Hi guys!
In all of the busy-ness leading up to our Focal Launch Event at The Source AV, I didn’t have a chance to post up the impressions that I gathered a while back. Since I had a little bit of downtime today, I thought I’d take some time to post some up.
I'll be setting specifications, materials, technology, and comfort aside for a moment - to focus solely on sonic impressions.
BTW
@Greggo, I know I still owe you some answers to your questions, and I hope that these impressions (and those of the Elear that are yet to come) will cover most of what you were asking. If there’s anything else you’d like to know after all of this, please ask and I’ll be happy to answer them if I can.
Focal Utopia Impressions
Associated Equipment:
• Amarra 3.0.3; Build 4559
• Amarra for TIDAL; v.2.2.1261
• Apple MacBook Pro; OSX 10.11.5
• Schiit Wyrd
• Schiit Yggdrasil
• Cavalli Audio Liquid Gold
• Schiit PYST USB A-B (x2)
• Nordost Blue Heaven power cord
• Nordost Heimdall power cord
• Kimber Kable Ascent Series Hero XLR interconnects
Auditioning Conditions:
These impressions were gathered in a quiet room at The Source AV, on my personal rig (details above), and with my own music - over the course of 7 hours - with some breaks in between to let our ears rest (and for lunch). There was no talking allowed whenever listening was taking place, and we even left the air conditioning off in order to preserve a quiet environment. I'd also like to add that these impressions were gathered from a pair of Utopias that had quite a few hours on them, as opposed to many of the fresh units that were recently at the launch event @ The Source AV.
Summary:
I found these to be incredibly well-balanced throughout the entire frequency range, and especially so for a dynamic driver headphone. In my book, it’s certainly more balanced than any other dynamic-driver headphone currently available, the HD 800S included, and it even compares favorably with many planar headphones in terms of overall linearity throughout the audible range (20Hz-20kHz).
I was also impressed with how the Utopia was remarkably free of audible distortion, and sounded exceedingly clean as a result, particularly in the upper mid-range. I emphasize this lack of distortion because I consider it to be one of the Utopia’s greatest strengths. Many headphones, even TOTL headphones, tend to have a peak in the upper mids, which many people have a sensitivity towards. When this peak is combined with distortion, the result is harshness, edginess and stridency - which only exacerbates the inherent and aforementioned peakiness. Again, the Utopia’s lack of audible distortion allows it to avoid such a pitfall, which I appreciated on a technical level, and thoroughly enjoyed during listening.
Also notable, and as an honorable mention, is the fantastic extension at both ends. For me, the Utopia’s response was extremely linear, with no displeasing roll-off at either end. Okay, now it’s time to get into some details!
Sub-Bass
The Utopia’s sub-bass can be downright seismic, as it is within the slow and sentimental sub-bass tones that play counterpoint to the organ in Sade’s By Your Side. It can also be quite tight and precise, with sharp attack and decay characteristics, as it is in the periodic sub-bass hit that punctuates TLC’s No Scrubs. It all depends on what your tracks demand. But in every single track I played, the sub-bass response was always very well controlled, exhibiting excellent dynamics, and rendered with a rare sense of sophistication. I remember thinking to myself, during my audition, that the Utopia’s sub-bass was reminiscent of JL Audio Fathoms, in that it was a harmonious blend of both quality and quantity of sub-bass.
Bass:
The Utopia’s mid-bass response - for me - is a nearly perfect blend of speed, control, dynamics, and tonal richness. I loved the sense of quickness that the Utopia brought to The Spinner’s Working My Way Back To You. Every single time the kick drum and bass line fell into alignment, hitting and decaying just right (punchy and fast), it made we want to get up and dance… or hit an Eighties style disco roller rink (yes, I’m that old). With Chantal Kreviazuk’s Before You, the Utopia’s controlled bass response rewarded me with a hearty but composed percussion that actually allowed me to enjoy the recording as much as I enjoy the song itself. A little over a minute into Madeon’s Icarus, there’s a passage of sudden drum and bass stabs and jabs that come at you from nowhere, and cut back just as quickly, and they’re absolutely thrilling because of the Utopia’s excellent dynamics. But my favorite part of the Utopia’s bass is the tonal richness that it offers, despite it’s predilection towards speed and precision. Taken too far, fast and detailed bass can become “planar bass” in that texture starts to overwhelm warmth. This is never the case with the Utopia, as it manages to preserve organic bass tones well, without ever rendering them too analytically, so that I can continue to groove on Avi’s baselines in Pentatonix’s Daft Punk medley.
Lower Mids:
Though it may not be immediately obvious to us, the Utopia’s lower mids are outstanding. They are devoid of even the slightest hint of bass bleed, thus preserving the purity and sensuality of the piano and vocals in Les Nubians’s Princesse Nubienne, without letting that track’s mid-bass elements muddy things up. And while they’re never lush or bloomy, the Utopia’s lower mids are also full-bodied enough so as not to be recessed. Thank goodness for this, as I rather enjoyed Luca Stricagnoli’s percussive acoustic stylings from his cover of AC-DC’s Thunderstruck. In fact, so clean yet lively are the lower mids, that if you told me there was a dedicated driver just to present lower mids with clean authority, I could imagine how the Utopia would sound exactly as if there were.
