talkingmuffin said:

you are correct.

i got the Black Dragon XLR for my Utopia to warm its sound up a bit.

i got the Silver Dragon XLR for my LCD-4 to provide a little more sparkle and air.


of course the difference in each case is very very small, but noticeable. i'm very happy with them in general.

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macedonianhero said:

   
Going balanced always increases the voltage input (that's what balanced does), so things will always sound louder when balanced; but the noise floor should be reduced in this mode due to the ground on each channel.

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jrfmd said:

  are the blacks as good as the stock cable or better?
(is it worth doing)
 
jeff

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jlbrach said:

the stock cable is too long and too heavy,the Moon cable is well made and I think a positive upgrade...I admit that when it comes to cables I think a lot is psychic gratification because the gains are very subjective...this aint like comparing the 800's to the Utopia etc...some swear by cable differences and others dismiss them

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pervysage said:

  So I have been recently messing around with EQ (I am a total noob when it comes to this).
 
So far I have just mimicked Tyll's EQ settings from his Utopia review as I share the same belief that the Utopia signature is pretty much perfect already and could just use a touch more low end bass.
 
His settings are seen below in the picture from his review:
 

 
I had a question about these settings and EQing in general. In the bottom right corner under 'Gain' I noticed he had it set to -3.87 dB and then +3.87 dB gain on the frequency that was boosted. Is that what you should be doing if increasing the gain even more? Let's say I increase the bass boost even further from +3.87 to something like +6.00. Should I then change the output gain on the bottom right to -6.00?
 
Like I said, I am a noob to EQ so I hope this isn't a stupid question 

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pervysage said:

  So I have been recently messing around with EQ (I am a total noob when it comes to this).
 
So far I have just mimicked Tyll's EQ settings from his Utopia review as I share the same belief that the Utopia signature is pretty much perfect already and could just use a touch more low end bass.
 
His settings are seen below in the picture from his review:
 

 
I had a question about these settings and EQing in general. In the bottom right corner under 'Gain' I noticed he had it set to -3.87 dB and then +3.87 dB gain on the frequency that was boosted. Is that what you should be doing if increasing the gain even more? Let's say I increase the bass boost even further from +3.87 to something like +6.00. Should I then change the output gain on the bottom right to -6.00?
 
Like I said, I am a noob to EQ so I hope this isn't a stupid question 

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yoga said:

 

pervysage said:

  So I have been recently messing around with EQ (I am a total noob when it comes to this).
 
So far I have just mimicked Tyll's EQ settings from his Utopia review as I share the same belief that the Utopia signature is pretty much perfect already and could just use a touch more low end bass.
 
His settings are seen below in the picture from his review:
 

 
I had a question about these settings and EQing in general. In the bottom right corner under 'Gain' I noticed he had it set to -3.87 dB and then +3.87 dB gain on the frequency that was boosted. Is that what you should be doing if increasing the gain even more? Let's say I increase the bass boost even further from +3.87 to something like +6.00. Should I then change the output gain on the bottom right to -6.00?
 
Like I said, I am a noob to EQ so I hope this isn't a stupid question 

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He's gain staging (level matching the uncut and output). When you add, for example, a +dB low shelf as per this image, you add +dB to the overall sound level (3.87 in this case). The signal is now louder than it was before hitting the EQ. Hence the reduction of the same amount of the way out of the EQ. 

It will also prevent the signal from clipping (overloading) in the digital domain (bad). 

Think of it as a full glass of water. If you add more water (dB EQ boost) it will overflow. You need to drip a bit of water out of the bottom of the glass as to keep it level :¬)

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tsavjason said:

Many of you doubted that The Source AV is the largest Focal Utopia & Elear dealer in the world. So we decided we'd show you what real inventory is about. Have a great 2017 ..........

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jaredjcrandall8 said:

I don't listen to music a lot and don't even listen to the same songs a lot, but I really enjoy the science of sound reproduction, so my question is: will I immediately notice a difference in sound quality enjoyment when listening to the utopia over the elear?  The critiera of course not being cost, and not being I am at an audiophile level.  I have had HD800 and HD650, which have clear differences, along with eddie current 4-45, some hybrid amps, aurelic amps, etc. So i do have experience but I would only purchase the utopia if the sound difference is readily apparent. 

Thanks for the help!
I have just purchased the Utopia and have owned the Elear for several months now. There are differences but it's not night and day, well at least it wasn't to me. You can certainly tell they are from the same family and if I'm honest I wouldn't say you can hear that the Utopia is 4x better vs 4x the price. My very early impressions are that the Elear has a more musical sound signature with more low end bass with slightly less clarity in the mids but particularly up top. Again the differences vary between different songs. On some songs I prefer the Elears but I would say it's a 60/40 split to the Utopia at this stage. My Elear are running a balanced Black Dragon and the Utopia is still stock at the moment although that will change shortly. My thoughts are I will order the black dragon again and maybe have a play swapping the pads over to see what if anything it does to the bass

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imusicman said:

 

jaredjcrandall8 said:

I don't listen to music a lot and don't even listen to the same songs a lot, but I really enjoy the science of sound reproduction, so my question is: will I immediately notice a difference in sound quality enjoyment when listening to the utopia over the elear?  The critiera of course not being cost, and not being I am at an audiophile level.  I have had HD800 and HD650, which have clear differences, along with eddie current 4-45, some hybrid amps, aurelic amps, etc. So i do have experience but I would only purchase the utopia if the sound difference is readily apparent. 

Thanks for the help!
I have just purchased the Utopia and have owned the Elear for several months now. There are differences but it's not night and day, well at least it wasn't to me. You can certainly tell they are from the same family and if I'm honest I wouldn't say you can hear that the Utopia is 4x better vs 4x the price. My very early impressions are that the Elear has a more musical sound signature with more low end bass with slightly less clarity in the mids but particularly up top. Again the differences vary between different songs. On some songs I prefer the Elears but I would say it's a 60/40 split to the Utopia at this stage. My Elear are running a balanced Black Dragon and the Utopia is still stock at the moment although that will change shortly. My thoughts are I will order the black dragon again and maybe have a play swapping the pads over to see what if anything it does to the bass

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

tsavjason said:

Many of you doubted that The Source AV is the largest Focal Utopia & Elear dealer in the world. So we decided we'd show you what real inventory is about. Have a great 2017 ..........

Click to expand...