Thanks Relic. Great comments and review. Particularly relevant to me is the guitar comments as Mark Knopfler, Jesse Cook and Slava Grigoryan are favourites of mine and I have at least the first DAVE on backorder in Malaysia (over 1 month waiting now). Being an Australian expat living in Malaysia I gave up my position in Australia's initial Focal Utopia headphone shipment because I didn't want to buy blind as headphone sound is such a person preference. From your wonderful review here I am somewhat disappointed that I gave up my position in the queue. So I will be auditioning later in the year but maybe in Singapore as Focal products are a little too expensive for the Malaysian economy (in general not for specific high earners) and I suspect the DAVE is in the same category as I was the only DAVE on order in Malaysia at that time.
 
Excellent review!
 
GG

Amazing pictures !

Excellent write up!

Thanks for the review, x RELIC x. Although I will probably never get to really hear the Utopia or Dave, and certainly won't ever own them, your review motivated me to listen to my decidedly more pedestrian setup and appreciate how good it gets for $ I can actually afford. Congrats and cheers!

Terrific work. I like how you pointed out that these have true technical details, and aren't simply boosting the treble for a false sense of detail. A lot of people here fall into that trap, kudos to you for identifying it.

If only these were $3500 cheaper.....

Very nice review and fantastic photos.  
 
I was amused by this bit here:  "...one might find the Utopia needs a slight boost in the lowest bass and treble region.  Or, am I just used to a slightly mids recessed sound. Hmmmmm, food for thought."  You perhaps forget that you're coming off an Ether C which has boosted subbass and boosted treble?  :-D

@stillhart, thanks. Don't forget the Angie, K10, LCD-2 and XC as well. ; ) It's all relative from one's previous experience. That's precisely the point I was making there. Certainly 'eye' opening when another option is heard.

Yeah, absolutely.  I definitely find that when I spend a lot of time with one headphone and get accustomed to it, all my impressions of other headphones are colored by it.  I think the Utopia will be a good one, FR-wise, to get used to and compare against because it has such a great tonal balance.

I definitely agree with everything in this review with the exception of the tonal balance having anything to do with soundstage size. You cant eq the 800 to have a smaller soundstage than 700 or vice a versa so I call that hogwash. However as a bass lover I even agree. Its responsive so even though it could use more, its definitely revealing of the recording.

Excellent review!

I wonder @grizzlybeast if a combination of cup reverberation and resonances and tonal balance combined (the key point being balance, or relationship between frequencies), and degrees of variance in between, all contribute to our perception of soundstage. I'm definitely not 100% sure on the idea, but the largest perceived differences in soundstage has always been more directly related to tonal balance, for me. Funny, I hypothesize the same reasons as to why I can't be hypnotized, lol. Individual perception IMO. Is there a Sound Science topic about soundstage yet?

Thanks for the great comments!! ; )

@grizzlybeast, I should add that your comments about the bass earlier in the Focal thread helped me make my decision to purchase the Utopia easier. Thanks!

Great write up.  Thanks!

you are welcome!
 
glad to help. I will own this one day when I see a FS add, sale or something or rather. It has been the best thing I have ever put on my head. 

Thanks for the review. I listened to the UTOPIA on the WA8 and to me it is the "Ultimate transportable set-up". I described somewhere else on this forum the Utopia as a "mini Stax SR009" (I owe a BHSE + SR009), and this seams to corroborate your finding.

damn that headphone dac combo

Fantastic review! I love the photo analogy!

Well done, x RELIC x!  And congrats on owning such a fine headphone.  Wonderful photos!

I hope to hear them at RMAF. Great review, and great pictures!

Great writeup...we have the exact same setup. I can't wait to welcome the LAu to join this combo

Overall a well done set of observations.  The photo's, choices, lighting and so on are top quality and the visual imagery is brilliant and dead spot on!  "Focal" should have name the headphone as "Focus" as they are clearly more immediately revealing in many ways over my HE-1000's. Based on my listening observations with the DAVE any headphone (including the Focal) is honestly very limiting when comparing quality speakers to headphones.  Sincerely Speed