Mid-Range:
The Utopia’s mid-range presentation is the crown jewel of its treasured frequency response. It’s a trifecta of liveliness, detail and refinement - where the combination of the Utopia’s speed and lack of distortion weave together to wrap us in a perfect tapestry of notes that simply sing… clothed in fine, satin-like textural details… amidst a silky smoothness that lends each and every note a delicate sense of refinement. As a result, everything from vocals (the intoxicating polyphonic chorus in Imogen Heap’s Hide and Seek), to piano (the staccato-like pluckiness of Andras Schiff playing the Allemande from J.S. Bach’s English Suite No. 3), to electric guitars (the plaintive and romantic slide guitar in Sarah Jarosz’s Ring Them Bells), to brass (the biting sarcasm of Leonard Bernstein’s comic parody - Overture to Candide), to strings (Mairead Nesbitt’s pleading fiddle from Celtic Woman’s Pie Jesu) are all presented with the exact sonic qualities you’d expect to hear from those instruments. In a word, the Utopia’s midrange is simply glorious. Female vocal fanatics, in particular, will delight at the cleanliness that is next to godliness in the Utopia’s pristine rendering of angels… angels that seem to sing directly to our souls (or loins if you’re hopelessly infatuated with J-Pop or K-Pop).
Upper Mids:
In the upper mids, the Utopia remains linear and checks its ego at the door. Appropriately, it never over-reaches, and instead leaves all air and sparkle duties to the highs. As a result, it was never once strident or peaky, thus maintaining a decisive advantage over the HD 800. And the only sibilance that I could elicit from the Utopia came from tracks where I knew it to be present (Echosmith’s Bright, Ride’s Twisterella).
Highs:
Highs are rendered with both substance and sincerity, particularly with regard to percussive elements. The cymbals and hats from The B-52’s Follow Your Bliss have a genuine sense of body to them, and are presented as visceral sounds emanating from tangible instruments. They are never splashy, thin or wispy. There is plenty of shimmer and air to go around of course, owing to the Utopia’s excellent top-end extension, but it’s never just shimmer at the expense of substance, with Taylor Eigsti’s Get Your Hopes Up as a shining example of this.
Overall, the Utopia’s linearity and tonal richness seemed to synergize perfectly with the Liquid Gold’s fluidity and natural musicality. It was a brilliant pairing.
Detail:
Among one of the most resolving headphones I’ve yet heard to date, electrostatic headphones notwithstanding, the Utopia is absolutely laden with detail. The best part is that it offers a balanced (and almost synergistic) blend of macro-detail and micro-detail. Whereas many headphones seem to excel in one or the other, the Utopia renders both evenly for more convincing imaging and overall coherency.
Staging:
The Utopia’s staging is superb. The Trashcan Sinatras’s Best Days on Earth is rendered with just the right amount of atmosphere to give it the dreamy quality it strives to evoke. The staging is not nearly as wide or expansive as that of an HD 800. However, as the HD 800’s staging - especially in terms of width - is rather exaggerated in my opinion, the Utopia’s staging winds up sounding far more accurate and realistic. Rooms sound like a rooms, and not like concert halls, as they should.
Distortion:
I’ve already touched on this in the summary above, but I’d like to add another note here. At times, the Utopia performs as if there’s a distortion filter built into it. It cleans up Teenage Fanclub’s The Concept quite a bit, as if it audibly groomed them and turned them into clean-cut boys vs the shoegazers that they are.
Versus Audeze LCD-4:
The most notable difference between these two is that the Utopia is more lively and tonally-rich in the midrange, making the LCD-4’s mids seems slightly recessed and dry by comparison. Overall, the LCD-4’s presentation is more analytical, whereas the Utopia’s presentation is more evocative. For those familiar with Audeze’s line-up, a fitting analogy is to say: the Utopia is to the LCD-4, as the LCD-3 is to the LCD-X.
Versus HE-1000:
Right away, one notices that the HE-1000 is elevated in the highs vs the Utopia, both in terms of levels and top-end extension. It is brighter, and thinner up top, which gives it a greater sense of sparkle… but that also contributes to somewhat of a splashy quality that the Utopia does not suffer from. And while the HE-1000 is known for it’s viscerally-detailed bass response, the Utopia offers a fuller and more organic mid-bass… which I feel gives it a more natural low end than the HE1000’s terrific - but ultimately “planar” - bass.
Drawbacks:
A few years ago, Pioneer released a headphone exclusively for home theater enthusiasts. As a result, that headphone came with a rather girthy 6-meter cable. This was so that users could plug the headphone into their receivers, and then listen from sofas that may be some distance away. For those of you familiar with it, that headphone is known as the SE-A1000.
The Utopia’s package includes only one cable, and it’s 4 meters in length. I know, that’s not quite as long as 6 meters. Nevertheless it is still one long-ass cable, with a non-trivial amount of heft and girth was well. I don’t have an inherent problem with this design feature, but at the same time I would like to point out that most of us simply do not listen from that far away, and I think that most of you would agree with me on that. As such, I must list it out as a drawback.
That said, I would like to point out that there is a very simple way to remedy this. Focal can make a last-minute running line change where: (a) they make a 1-meter cable, and include that in the packaging instead; while (b) they turn existing inventory of the 4-meter cable into an optional accessory. Just my 2¢.
Okay... pretty tired now.
I'll come back with Elear impressions tomorrow.
