Focal Elear and Utopia Review / Preview With Measurements - Head-Fi TV

[Kildras]

I disagree completely.

Pricing is based upon value.
And sound is one crucial factor for a headphone's value. (plus comfort, accessories, brand association etc)

You can't just put up a price tag and expect marketing to market it to be a different product than what range it should be in.
You may fool and trick someone, but the true value will quickly show itself, just look at beats headphone.

You can't market a low grade plastic cup and price it higher than a premium handmade glass product.

Sound is a physical phenomenon, but don't forget it is created by physical hardware with sound quality per cost in mind.
Component, R&D cost, QC etc all adds up to cost and then is priced accordingly with other factors such as competition pricing.

Same thing with camera lens (which I am way more familiar with than headphones).
You can take photos with a cheap lens and a high end lens.
Colour rendering will be up for personally preference.
But sharpness and contrast will very likely be not comparable (although the quality of mid range lens are certainly getting very high quality)

Swap out lens with headphones; colour rendering for subjective sound preference; sharpness and contrast to actual performance indicator like dynamic range etc and basically you will see the pattern.

Mid range product can sound great, high end is another level if you have the equipment for matching and the difference will not be as noticable as jumping from a $1 earbud to a $400 fullsized headphone listening to flac.

 

[Arcamera]

Anyone know of a Canadian dealer for the new Focals east of Toronto? (preferably Ottawa or MTL).

 

[Stillhart]

I hope the Utopia pads help. Keep us posted.
I checked the FR comparison graph on innerfidelity. If that measurement is correct, there is over 10 dB response difference between the two at that frequency. How can that be?
I have to read about headphones and their FR...
In any case, now I don't think Elear is "dark" sounding or that the tonality is different than Utopia, NO, it is defective...
You manufacture two top of the line headphones, with Utopia you get it right but with Elear for some reason there's this tonality problem and you can't solve it? Also as it happens, there's a 3000 dollars gap in their price tags!
'm sorry Focal, I enjoy Elear very much now that I have to EQ every time but can you give me a guarantee that after 4000 dollars more, there won't be any surprises like this with Utopia?

They tuned the Elear to sound the way it does very much intentionally. The easy way to tell is to swap the pads and realize how close the Utopia and Elear actually sound with the same pads on. Their market research suggested that at the target price, people prefer that sound. So far, they seem to be right, as the Elear seems to be selling just fine.

 

[up late]

^ nice

with regard to kildras's post, i've been involved in too many of these disagreements to become embroiled in another one here. it's repetitive and old. suffice to say, i agree with phonomat's position on this fwiw.

 

[The Walrus]

In post 1712 of this thread Jude Has detailed measurements of what switching the pads does. It is just a "room" effect, not any different than how changing rooms or moving speakers around within the room can change the tonal balance.


http://www.head-fi.org/t/811270/focal-elear-and-utopia-review-preview-with-measurements-head-fi-tv/1710

Interesting... Actually not. I think it was DT 1990 Pro (I'm not sure), Beyer sells them with two different set of pads featuring two different sound signatures. Focal could have done the same if these pads make such a difference. I'll call and pester them till they send me a pair of Utopia pads )

 

[phonomat]

Yep, don't wanna get into an argument either, this is quite silly. Just very quickly: Kildras, you don't think there are people out there that will prefer any Beats headphone (all the Beats bashing is getting old as well, I'm just using them as an example because you brought them up, but they're actually a pretty good example) over the Utopia? There are millions, just as there are lots and lots of people who will prefer a cheap steak over the latest "French Cuisine" exploits (I'm looking at you, Mom and Dad). Who are you to tell them they're wrong? Don't you see it's all a matter of what best suits one's needs? There is no best, there's not even better, objectively speaking. There's not even "objectively speaking", lol.

I'll ask you as well: If it was as simple as y'all make it out to be, why don't you just buy the most expensive HP you can afford to buy and just be done with it (until one comes out that's even more expensive, of course. )?

