[Hoegaardener70]

nice, another uber expensive headphone to get excited about.

Yes, after all that Empyrean hype and my own buying/selling decisions, I am getting headphone fatigue. CanJam next week in NYC and I am done!

 

[kumar402]

$4K...? will wait for price drop
going by history Focal headphones end up at a lot less selling price in few months time from reputed sellers.

 

[Hoegaardener70]

$4K...? will wait for price drop
going by history Focal headphones end up at a lot less selling price in few months time from reputed sellers.

Where is always this 4k coming from? It IS 3k. Still friggin' a lot.

 

[kumar402]

Yes, after all that Empyrean hype and my own buying/selling decisions, I am getting headphone fatigue. CanJam next week in NYC and I am done!

I see you already own a flagship closed headphone in Z1R.
give your wallet some rest

 

[kid vic]

The Elegia could have used some serious tuning, I don't think the Stellia will deviate to far from that original sound but it's not hard to hope it'll be better. Curious to see some reviews

 

[kumar402]

Where is always this 4k coming from? It IS 3k. Still friggin' a lot.

oh I went by a comment in the group.
3K ~4K is all same for me i.e out of reach

 

[raypin]

Mm....Love the color and design. It looks like caramel color to me. Love the Focal Utopia and Sony DMP Z1 pairing (my fave on the go, so far; spectacular pairing). Very interested.

As a first adopter of the Focal Utopia (at launch in 2016) and instantly fell in love with it (long before it made it in the Wall of Fame of Innerfidelity), I ve been looking for a closed-back version of the Utopia. Bought the Z1R and the HD 820. This could be what I am looking for.

 

[PeteSTRADAMUS]

We have had black on the Utopia, Elear, Elex, Elegia. Silver/grey on the Clear. And black with red pads on the Clear Pro. And now, finally.... A fourth color from Focal!

Some more pics:

See, looks nice! The crap photos I posted didn't do them justice.

 

[John Blackshear]

Very curious to see how these play out!

 

[Arthur Li]

Unlike Utopia, Stellia has pure copper voice coils (Utopia - Copper Clad Aluminum Wires). Wonder how this newly developed, much heavier voice coil interacts with pure beryllium diaphragm. Will it held back the BE diaphragm and results in loss in speed and dynamics? I hope not.

 

[ufospls2]

The real question is, is this driver limited by the mechanical clipping "protection" that the other focal headphones are. If it is, is it consistent between models, and does it get worse over time? I really enjoyed my Utopia, but it became pretty much unusable near the end due to this "feature."

 

[Arthur Li]

The real question is, is this driver limited by the mechanical clipping "protection" that the other focal headphones are. If it is, is it consistent between models, and does it get worse over time? I really enjoyed my Utopia, but it became pretty much unusable near the end due to this "feature."

Closed back design of Stellia, as opposed to the dipole design of Utopia, should means much less driver excursion is required to reproduce sub-sonics. As such, I don't think there is such a need to concern about clipping "protection" in the case of Stellia.

 

[JabenZ]

Compare to Utopia, it is a deal(“only” 3k, plus balanced cable, carrying bag). The appearance and the color is not my favor.

 

[RobertSM]

Outstanding video! I'm sold.

 

[PeteSTRADAMUS]

The real question is, is this driver limited by the mechanical clipping "protection" that the other focal headphones are. If it is, is it consistent between models, and does it get worse over time? I really enjoyed my Utopia, but it became pretty much unusable near the end due to this "feature."

Yep! And that's probably the only thing keeping from jumping to the other side of the fence. I will make sure to drop the bass Saturday and I get that dreaded brap,brap,brap noise. I'M DONE!