Focal Utopia Review (collective stream of consciousness)

Well, regardless of cost and special cables and mods and the amps you can pair it with, the Utopia is the best sounding headphone I've ever heard. My previous favorite was the Code-X and I own the HD800 and the HD650.

I heard it with the Torpedo 3 and a Gungnir Multibit + USB thingies and it was easily the best I've heard. I also heard it with a Multibit Modi + Vali 2 and it sounded great for what that setup is. This is the first headphone which I feel like doesn't have the "It's great, except" that every other headphone I've heard has. There may be some drawbacks, but this is the first one where I just don't care.

A++++++ Would recommend.

 

Continuing with tradition, had another great meet with bazelio and drfindley. We ran a lot of very interesting and fun comparisons, but relevant to this thread was the Utopia on a Gungnir Multibit -> modded T3 chain and on a Gungnir Multibit -> Black Widow chain. The modded T3 is a highly highly dynamic and punchy amp with lots of detail and an enveloping/ engaging soundstage. Really allowed the Utopia's dynamism and punch to shine, this was a very engaging and musical combination. The Black Widow held its own and easily remains one of *the* nicest solid state amps. Really pleasant tonality and resolution with the Utopia, but it had a slightly collapsed soundstage when directly compared to the modded T3. Still a magical solid state amp and drove the Utopia really well.

I can always tell when drfindley likes something because he usually listens for 5 or 10 seconds and then takes off the phones with his impressions at the ready. With the Utopia he lingered on songs significantly longer than usual Although he conjured the usual incantation of "this makes me wonder what it sounds like on vinyl & speakers", we all felt the magic coming from these headphones. Even though the soundstage is smaller than the 800, it is extremely natural and real sounding, and not at all to its detriment (at least to us, ymmv). I liked @MuppetFace analogy of likening the Utopia to an open window, it feels like "being there." So many lovely textures, details, tonality, and really precise instrument placement and separation... Anyway, you gotta hear it for yourself and fall in love with it...

 

It's getting harder and harder to wait for the price of the the Utopia to drop.

 

Impressions of Utopia make me wonder if you awould be better off spending $4k on the transducer and $300 on upstream gear (Modi/Vali, GOV2 etc), or $300 on the transducer (HD6x0) and $4K on upstream gear (Gungnir Multibit/ZDS/Mutec etc)...

 

Your post indirectly reminded me to try the Utopia with Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool; that's up next!

I am working on writing more detailed impressions of the Utopia's pairing with the ZDS, as well as a comparison to my modded HD800 from this setup. Briefly, I would not hesitate to agree with others' emphasis on the Utopia's ceaseless unfolding of effortless grace, remarkable genre versatility, seamless coherence, uncanny tonal accuracy, and understated technical prowess.

I do not think this otherwise impressive headphone will entirely supplant the HD800 in my setup, particularly in terms of layering, air and space around instruments (ZDS really nails this with HD800), transient attack, and bass extension. I could care less about variances in headstage. It seems thus far the HD800 from the ZDS has the capacity to blow me away more than the Utopia on certain recordings, but it equally has the tendency to more frequently disappoint. As others have pointed out, the Utopia loses no ground and along several fronts surpasses the HD800 in terms of technicalities.

I hope to post a more detailed and polished set of impressions of the ZDS/Utopia pairing as I become more acclimated over the next few days.

 

I feel the law of diminishing returns tends to be more of a cruel mistress with electronics than with transducers, with the exception perhaps of turntables. I'm not sure I'd go quite that crazy, but personally I'd take a £3k headphone I like with good-measuring £500 upstream gear over the other way around every day and twice on Sundays. Same general theory with speakers for me personally as well.

 

i had the same thought driving home after the meet... if you could have 2 setups and couldn't mix and match for financial reasons, which would it be? one being a utopia/vali2/Modi Multibit and the other being a hd6x0/T3 or ZDS/Gungnir Multibit/mutec... those chains would get pretty close price-wise at non-retail or non-msrp prices.

 

I can tell you that Modi Multibit -> Vali 2 -> Utopia sounds SOOO much better than Gungnir Multibit -> Rag -> HD600's. It's not even close. I haven't heard modded HD6x0's, but I'd take a better headphone over better upstream gear any day.

 

Now I know how a ZDS/Utopia would look like in my system. I can finally die in piece.

With the HD800 it's the high-Z output setting all the way, but with the Utopia, which setting do you prefer? L or H?

 

I also prefer the H setting with both the HD650 and the HD800. So far, I have been using L the majority of the time with the Utopia but will make it a point to use H just because you asked. It has been too early to tell really which I prefer.

What I can say is that of the amps I own, admittedly not on par with the ZDS technically, my GF and I prefer the Utopia from the ZDS by a fair margin. I suspect, though, the Utopia would be fantastic from a hybrid a la Mjolnir 2/Liquid Crimson or a clean transformer-coupled topology. I may be heading to the Atlanta meet this weekend, where I can compare pairings more directly.

 

Yes, please do.

Do you know which amps are coming to this Atlanta meet? I'm curious about how well ZDS would drive Utopia compared to the likes of Black Widow, DNA Stratus, Liquid Crimson, T3, etc. I wonder if Utopia, as excellent as it already is, scales tremendously on TOTL amps like the Senns do.

 

That is a very good question, as I do not think information has been fully updated. All I know is that plenty of T3 variations will be present. Stratus or LC would be amazing but have no clue honestly.

I too am curious as to the Utopia's potential for scaling, whether it peaks sooner or later than the Sennheisers. The HD800 in particular goes from unlistenable to stunning, depending on recording obviously, when I shift from my less technical amps to the ZDS, whereas the Utopia sounds noticeably better from the ZDS while still sounding fantastic from my more modest setups.