How much progress do you think is possible sound-wise? How do you want to determine what it's worth? No one can. Nowadays, it certainly seems like as a manufacturer, you just look at what the others are charging and add a couple hundred bucks to it to make clear that you're the number one, because it's the only way that you can establish that fact, since if you wouldn't, no one would even realise! And you know why? Because sound quality is relative! It's ludicrous, really. How good can a headphone sound? 100,000 bucks good? 500,000 bucks good? Ever heard of diminishing returns? How does that even factor in? Manufacturers can put any sticker on it they want. And trust me, it's not the sound engineers that set the price, it's the marketing department.

 

[Stillhart]

Interesting... Actually not. I think it was DT 1990 Pro (I'm not sure), Beyer sells them with two different set of pads featuring two different sound signatures. Focal could have done the same if these pads make such a difference. I'll call and pester them till they send me a pair of Utopia pads )

 
Focal is aware of all the talk about pad swaps and they're working on a way to make the pads available for separate purchase.  I've heard some other interesting rumors about this subject but I'll let those rumors lie until I get some official confirmation.

 

[AxelCloris]

 
Focal is aware of all the talk about pad swaps and they're working on a way to make the pads available for separate purchase.  I've heard some other interesting rumors about this subject but I'll let those rumors lie until I get some official confirmation.

 
So they ARE making Focal branded hats built completely out of the pad materials. Nice.

 

[SearchOfSub]

Nope. Wrong again. I'll reiterate: Sound has nothing to do with price. One is a physical phenomenon, the other is just part of a marketing decision. If there are correlations, they might as well be coincidental. I'm not saying they are all the time, but if you're not aware of the arbitrariness when it comes to pricing and/or of the fact that prices are expressly made with people like you in mind who are standing in line to drink the Kool-Aid, then you're the one living in a dream world. Wake up, man, of course manufacturers/marketing experts/dealers would have you believe that it's as simple as more expensive = always better. If you do, your loss. And ultimately, everybody else's, because this is exactly the sort of thinking that contributes to prices climbing higher and higher. Why not make a 4000, 5000, 10,000, 35,000, 50,0000 bucks headphone as long there are people who will gladly pay for them?

Okay, rant of the day over, I don't intend to derail this thread any further. But seriously, think it over, it's not that hard. Oh, and while you're at it, you might want to look up "cognitive dissonance".

(And by the way, I own a headphone with a 2500,- price tag, and yeah, it happens to sound just scrumptious. But by your logic, the Abyss, HE-1000, LCD-4 and Utopia, to name a few, would necessarily sound better to me. And that's where you're totally wrong. You know what, I even heard the new Orpheus, and I honestly prefer my Pioneer SE-Master1 over it. :eek: Yep, never underestimate subjectiveness. Might be cognitive dissonance on my part, but we're all individuals, and if you think there's one can to rule them all, you're completely off the mark. That's not even what this game is about. Would you just go ahead and buy the most expensive headphone you can afford without listening to it first?)

What?!?!? - you sound like a 5 year old livin a dream man. All these items that are valued at their respective prices have a reason behind them like r&d costs, supplies etc, . With your standards, switch every expensive product out there with those that cost 1/10, and every consumer out there would be in complete joy.
pure bliss having their $3,000.00 Beats Solo 2 over a $200.00 Abyss, LCD-4, etc. Or, an Elear that cost $3,500.00 over a $999.00 Utopia. Sound-wise comparison ONLY. There is a reason behind these pricing.

Congrats on your attempt at single handededly trying to destroy every R&D department in the world, all market/stock values, retail new/used values , and just about every value known to man including well.. money, period.

This is not an argument, this is the reality. Market value was established before you were born and will continue to do so after ones death. You might be worth a million bucks to your close ones no matter educated degrees or not, but to the rest of 99% of world you aren't worth a penny without the degrees under the belt. This would be perception of one's value, vs. General market value including proper value assesment.

