So I stopped by a local dealer today and listened to the Elear and the Utopia. Just for fun I threw in a listen to the Audeze LCDX (I own the LCD3fs). The amp was a Rega, not my first choice but it's what the dealer had hooked up (I had hoped to use their Ayres Codex).
Build quality is excellent with both, but the carbon fiber in the Utopia is noticeably lighter and the phones felt comfier. I started with the Elear and the nice and firm bass stuck out immediately. Listening to several tracks showed the Elear to sound like an extended version of my HD650s. I was really liking them.... until I put on the Utopia.
Just wow. So much more musical... everything was pumped up significantly. Bass was more extended and super detailed, mids were gorgeous, and highs were extended, airy, and sweet. I went back to the Elear, and what sounded fine on first listen now sounded flatter.
I went to the Audeze and they were almost solidly between the two - better bass response and tonally sweeter, but the Utopia was the king, no doubt about it.
Source was a Linn music server streaming Tidal. I hadn't experimented with Tidal much before this, and it finally got me off the fence. More on that in a second.
Even though I have the perfect amps for the Utopia (Woo WA5 and WA22), I don't see myself dropping $4k. If these were $2k, I'd be walking home with them now, but at $4k, that's a seriously good pair of speakers. To my ears, the Elear's weren't 80% of the Utopias, as reported elsewhere - they were more like what the HD650 might sound like if it were updated and priced at $1k. Not bad at all, but if you hear the Utopia, there's no going back.
I did go back to the LCD3's and I love what they do. I still rate the Utopia's as the best I've heard, however.
I got completely interested in Tidal - the sound quality was decent. In my hifi closet, I have a highly modified Squeezebox with a massively overbuilt power supply, and a Musical fidelity TriVista 21 DAC that has sat unused for two years. I went home, read up on the net and learned I could stream Tidal through the Squeezebox, and output the stream into my TriVista DAC. It took a while to configure Tidal to work through the Squeezebox, but now I am enjoying really good digital streaming, and remembering why I loved the TriVista so much (its overbuilt power supply, nice DACs, and wonderful tube output stage).
So it was a great day, all in all.