[Ifalna]

I use to own the Clears for 6 to 8 months. I used them daily with the Topping A90 and Gustard A18. And to the people that claim the Clear are 85% of the Utopia. May I ask, what are you smoking? Id put the Clear at 60% of the Utopia. I'm 24 years old and have decent hearing going up to 18.2khz.

Utopia vs Clear is just a slight difference in frequency response. If you EQ them to the same target, you won't be able to tell them apart in double blind tests.
What you hear is a strongly elevated treble response that gives the illusion of "more detail". It WoW's you in the beginning but can (unless it hits your general preference) lead to fatigue in the long run.

You can see the same effects in Focals speaker lines, though there you also get the added benefit of notable lower distortions. Both Clear and Utopia has such low THD, that it's basically inaudible in real world musical content.

Avoid any gear bellow £2000. You need high end gear that works well with it. Like the Focal Arche. The Topping A90 does not work well with the utopia. The sound is too analytical, dry sounding and not musical.

So basically you want a slightly higher output impedance... IIRC Arche does impedance matching to all Focals cans via pre-set profiles.
Not supposed to be a diss or anything, just putting what you experience/like in scientific perspective. I too use an EQ on my ADI-2 DAC that mimics a higher output impedance because "au natural" it sounded a bit cold to me.

 

[dontfeedphils]

Utopia vs Clear is just a slight difference in frequency response. If you EQ them to the same target, you won't be able to tell them apart in double blind tests.

Going to have to strongly disagree with this.

 

[Ifalna]

Going to have to strongly disagree with this.

Focal's designs are so similar in nature and all of them have such good technical parameters, that FR is the only identifiable criteria that is left. If you take that out of the equation in combination with the limited hearing ability of human beings...

Then again, people here argue that they can hear the difference between cabling, when science proved that such differences are well beyond human hearing, so ... I expect neither objectivity nor agreement to my opinions. :'D

 

[dontfeedphils]

Focal's designs are so similar in nature and all of them have such good technical parameters, that FR is the only identifiable criteria that is left. If you take that out of the equation in combination with the limited hearing ability of human beings...

Then again, people here argue that they can hear the difference between cabling, when science proved that such differences are well beyond human hearing, so ... I expect neither objectivity nor agreement to my opinions. :'D

It's a completely different driver tech, magnet structure, pad design, etc when comparing the Clear and Utopia.

I've listened to both extensively and have no doubt I could blindly tell them apart, based on technicalities alone, if eq'd to sound similar.

Detail retrieval and imaging alone would be a dead giveaway, as would driver speed.

 

[Ifalna]

I've listened to both extensively and have no doubt I could blindly tell them apart, based on technicalities alone, if eq'd to sound similar.

Not similar. The same. With a <0.1 dB margin.
Obviously one would need very expensive professional equipment for that, so the exercise would be academic in nature, not to mention that DBT is very difficult to achieve with cans at all, given different weight and pad materials.

As humans, we cannot listen to rectangular functions and assess the conformity of the driver. We need a scope for that. So I seriously doubt you would be able to hear "driver speed" at all. More slam? Tighter bass? That's just frequency response again.

Imaging is more related to the difference between the two drivers and thus lies in the QC department rather than the technical aspects.
Naturally a more expensive can allows for more discrimination during manufacturing in that area and tighter tolerances between drivers.

 

[dontfeedphils]

Not similar. The same. With a <0.1 dB margin.
Obviously one would need very expensive professional equipment for that, so the exercise would be academic in nature, not to mention that DBT is very difficult to achieve with cans at all, given different weight and pad materials.

As humans, we cannot listen to rectangular functions and assess the conformity of the driver. We need a scope for that. So I seriously doubt you would be able to hear "driver speed" at all. More slam? Tighter bass? That's just frequency response again.

Imaging is more related to the difference between the two drivers and thus lies in the QC department rather than the technical aspects.
Naturally a more expensive can allows for more discrimination during manufacturing in that area and tighter tolerances between drivers.

Well its a good thing you don't spend the extra money on the Utopia, since your ears obviously can't tell the difference in technicalities.

Thanks for trying to tell me what I am and am not able to hear though. Maybe next you can do smell or taste.

 

[Ifalna]

Well its a good thing you don't spend the extra money on the Utopia, since your ears obviously can't tell the difference in technicalities.

Probably not, my ears aren't trained and also not that good.

Though going back to actual real life scenarios: In my experience, once you have gear like the Clear, it's actually the recordings themselves that are the limiting factor.
So much good music out there is recorded with horrible artifacts, audible distortion etc. ._.

 

[dontfeedphils]

Probably not, my ears aren't trained and also not that good.

Then might I suggest you stop making blanket statements that are meant to apply to everyone and start prefacing these sort of claims with "In my opinion" or "In my experience".

Though going back to actual real life scenarios: In my experience, once you have gear like the Clear, it's actually the recordings themselves that are the limiting factor.

Not sure I fully agree with this.

So much good music out there is recorded with horrible artifacts, audible distortion etc. ._.

This I absolutely agree with.

