that other expensive headphones have?

 

That's just the name of the game with headphones, pickings are slim. Which humbly priced offerings are you referring to in specific? Have you heard the Utopia or is this what you have gathered from the impressions of others? The only headphone that competes with the Utopia for me is the HD800 but I find it inferior tonally; not as agile in rendering transients and impulse response; inferior handling of macro-dynamic swings; less resolving; less convincing in headstage (stock HD800 is artificially diffuse to me).

If you are referring to Utopia versus the likes of Audeze, HiFiman, Stax, MrSpeakers; they are like toys in comparison. Besides, no one should be paying retail for this thing these days. The only area the Utopia falls short to me is the slightly off-timbre treble and tendency towards edginess but both of these may be addressed with careful source selection.

 

A properly modded and "amped" and "dac'd" HD800 beats the Utopia in my opinion. But out of the box for a guy who doesn't know how to mod or match components the Utopia lays absolute waste to a stock HD800. Is the Utopia worth the money? Kind of... because you can just buy it and plug it in to good componets and use it. But for an enthusiast like me who has tuned the HD800 to where I want it the Utopia isn't worth the money. But for someone else it definitely could be.

So... as usual YMMV.

 

Because it's actually doing a few things that other cheaper offerings don't:

1. Faster "speed" than HD800 IMO. This "speed" is not something you can get with modding a headphone. It's somewhat inherent to the driver design.
2. Better tonal balance than a modded HD800. Stock HD800 just doesn't quite compare. Its tonal balance is "just good enough" but it's better than most other offerings under its price point, except for the "dead neutral" references like HD600/650.
3. Somewhat on par with or even more detailed than HD800. Also something you can't just "mod." It's inherent to the driver.
4. It has better imaging than HD800 IMO. Also something you can't just simply "mod" but I have some ideas that I'd like to try on the HD800...
5. Yeah, its strengths are not head and shoulder above the other offerings, but they are still above. Note that most headphones past $1k aren't really able to beat the HD800 at anything conclusively, but Utopia can with at least the above 4 criteria, convincingly so.

And as others have said, it's good enough at stock. If you don't want to spend time tweaking and tinkering, you can just get it and end the search. Granted, an HD800 with a half-decent amp can be had for however much you'll have to pay for Utopia.

As an aside, I think Utopia's tonal balance can be "fixed" with some mods, and then its "neutrality" is no longer a problem then, and it'll be the best headphone in existence as well (debatable, but basically, I'm saying "it can replace HD800"), so there's that.

 

Out of the box, for the broadest array of music in my collection, nothing has really come close to the Utopia for me. So much so that I've got two pairs (though, to be fair, I didn't pay anywhere close to MSRP for either of them). They are, by no means, perfect, but if you're not willing to mod I don't know of anything that matches them. This might well be down to personal preference and, per above, YMMV.

The next best headphones I've heard are three pairs* of HD800, all HEAVILY modified. And in one case, the mods, by the time they were all said and done, probably drove the price of those cans up over that of the Utopia. Now, at the same time, those HD800, with mods, and with just the right set of software/EQ and drive tweaks, probably best the Abyss at what they do best as well.

But ... if you're not willing to mod, then the HD800 are, for me, complete non-starters.

As in ... unlistenable.

And even modded, the HD800 require additional source/EQ tweaks that are not always possible - depending on your precise listening chain/requirements. They might just be the best transducer available, once sorted ... but that isn't an OOB situation nor is it cheap or straightforward for all scenarios.

In comparison .. the Abyss 1266 and 1266-Phi are different animals ... ridiculously fun in their own right, but not for everyone by any means and not very good value by any measure. And the LCD-4 are, well, "very specific".

If you've got the time, the will and the talent (or appropriate friends) then it's possible to drive the HD800 to hard-to-imagine levels of performance. For those that have more than one hobby, don't want to f**k around, and/or want a setup that can exploit more than one set of headphones, there are other options - that come at a cost - but the best all-rounder for me is still the Utopia.

--

* @johnjen - has the best sounding HD800 I've ever heard. Possibly the best headphone I've heard period. But they didn't come cheap. They took many iterations. And they require a pretty specific setup to drive (you're not getting there with a Jotunheim, Modi MB and a Norne or DHC cable). Another local chap has a similarly configured pair, with a VERY specific source/amp configuration that is just not on the charts for most people buying headphones around the price of the HD800. And then @atomicbob's HD800 via his IVS configuration through an RME ADI-2 Pro.

 

If you have a long time relationship with a local audio dealer that carries these, street price is more like $2500. Considering the drivers in these probably cost $450 a piece, the build quality is excellent and they perform out of the box better than anything else, I don't think the price is that out of line.

 

Thanks for the thoughts people, all good points for sure. So to be clear, could I say this that at the MSRP of $4000, there is no way the Utopia is that much more competent than say the HD800S from a cost/performance aspect (subjectivity aside if we can). So essentially the street price of the Utopia, which I take it can be much lower than the MSRP, is where we can start to say that the Utopia approaches the type of performance to value being expressed in this thread. If so I totally can understand that. I did own a very well driven HD800S and rather liked it.