 

+1

Heard the Utopia with @brencho and @drfindley last night, and wow, this headphone was just everything I'm looking for. It's built like a tank, looks gorgeous, and is extremely comfortable on the head despite possibly carrying a little extra weight compared to Senns (?). Time spent with this amazing device was brief, but upon first listen, coming from HD6X0, what I immediately heard was resolution and clarity. Idiophonic sustain struck me as incredible. And it has this ability to be delicate and subtle with extreme clarity and then turn around on a dime and be forceful, impactful, and knock-your-socks-off dynamic without ever being forward, or in-your-face harsh about it. And yet the biggest selling point with the Focal for me was not in what it did, but in what it didn't do, i.e. its tonal balance and truth in timbre simply sound like music. I'm sold, and I'm done looking. This is music.

 

Utopia pads for those with large ears?

Can you guys, or anyone else who has the Utopia on-hand, confirm how the Utopia pads feel if your ears are larger than the openings and the pads rest on them? OOYH, looks like your ears touch the Utopia pads. How so, and any comfort issues over extended periods? Width won't be an issue. Length however might be.

• Looks like my ears are roughly 2.75" top to lobe.
• HD650 pad opening is 68-70mm or roughly 2.67" tall
• Utopia pad opening is 60mm or 2.36".

Considering ordering today, but worried that for people with larger ears the Utopia pads may not work. HD650 pads touch, but are comfortable enough. HD800 obviously the most comfortable.

Seeing the Utopia pad measurements brings back bad memories of the Audio Zenith PMx2 pads which were super plush, but not circumaural on my larger ears, so with the pad resting on them and the way the headphone distributed its weight, it got super uncomfortable after longer than 30-60 minutes. Couldn't use them just for that reason despite loving the FR. Same with Grados (supraaural obviously).

 

I don't think I follow. Here's an old picture from CS. Top graph is stock, middle is without mesh, bottom is with some kind of fabric.

Btw, our toilets are beautiful. They keep shit from creating water splashes that fly up your ass...
The Utopia talk may continue.

 

With my ears, the pads on the Utopia's do not rest on my outer ear at all. My ears are just small enough so that they fit completely inside the opening, but the back edge of my ear presses on the back, inner surface of the pads. So, since the pads are really soft, even though my ear is pressing slightly on the pads, it's not uncomfortable at all even after a couple hours.

The openings on the PMx2 are about 40mm wide by 55mm high, so slightly smaller than the Utopia. I can wear them so that the back of the pads is actually on my ear, but I can also adjust them so that my ears are inside, but the back of my ear is slightly pushed forward by the inner edge of the pad. Still not uncomfortable for me. In fact I never even noticed that was happening until you mentioned it and I just tried them on.

 

Thanks for clarifying. Seems like I'll be in the same boat as @cskippy then, and the Utopia pads would be effectively supra aural for those of us with Ears of Elvenkind. Not a $4,000 bet I'd be willing to take without trying the pads first.

 

I completely agree with this point above.

However, while I've started thinking that a Utopia could be a rationale purchase (why f around with a couple $1500 headphones when you can have "the best"); I've also begun thinking about what $4700 USD would buy me in terms of a 2 channel speaker system. An all in budget of $4700USD gets you a much better speaker & AMP package than $2500 USD (assuming you can use your other existing upstream equipment). My take is that the diminishing returns curve between $2500 & $4700 USD is much flatter for headphones than speakers.

But f**k me, that 2nd photo above with the Utopia next to the Zana Deux has me drooling. One of my co-workers recently spent upwards of $6500 (IIRC) to upgrade his Audi with the B&O system... I hurts me to think he could have skipped it and picked up a ZD/Utopia for about the same price... this made the audio Gods angry I think!

 

On going thoughts ...

Bottom end is more present than the HD800S, providing a very solid foundation for most music, and overall tonal balance still seems better. Some mild shoutiness from the Sennheisers is absent on the same tracks with the Utopia. Fairly convinced that Utopia is resolving more detail (and obviously so compared to my planars). These remain very musical - haven't found a track I don't like with them yet.

Listening to some of my recent needle drops via the Utopia has exposed some low-level noise from the table that I've never picked up on before. Listening on my other headphones, even after being aware of it, and I don't hear it. Not expected, but interesting.

And then what was supposed to be a little listening on my little bed-side rig turned out to be an all-night affair, with me just being sucked into the music.



With the Modi Multi-bit/Vali 2 driving the Utopia it is immediately apparent, and not really surprising, that the little duo gives up something in terms of detail when compared with my big rigs, but the degree to which that is noticeable is higher here than with any of the other cans I've done that comparison with. However, I don't see this as a problem in anyway ... just an observation, and the combination is a very enjoyable listen.



I need to hook the Modi MB up to my more capable amps to see if it is the DAC or the little amp that is making the bigger difference to the retrieved detail here.

A few quick-and-dirty comparisons this morning has me thinking, like others, that the Modi Multibit/Vali 2/Utopia combination is "better", overall, than, say, Yggdrasil/Ragnarok/HD650. Outside of my speaker rig, this is probably the most obvious demonstration I've heard that biasing funds significantly towards the transducers yields a more satisfying end result than turning that around*. And, based on what I'm hearing so far, it'll make it far more obvious "when to stop" when it comes to upgrading the electronics.

Still lots of listening to do, but very encouraged so far and can easily believe I'll be selling one, possibly, two of my big headphones here shortly.

(*I was always a "source first" guy; while acknowledging that speakers made a more obvious difference to the sound, anything "lost" at the source couldn't be recovered later in the chain. That's changed over the last few years, but was still a latent bias when it came to the order in which I bought things - the only big difference being that I'd already decided on the entire chain before starting to get the gear, so it was just an old-standing preference as to what came when).