 

[Ifalna]

Then might I suggest you stop making blanket statements that are meant to apply to everyone and start prefacing these sort of claims with "In my opinion" or "In my experience".

I will do that when I talk about actually audible differences, sure. Not when talking about theoretical stuff.
E.g.: when I say that differences in cabling are inaudible, that's a scientifically proven fact, no need for "imo" and if s/o claims otherwise you know said person is making things up/is being biased by it's psyche.

Whether it's possible to get 2 cans close enough in EQ to make them indistinguishable? Probably not for some 2 generic ones but two from the Focal line?
I'd say so (hint: personal view). At the very least you would get extremely close and seriously question the value proposition between Clear and Utopia.

I know there are some audiophile gems out there that really let expensive gear shine but alas, these recordings are far and few in between and not to every person's taste, strictly content wise.

 

[jonathan c]

Well its a good thing you don't spend the extra money on the Utopia, since your ears obviously can't tell the difference in technicalities.

Thanks for trying to tell me what I am and am not able to hear though. Maybe next you can do smell or taste.

I am again reminded of a Christmas song: “Do You Hear What I Hear?”…

 

[Chesty]

Darn it, had I known all Focal headphones sound the same, I would have bought the Elegia

 

[Ifalna]

Darn it, had I known all Focal headphones sound the same, I would have bought the Elegia

Depending on the EQ capability of your device and your access to measurement gear, that might have been the financially sensible thing to do.
If you don't have either, you can only take what the manufacturers throw at you.

Keep in mind, that I never said that they sound alike if left untouched.

 

[roskodan]

Interesting, but one would have to try that comparison to know if there wold be enough difference between them to tell them apart. What I can say is that I can tell apart my Clear, HD800, LCD2C, all PEQ-ed to Harman target, when doing an A, B, C, comparison, and yet when listening to music I can forget which one I'm currently wearing and mistake it for one of the others... for a moment at least... too different physically not to notice once you think about it.

 

[PhazeCrive]

Okay two things.

1: Beryllium is more rigid than aluminum. This means that under high stress, the cone retains its shape, resulting in a more pure waveform. A cheaper headphone of mine like the Momentum 3 uses non rigid materials and you can hear the driver break up because the cone is flimsy.

2: Beryllium is a self-damping metal that absorbs its own vibrations that naturally occur as a result of excursion. When a speaker cone vibrates, it will always produce micro noise just because any time something starts and stops it creates a vibration, which is sound. And as you would expect, speakers start and stop A LOT. Beryllium will keep this under control. So even if both the Clear and Utopia were EQ'd to have the same response, there are physical properties of beryllium that can't be replicated by the Clear.

Given those 2 things alone the Clear will never sound like the Utopia because these metals have different physical properties. This is kind of like how you can try to EQ headphones to widen or give depth to the soundstage but it will never be able to properly mimic the natural high frequency dissipation and absorbtion of sound from a speaker 10 feet away.

 

[FinalAd]

Okay two things.

1: Beryllium is more rigid than aluminum. This means that under high stress, the cone retains its shape, resulting in a more pure waveform. A cheaper headphone of mine like the Momentum 3 uses non rigid materials and you can hear the driver break up because the cone is flimsy.

2: Beryllium is a self-damping metal that absorbs its own vibrations that naturally occur as a result of excursion. When a speaker cone vibrates, it will always produce micro noise just because any time something starts and stops it creates a vibration, which is sound. And as you would expect, speakers start and stop A LOT. Beryllium will keep this under control. So even if both the Clear and Utopia were EQ'd to have the same response, there are physical properties of beryllium that can't be replicated by the Clear.

Given those 2 things alone the Clear will never sound like the Utopia because these metals have different physical properties. This is kind of like how you can try to EQ headphones to widen or give depth to the soundstage but it will never be able to properly mimic the natural high frequency dissipation and absorbtion of sound from a speaker 10 feet away.

This. If you need industrial-grade measurement rigs to get them to sound nearly identical then that's not realistically reachable for a common audiophile and defeats the point of saving money.

Saying that a Elegia can sound like a Clear by simply using EQ is false. One is open-back, the other is closed, no amount of EQ will solve this physical difference. The closest thing in all of Focal's lineup is the Elex and the Clear, and even then those drivers are slightly different too. All of the other headphones have at least one distinctive trait that results in differences in sound quality, and while you could make them sound close enough that you'd question a upgrade, by no means would it be nearly identical.

You can make the argument that something like a Clear and a Utopia can sound so similar that the price to upgrade is not worth it. But saying that those 2 drivers, made of completely different materials with different properties, can sound the same with a <0.1dB margin? Yeah, I don't believe it.

I also don't believe in cables changing the sound quality, even with different materials. However, drivers are different in the sense that said materials are in motion, and by consequence the materials properties will actually have a significant impact in how sound is being reproduced.

At the end of the day, everyone is free to hear what they want with their gear, and while yes the Utopia is not $2500 better than the Clear, it's still different physically with different shapes for the enclosure and a completely different driver made of a different material, and no amount of EQ will get them to sound identical.