The Mighty Utopia: Focal Utopia Revisited

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by purr1n, Aug 13, 2020.

  1. Cellist88

    Cellist88 Friend

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    Its all a matter of preference. The utopia always technically sounded good, but Be coloration, and harshness along with small soundstage with metallic timbre was jarring. That and the creaking headband. I guess you have to spend another couple thousand to alleviate the problems of a 4k headphones if you feel like its worth it. Purchasing speakers seems better at that price point but everyone is different. I never have and never will like hd600 series, even from a megabuck amp.
     
  2. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    I’d assume that if you were considering $4000 headphones in the first place you’d probably have a reason to not be going for speakers over headphones.
     
  3. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

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    Not everyone has a suitable room for 2 channels. That’s a big reason why people use headphones instead.
     
  4. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    I don't remember this from my brief audition ages ago, but my Stellia creaks like a banshee. Don't know why they can't make their "top end" headbands like the one on the Clear, which is relatively very quiet.
     
  5. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    Hey Koth, wanted to circle back around to this question. Should have included it in the impressions to be honest. Had to pull all sorts of components out of storage, some I forgot I even had. But listening to it all again was fun.

    SOURCES:

    Lynx Hilo: This is the best digital source I have and the Utopia shows it. Super clean and articulate without any digititus. Dynamics are refined and fleshed out, but not super explosive. I have had DACs with better bass slam before.

    AMB gamma1.5: Unlike what I remember the gamma2 sounding like, the gamma1.5 seems to contain a raspier treble that is sometimes heard from the Wolfson chips. Reminds me of the PS Audio PWD treble quality. Bass is also lacking the refinement that I get from better sources. Otherwise this is a good sounding DAC with decent resolution although a leaner balance.

    Woo Audio WA7: Used as an all-in-one, this is not a bad sounding option. Even though it's Sabre (?) it has a softer treble quality and more inner warmth than the above options. Some would call it a euphonic synergy with HD800 or Utopia. However, I do find it lacking in plankton and overall clarity compared to other sources.

    Technics SL1200 + AT440mla + BH Reduction: The only vinyl source I have on hand, this rig trades blows with the Hilo for best source. I get the liveliness and realism that vinyl offers, but the 440mla leans on the analytical side with more aggressive leading edges. But boy does it bring dynamics, big and small. So a very different sound but oh so engaging. This is what I have done most of my listening on, and what I found to be the most revealing when doing the HD800 comparison.

    AMPS:

    ECP Torpedo 1: Characteristic ECP sound, what can I say. Supreme midrange focus, holographic imaging. Treble texture can range from soft to hard depending on tube selection. I believe the low Z tap offers ~8-15 ohm Zout which seems to be what others have found to be ideal for the Utopia. With the HD800, low Z tap offers best control and tightness but high Z throws a way bigger stage and actually relaxes the sound in a way that paints more microdetail to my ear.

    Cavalli EHHA: I do find some stridency that is to be expected with typical solid-state feedback designs. Manifests as a grain or veil that also seems to restrict musical dynamics and flow. This is a relative judgement of course.
     
  6. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    Also wanted to add that it is my belief that the Utopia does not need "special synergy" in upstream components. Rather, it is simply revealing your components (or source material) for what they are. While the HD800 was another example of a fairly transparent transducer that often outclassed what people were feeding it, its leaner balance balance and harder treble (especially when unmodded) did warrant using a softer DACs or warmer toobz to counter-balance. Based on what I have heard with the Utopia, it reveals upstream components with the same brutality but does not need any extra helpings of warmth to sound natural.

    So part of me is not surprised that people are complaining about the Utopia having a metallic timbre. I remember hearing similar complaints of the HD800 a decade ago because they were using certain "abominations" to drive it. Best to let people figure it out on their own.
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Any amp is capable of driving 600-ohm loads. It's the lower impedance loads which are problematic. Lower impedance means closer to a short circuit, demanding of electrons flowing. This means amps operate hotter, and those amps with higher source impedance operate less efficiently.

    OTL amps are said to pair well with Utopia because high source impedance will also boost bass and result in a wetter less damped, less tight, slower sound. This can work with the Utopia which may sound too dry with certain amps.

    I personally do not like super high source impedance amps, say 40-ohms or higher with the Utopia. It's too much and takes away from the Utopia's strengths. If I wanted that kind of sound, I'd take an HD650 with a good solid-state amp (MHA150, 3F, Jot 2, Gilmore Girls Lite, etc.)

    Matter of preference and source used. A Studio T would work if a warm / laid-back DAC (that didn't suck, since most DACs voiced like this suck) like the Rockna Wavedream was used. Note that Studio Jr. also falls into the same category as the Studio T as it has a similar tonality.

    For most other DACs, the wetter Studio B will work best. Ultimately, if you are level 55 audiophile or higher and know what you are doing, it doesn't matter. These are simply recommendations that work best in general.

    There is reason for the surround approach. The Focal headphones are the only ones which are truly open baffle designs. If we look at the baffle directly around the driver, we realize it's an open mesh to the back. This design is not the same as most open back headphones. All planars are open back, but hardly open baffle. Even the Sennheiser open backs are not totally open baffle, but rather leaky baffle (with most of the leak through the permeable pads).

