[boomtube]

When I first listened to my brand new Utopia's...I was not impressed. Now 250 hrs later w/a nice custom cable, I am in sonic utopia for a few hrs after work. The burn in is so necessary with these,...once they open up they're phenomenal HP's!

 

[Whitigir]

Wear and tears happen, period.

 

[Allanmarcus]

When I first listened to my brand new Utopia's...I was not impressed. Now 250 hrs later w/a nice custom cable, I am in sonic utopia for a few hrs after work. The burn in is so necessary with these,...once they open up they're phenomenal HP's!

Please try this for me, as a favor. Try the original cable for week and see if don't love the headphones just as much.

 

[zachawry]

Please try this for me, as a favor. Try the original cable for week and see if don't love the headphones just as much.

I got my 3rd party cable about a week ago. I intend to do some serious A/B-ing later, but the Utopia is so much nicer without a firehose coiled up around my gear and my chair that I definitely enjoy using the headphone a lot more now.

The stock headphone is just a constant pain in the @#$ that, to my mind, just makes the Utopia less than pleasant to use. This is all the more apparent when you start using something of sane length.

Don't know what they were thinking.

 

[BunnyNamedCraig]

To my knowledge (and please have someone correct me if I am wrong) but I thought the super long cord was more utilized in Europe and that was their driving force for making it so long? Forget where I heard that but it was something I do remember hearing from someone. Mind you that our Demo Utopia has the Nordost Heimdall 2 cable on it, and it's not coming off ha. So I am not an advocate for the long cable personally.

 

[Allanmarcus]

To my knowledge (and please have someone correct me if I am wrong) but I thought the super long cord was more utilized in Europe and that was their driving force for making it so long? Forget where I heard that but it was something I do remember hearing from someone. Mind you that our Demo Utopia has the Nordost Heimdall 2 cable on it, and it's not coming off ha. So I am not an advocate for the long cable personally.

I also believe in England they switch the left and right channel, but only when driving!

 

[twsmith]

To my knowledge (and please have someone correct me if I am wrong) but I thought the super long cord was more utilized in Europe and that was their driving force for making it so long? Forget where I heard that but it was something I do remember hearing from someone. Mind you that our Demo Utopia has the Nordost Heimdall 2 cable on it, and it's not coming off ha. So I am not an advocate for the long cable personally.

I believe that the Utopias being shipped now are coming with a shorter stock cable -- I got mine about a month ago, and I can attest that the cable really is shorter. In a previous post, I commented that the stock cable is very good indeed. I have continued to evaluate possible differences between a Kimber Axios cable (balanced, copper) and the stock cable, and have concluded that it really boils down to personal preference -- sometimes I like to use the Axios and vice versa. I do not feel that the single-ended stock cable degrades the sound in any way, and again would highly recommend using it while the phones and cable are breaking in before moving on to a third party cable. I do feel that the Axios could have a very slightly more "colored" sound, especially in its midrange presentation, conveying an impression of more warmth and presence, and possibly slightly attenuating the higher treble (but without removing detail)...which may in fact work better with some recorded material. In this regard, I think the stock cable may be the more neutral of the two cables, but again a lot depends on system synergy, personal preference and the source material itself.

 

[Allanmarcus]

If anyone wants their stock cable shortened and/or re-terminated, it's quite easy with a soldering iron. Connectors are not expensive (unless you want them to be). Shortening the stock cable to 5-7 feet, re-terminating it balanced, then making a balanced to SE adapter from the leftover cable is rather easy. I'd be happy to this for anyone that wants it, for the cost of shipping and materials. 4-pin XLR connectors cost about $5 shipped (to the US) from Markertek.com. Of course you can pay a lot more with brands like furutech.

 

[twsmith]

If anyone wants their stock cable shortened and/or re-terminated, it's quite easy with a soldering iron. Connectors are not expensive (unless you want them to be). Shortening the stock cable to 5-7 feet, re-terminating it balanced, then making a balanced to SE adapter from the leftover cable is rather easy. I'd be happy to this for anyone that wants it, for the cost of shipping and materials. 4-pin XLR connectors cost about $5 shipped (to the US) from Markertek.com. Of course you can pay a lot more with brands like furutech.