I had been reading the reception here for the Sony Z1R which considering that almost nobody that I knew paid close to the MSRP for seemed to have been judged as a much worse value. So in saying that first I will clarify that we have to acknowledge the highly subjective nature of what people enjoy meaning that while we know the Z1R for instance is very far from neutral, that for those who like it, it may be precisely the fact that it was so far from neutral as to why they liked it. As well, from what I have read the Z1R was designed to have that specific sound signature and it was never represented as neutral or reference.

This wasn't meant to start the whole Z1R thing again, just as a point of reference for my initial question about what I interpreted as a great deal more leniency for say the cost to performance value of the Utopia at lets say a street price of what, $3000 versus I know of several Z1R owners who paid around $1200-1300. I know some of you are going to say the Z1R is garbage I wouldn't even pay $500 for it, fine, that is the nature of subjectivity and I have no issue with that of course. So I'm circling back to my point here; if we were to accept that the Z1R as flawed as some may find it, however, it did achieve the sound signature it was meant to, and the build quality is fantastic (a friend of mine owns it and I was able to spend quite a bit of time with it). So if somebody enjoyed that type of signature, and many do, and the real street price of the Z1R lets just say it is around $1400-1500, does it not become as good from a cost/performance perspective as a street priced Utopia at $3000? Thoughts?

And again, I'm not trying to kick the whole Z1R thing up again, I have no dog in the hunt per say as I don't own either. I approach these type of questions from the point of view that sound signature preferences are highly subjective and sometimes the reported distortion values even when they may look far apart from a purely objective vantage, in actual listening may be less problematic. For instance, I see that while the Z1R clearly has more bass distortion than the Utopia, subjectively how much audible difference will there be between say around 1% distortion (roughly for the Utopia rounding up) than the Z1R at say 2.5-3%? That is just looking at the bass spectrum grossly with Marv's measurements and I know I am not being overly precise. I know it can be said well the bass of the Z1R is almost three times as distorted, but said another way, the Z1R produces around 97% distortion free bass (again being rough here) and the Utopia produces around 99% distortion free bass. If one tries to ignore subjective preference, lets pretend somebody could enjoy both signatures equally, is the difference between 97% distortion free and 99% distortion free so significant that the extra $1500 of the Utopia still allows it to be considered that much more of a better price/performance value? That is just one aspect I know, there is also the spike in the Z1R from around 3kHz to 4kHz that can't be ignored.

I guess my point is that I was thinking that all things being considered, due to the signature approach taken by Focal versus Sony, it did seem that the Utopia, which in reality at double the cost was receiving very little criticism. I only heard the Utopia briefly on my system so I'm afraid to say much about my impressions. I can say that if I was paying even $3000 I might have been a little underwhelmed, but perhaps with more time that impression would change? I know this is a great community so I look forward to the thoughts and opinions of others and in no way do I represent my thoughts as fact, simply food for discussion. I really do like to learn from others who have more experience so this will be a learning experience for me.

 

I do know that the Utopia has less than 1% distortion, I was just rounding up to whole numbers as I think one could argue intelligently that in actual music listening situations the difference between say .5% distortion and 1% might be inconsequential.

 

I guess if you don't have a utopia and you really haven't spent a lot of time with it and you aren't considering buying, you really don't need to post in this thread. I'm not suggesting this thread is a utopia lover's thread, but unless you have some personal experience with it and serious cred, I personally don't see where you have a need to post here.

I tried the Utopia and compared it directly to my HD800SDR, PM2x, T1, Ether C, and TH900, and I found the Utopia significantly better. The T1 and HD800SDR are sold. The Ether C is used when I need a closed can at home. The PMx2 and TH900 are at work.

You like or you don't. It's either with the money to you or it isn't.

 

Utopia is actually technically competent as well, and the thing is... we're calibrating our impressions toward a 2nd-hand modified HD800, which can be had for around $800 now (street price is more like $700, and if you look around the for sale section here, you can see I'm being generous).

BUT...

I'd think that if we do not consider the above (a 2nd-hand modified HD800), then Utopia at $4000 is still higher cost/performance than HD800S at $1800. And that's not subjective. It shows in objective measurements as well, either on this site or elsewhere.

Again, even at $4000, Utopia is also an objectively competent offering even in measurement. It's not hitting the "perfectly dead neutral" line but it's definitely more "neutral" than, say... HD800S or Z1R, by a significant amount if we go purely by objective measurements.

If you don't want us to be subjective, then the objective answer is simply that you should sell both Z1R and HD800S and pay some extra to get Utopia, because it is objectively better than the other two.

I think you have some misconceptions about what "neutrality" means here if you're asking us to calibrate toward the HD800S and Z1R because factually, those two headphones are further from "neutrality" than Utopia, or Utopia is "less colored" in that sense.