    The thing about open baffle designs is that they need to MOVE A TON OF AIR to reproduce low frequencies. Those with Utopias know how easy it is to reach physical clipping at high SPL with 35Hz bass drops. The need to move air necessitates the surround design of the Focals. To my knowledge, Focal has been the first to have high excursion high xmax drivers in headphones.
     
  8. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    Curious, any recommendations for amps that would sit nicely between a Wavedream and a Utopia? Specifically looking for something that can alleviate a little bit of the Rockna mellowness.
     
  9. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Focal’s best drivers were mostly used in car audio for a long time. They kept the Kevlar out of non endgame speakers for years. The Flax stuff was not as good. What was in the pre Flax monitors and Alphas has crazy distortion.

    The tweeters all have bad magnet structure and tuned ringing to sound smeared with the latest ones. The earlier ones are crap unless you go back to the old Kevlar ones refoamed.
     
  10. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Focal tweeters and headphone drivers have ringing and resonant nodes longer than the fundamental frequencies in the mid and upper treble. This far more imposing than almost anything beyond entry. They just tune them to be smeared sounding like lofi tube gear in half their modern stuff.
     
  11. crenca

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  12. m17xr2b

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    Rockna mellowness? No such thing, you're bottlenecking or heavily coloring the DAC somehow.

    I didn't think the OG Stellaris did justice to the Wavedream with Utopia, such a DAC needs the highest of high end amplification to be appreciated.
     
  13. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    I wouldn't be too sure it is coming from the driver itself. As I mentioned in my impressions before, I think the Utopia has unevenness lower than the HD800 and post 24 seems to confirm that. The thin razor peaks that show up in the flat plate coupled measurements are ghosts, I am sure of it. OTOH the free-air foam coupled measurements show the broad elevation and some stored energy around 4k, which I am willing to believe is real. The free-air measurements also show fairly even response in the upper treble which counts as a credit to the Utopia's excellent articulation.

    If someone wants to remove a driver from their Utopia and mount it on a flat baffle, we could learn if what we see in the CSDs is from the driver itself ringing or is from the pad/enclosure storing the energy.
     
  14. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    I'm referring to the nature of Rockna stuff where it seems to decouple the tactile feeling of a dynamic peak from the dynamic peak itself, so stuff that usually has a somewhat piercing quality with dynamics peaks on say Schiit DACs doesn't have as much of it on Rockna stuff. I can't say whether or not the Wavedream Signature has that, but I know the Wavelight definitely does, and from what I'm told from Wavedream Edition owners it's not dissimilar in this regard.

    Really, this is just an overly longwinded way of saying that I'm looking for an amplifier that's more upfront in presentation to balance out the more laidback nature of Rockna stuff.
     
  15. saint.panda

    saint.panda Friend

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    The Stellaris (and by extension likely Stratus/Starlett) has an uncanny synergy with the Utopia. Comparing the Bifrost 2 to the Wavedream, technical differences notwithstanding, I can see where the mellow / lack of bite observation comes from, but it's slight and not the variable I'd optimize for given everything else. Piercing stuff will still sound piercing (especially with the Utopia!), just not every time strangely and somewhat depending on the record. I will say that Wavedream + Stellaris + HD6xx sometimes feels like too much of a good thing on the inner bloom / warmth, but that's complaining on a high level.
     
  16. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    That would be a good test because the Utopia is quite a bit sharper than Focal’s tweeters. Which are more tolerable for me than say B&W and Seas/Tympany metal domes yet not detailed and reactive enough.
     
  17. Clemmaster

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    FWIW, the ECP T4 + Wavelight is fantastic with the Utopia.
     
  18. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    Oh yeah, it's definitely not the only thing I'm looking at tuning around. I am still somewhat mixed about the laidback nature of the Wavedream in comparison to Schiit's incisive presentation though, especially because I tend to like incision in the first place. There will be a period where I will be living with the BF2 directly substituted for the Wavedream in my setup regardless, so it's either something I will still dislike and choose to counteract on the amp end, or something that I will learn to live with and end up preferring to the Schiit presentation in the long run.

    The DNA stuff I've heard lots of good things about though. One of the slight weaknesses of the Rockna stuff (particularly the Wavelight, though I'm told the Wavedream isn't much better at this) is sheer bass heft, and I'm told that the DNA amps do a good job of giving the Utopia extra weight on the low end. Definitely something I'm eager to check out.
    Definitely interested in ECP stuff as well. I originally was looking into a 3F, but I've been curious about the Utopia with tubes and a setup overhaul like this is a good chance to experiment and see what works. Not that it's out of the running, but there are certainly other amps that have my interest as well. Looks like there's lots of stuff I'm going to have to hear before settling on anything.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2021
  19. JeremiahS

    JeremiahS Almost "Made"

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    It seems that the hype for Utopia has recently comes back stronger at least in headphone community in Indonesia and Singapore. The same thing happened with the HD800 too.

    Maybe I should try to listen to them again but based on memories they sound excellent but doesn't make sense value wise because the Susvara cost almost the same and seem to perform better.
     
  20. M3NTAL

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    I've been biting my tongue/fingers until I got a little more time with my setup, but the SFD-1 -> T3 -> Clear is working very well. I can imagine the T4 + Wavelight + Utopia would be nice.
     

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