Just to get to the baseline of this argument;Your position in simple English is;

Individual preferences rule over any base value vs. Value is not set over perceptions but of any/all base product costs.

The former sounds like your living in your own world but do preach on. I would love to buy your business products with your motto, and pick up a item or two while you continue to fail to meet margin and end up broke and under the bridge eventually.

 

[technobear]

Interesting... Actually not. I think it was DT 1990 Pro (I'm not sure), Beyer sells them with two different set of pads featuring two different sound signatures. Focal could have done the same if these pads make such a difference. I'll call and pester them till they send me a pair of Utopia pads )

Focal is aware of all the talk about pad swaps and they're working on a way to make the pads available for separate purchase.  I've heard some other interesting rumors about this subject but I'll let those rumors lie until I get some official confirmation.

Why should the Utopia pad be an extra cost option?

Focal should have accepted that they screwed up with the Elear pad and just fitted the Utopia pad instead. Then they would have a killer $1000/£800 headphone. Instead they have merely given us another flavour of flawed. Sad.

As for the Utopia, you only have to look at a pair of Focal Elektra 1008 Be at the same price (£3198) to see that the price of the Utopia headphone (£3250) is very poor material value and highly ridiculous:

 

[Velomane]

   
So they ARE making Focal branded hats built completely out of the pad materials. Nice.

Those would be berets, to be exact.

 

[phonomat]

Sssip ... aaah!

Why make comparisons? Why read reviews? It's all pointless, cos moar expensive = betta. At least I'm a five-year old who's heard of the term "sound signature".

Again, I've heard the world's most expensive headphone with a frickin' 50,000 price tag. Have you? I'd have the chance to listen to it again in two weeks, and you can go in my place if you like, because it's just not for me. In that sense, my ancient Westone W3 was better, since I actually liked that. Care to prove me wrong? That's all I'll say on the matter.

 

[phonomat]

What?!?!? - you sound like a 5 year old livin a dream man. All these items that are valued at their respective prices have a reason behind them like r&d costs, supplies etc, . With your standards, switch every expensive product out there with those that cost 1/10, and every consumer out there would be in complete joy.
pure bliss having their $3,000.00 Beats Solo 2 over a $200.00 Abyss, LCD-4, etc. Or, an Elear that cost $3,500.00 over a $999.00 Utopia. Sound-wise comparison ONLY. There is a reason behind these pricing.

Congrats on your attempt at single handededly trying to destroy every R&D department in the world, all market/stock values, retail new/used values , and just about every value known to man including well.. money, period.

This is not an argument, this is the reality. Market value was established before you were born and will continue to do so after ones death. You might be worth a million bucks to your close ones no matter educated degrees or not, but to the rest of 99% of world you aren't worth a penny without the degrees under the belt. This would be perception of one's value, vs. General market value including proper value assesment.

Just to get to the baseline of this argument;Your position in simple English is;

Individual preferences rule over any base value vs. Value is not set over perceptions but of any/all base product costs.

The former sounds like your living in your own world but do preach on. I would love to buy your business products with your motto, and pick up a item or two while you continue fail to meet margin and end up broke and under the bridge eventually.

 
Sorry, forgot to quote you earlier. But now that I do ... can it really be that you've just proven my point? How's it feel to be outsmarted by a pre-school kid? 

 

[SearchOfSub]

Sorry, forgot to quote you earlier. But now that I do ... can it really be that you've just proven my point? How's it feel to be outsmarted by a pre-school kid? 

Right...But we aren't dealing with family, as I'm strictly speaking from a business-to-consumer relationship. I used the quoted example as a form of expressing proper value. (Perhaps I should not have used that as an example). No more derailing thread from me. Moving on!

 

[phren0logy]

Anybody have thoughts/experience on how the Elear would pair with a Mojo?