I feel that using the stock cable single-ended actually works very well, and I'm not sure you really need to re-terminate it to 4 pin XLR for balanced drive. I think some headphones (HD800/s) really do benefit when driven balanced, however the low impedance and relatively high sensitivity of the Utopia probably makes the differences between single-ended and balanced drive much less important. But again this is just my opinion. This may also depend on the HP amp being used -- some balanced amps have a poorly-implemented single-ended output, in which case, balanced drive may be preferred. It's worth commenting that people who have been using the Utopia straight from the single-ended HP output of dacs such as the Chord DAVE have consistently praised the SQ of the Utopia.

 

[astrostar59]

May I ask you the type of music you usually listen to? I do not hear any clipping on say an accoustic jazz double bass ... but definitly on synthetized ones as on Bjork's tune

I recall reading this 'issue' a bit back from another poster on this forum. Maybe try and search that out to compare notes?

 

[Allanmarcus]

I recall reading this 'issue' a bit back from another poster on this forum. Maybe try and search that out to compare notes?

IIRC, the issue was using EQ to boost the bass caused clipping. The answer was to turn down the master volume in the software EQ. I'm not sure that applies here.

 

[GryphonGuy]

I feel that using the stock cable single-ended actually works very well, and I'm not sure you really need to re-terminate it to 4 pin XLR for balanced drive. I think some headphones (HD800/s) really do benefit when driven balanced, however the low impedance and relatively high sensitivity of the Utopia probably makes the differences between single-ended and balanced drive much less important. But again this is just my opinion. This may also depend on the HP amp being used -- some balanced amps have a poorly-implemented single-ended output, in which case, balanced drive may be preferred. It's worth commenting that people who have been using the Utopia straight from the single-ended HP output of dacs such as the Chord DAVE have consistently praised the SQ of the Utopia.

I am one such DAVE+Utopia owner and just last night, listening to Dire Straits Brothers' in Arms album, some of the drum strikes were so palpable it made me wince and lower the volume by 2 db or so to relieve the feeling of sitting a couple of feet away from the drummer really pounding those drums for effect. So extraordinary is the DAVE by itself - I wonder what the Blu2 added to the mix would be. But I digress and this is not that forum.

Cheers
GG

 

[rthomas]

Dear Jason or Team Focal,

I have heard that Focal will not repair second hand Utopias for the second owner even if he is willing to pay.

Could you please check with them if this is the official policy?

I would also like to know how much a single driver replacement costs for this headphone.

It took me 30 seconds to find out from Sennheiser that they charge $340 for single or double driver replacement. I called Focal in the UK but they did not know.

These two pieces of information would be helpful for all of us considering used Utopias.

Thank you

I'm still waiting for a reply, this seems to be a straightforward question.......Anyone affiliated with Focal on here?

 

[Allanmarcus]

I'm still waiting for a reply, this seems to be a straightforward question.......Anyone affiliated with Focal on here?

I'm pretty sure Focal doesn't offer direct customer support. All the support is through your dealer. Even if you purchased it second hand, you should have a receipt with dealer info on it. When I registered my Utopia I received a "certificate" via email. It say, in part:

The certificate of warranty in attachment and the original purchase invoice must be retained in order to be presented to the dealer, in case of assistance or a customer service request.

Conditions of warranty
All Focal loudspeakers are covered by warranty drawn up by the official Focal distributor in your country. Your distributor can provide all details concerning the conditions of warranty. warranty cover extends at least to that granted by the legal warranty in force in the country where the original purchase invoice was issued.

In my case my distributor was Headroom, which has gone out of business, so I have no idea who to contact in case I need support. Also note that the warranty certificate I received states the warranty period is 2 years.

Bottom line, call the retailer the Utopia was purchased from and ask them for a copy of the warranty.

 

[TSAVJason]

I'm still waiting for a reply, this seems to be a straightforward question.......Anyone affiliated with Focal on here?

Focal or any Focal authorized service center will service the headphones regardless of how it was purchased as long as it's not a stolen unit. If you are not the original purchaser you will likely pay for service.

With that said, if it comes from a distributor that has a different policy than Focal it may require a little more effort to get a repair.