I think the problem is pretty apparent now. Your misconception is stemming from misreading the measurements posted of the headphones.

Please note that:

1. Distortion measurements in % scale is somewhat nonsensical because that's not an indication of audibility. And you most certainly should not take 1% distortion as meaning the headphone is producing 99% correct signal. That's not how it works.

2. Distortion in headphone measurements, given that they're not dominated by noise (mostly coming from the environment) is bad when it's higher, regardless of the scale in %. Note that there are headphones at <$200 street price that has distortion figures around 1% or less as well so if we're basing it on your logic, the Z1R is inferior to those in cost/performance value by a significant amount. That's really not how this works.

3. In some cases, looking at distortion alone is not enough, and that's why we also need to look at CSD, and IMO, the spectrogram to see the full scope of what we're dealing with in terms of sound. Objective measurements are not able to show all aspects of a good headphone yet, though they are very good at showing how/why a headphone is bad.

4. Misreading measurements is pretty dangerous because then you'll make some potentially erroneous assumptions about yourself and your gears. This is why I do not post measurements of my modifications anymore, unless people specifically ask me to, then I'd post it to sate their curiosity but always along with a disclaimer. In short, measurements should not be misread.

And this goes back full cycle. I think... you're basically asking us this: I like Z1R, why is it that I can't come to like Utopia?

That's just... normal. You know, I can very much afford a Utopia (if I sell some of my camera gears), and I think I can fix whatever remains of its measured performance problems but... I don't want to. I wrote a good review of it praising the good aspects, and that's that, but ultimately, I don't really like it that much. Subjectively, it's not warm-sounding enough for me.

That said, I like Z1R, and I also actually like its tonal balance as well, despite some obvious problems. And admittedly, that just means I like a colored sound. I like the warm and easy-going sound of the Z1R.

That's just me being subjective. Objectively, Utopia is just the better headphone. Period. It's more neutral, and its distortion is better, and if you look at the other aspects, it's also better. It's a better headphone technically. Honestly, I don't want to say this lightly, but the fact that Utopia is objectively better than Z1R is not really debatable. The problem is that you need a system (amplifier + DAC) that is "less colored" to be able to appreciate that.

And I wrote "less colored" because there is no such thing as a "dead neutral" system, nor is there a "neutral" headphone. Those just don't exist. But if you have "less colored" amplifier + DAC system, then Utopia will shine.

But... here's my disclaimer for you: I'm just as subjective as you and the next guy, and my friendly advice is just this: if you are happy with Z1R and HD800S, and you find that Utopia sounds bad on your current setup (or worse than the other two), then... just keep what you have and be happy. The crazy folks here don't realize they are driving Utopia with amps and DACs that are very different from yours and some of which are either super expensive, hard to find, or just plain unavailable. That's not fair. And fairness aside, the whole point is to find happiness for yourself. If you have found happiness then... please just stop. There is no need to look beyond. (I'm finding it pretty amazing how people keep missing this point nowadays, not directed at you, but directed at some others I have talked to and seen around these parts)

 

The HD800, even modded with the superdupont, still has a glaring weakness in that it's quite a sibilant headphone among flagships (with female vocals particularly) and requires significant multi-band EQing to repair it's treble response, an issue that headphones in the the tier above the HD800S (Utopia, SR009, HEK/Susvara/LCD-4) don't really have.

 

Thank you Bill-P, really, that is an extremely well thought out, honest and worthwhile response. Despite how it might have seemed, I do actually understand that my use of numbers such as proffered were to say the least a gross simplification, but even so, they helped convey my real point which is that sometimes numbers can fool our eyes into making them mean more or less than they really do.

You also did this community a great service in my mind. For the longest time it seemed that nobody would dare even suggest that the Z1R was good enough to be perceived as pleasant, those that did seemed to be laughed down and derided for liking it. While not universally so, as no design can be, for those that responded to it, the Z1R was indeed a fantastic accomplishment. In that respect you most certainly complimented and improved upon my long and rambling point, that subjectivity is the name of the game, and assigning such things as this headphone is worth this money due to these measurements, but this one isn't misses the point and over-steps what we can say beyond pure subjective opinion.

Of course objectively the Utopia is technically more competent than the Z1R, no reasonable person would suggest otherwise, and for many people the Utopia is also subjectively preferable as well. Ultimately, the Z1R is for many a subjective success and much of the trashing it received was quite simply undeserved. You being able to admit that you enjoy it, warts and all in this community where it was so maligned and divisive I think is a very welcome turn of events and certainly refreshing to read.
I like many signatures, the Utopia as well. I'm an omnivore of sound signatures, I can enjoy many different approaches and consider that a blessing. Thank you again for taking the time to address my posts and questions and for paying homage to the value of subjectivity, which is the gloriously imperfect reality of how we experience music through headphones.