[TSAVJason]

The perfectly good (strange for me : it can be perfect, it can be good, but perfectly good, my English is not good enough), that's your opinion, and obviously not the opinion of other members who struggle finding a better one. This is not a question of preference : and equipment has to transmit as neutrally as possible what's on the source.

I don't care about the way it looks, my only opinion is how it sounds. I would like it with cold shredded or molded (which implies to avoid any heat soldering) with 4 points terminaisons, silver platted OCC rather than mere OFC. Why doesn't hat make sense ? OCC instead of OFC should be an evidence for a $4K headphone. And why other cables wouldn't sound better ?

If we go further (may be there's already a thread or it might be interesting to open), it seems obvious that not normalised headphone terminaisons is quite a problem : the cable one owes almost stuck you to a brand or even a model (can't plug an HD650 cable on an HD700). If there were only 2-4 terminaisons availables, it would help greatly to compare cables and to change headphones without extra cost.

If only a good cable manufacturer used a design similar to the Atlas speaker transpose plugs, that would be a big step and hudge savings for cable owners. But that's a dream.

This isn’t a challenge it’s a curiosity.

Why does an amp or a DAC or a player or wire need to be neutral? I love perfection or being genuinely happy with something. But what does neutral have to do with it?

If you love it and it gets you enjoying the music ......why does it matter if it’s neutral or not? Why does anyone have to follow a set of guidelines created by other people? What’s wrong with enjoying what you like rather than look for that unknown audio nirvana? Isn’t nirvana by definition an all incompassing pleasure from enjoying something? So does your audio pleasure or nirvana need to be neutral?

 

[mulveling]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the new Utopia. Unfortunately, I temporarily owned two Utopias - one brand new right out of box, another almost year old with ~ 500 hours - and I swear they sounded almost exactly alike each other, even from hour 1 on the new pair. I feel that any minor differences between the 2 could be fully accounted for by pad conditioning. Maybe you're having fit/seal issues?

My 1st experience with Utopias was my dealer's demo pair late last year - which makes the 3rd pair I've heard, and it sounded just like the other 2 pairs. I heard that one with the stock cable from the jack of a Naim integrated, and it still impressed the hell out of me, enough that I bought in despite already owning a Stax 009 + BHSE.

 

[495045]

This isn’t a challenge it’s a curiosity.

Why does an amp or a DAC or a player or wire need to be neutral? I love perfection or being genuinely happy with something. But what does neutral have to do with it?

If you love it and it gets you enjoying the music ......why does it matter if it’s neutral or not? What’s wrong with enjoying what you like rather than look for that unknown audio nirvana? Isn’t nirvana by definition an all incompassing pleasure from enjoying something? So does your audio pleasure or nirvana need to be neutral?

Yep, there is the difference between audiophile and melomane.
An audiophile usually refers to a Hi-Fi enthusiast but whose goal may deviate from a high-fidelity quest to the one that is essentially subjective in terms of hearing satisfaction.
a melomane will want to hear the music as it was played or as the artist validated it, which means faithfully reproduced (well as much as possible as it is a Grall quest) which implies that the equipment doen't has to add or remove anything and most of all shouldn't force the listener to accept those changes. If the listener wants to do so, they are many equipments for that such as equalizers but the result must be the sum of the "corrections" made by the audiophile.

May be that if I hadn't spent thousand of hours sweating off fighting with my piano, I would be an audiophile. But I'm a melomane as I respects other musicians much more skilled than I am and who spend hours working on just a bar, trying to get what they consider as the right sound. A violinist will want to hear a flat as minus 4 comas and a sharp as plus 5 comas.

It's rather strange than ater having spent 46 years building equipments (which equipment you built would you think to be closed of the perfection you love ?) you're don't understand "Why does anyone have to follow a set of guidelines created by other people?". Because those people where artists and wanted their work to sound one way and not another. That's might be why you never reached the nirvana.

Both points of view are equally respectable IMHO, but shouldn't be part of this thread.

 

[up late]

The perfectly good (strange for me : it can be perfect, it can be good, but perfectly good, my English is not good enough), that's your opinion, and obviously not the opinion of other members who struggle finding a better one. This is not a question of preference : and equipment has to transmit as neutrally as possible what's on the source.

I don't care about the way it looks, my only opinion is how it sounds. I would like it with cold shredded or molded (which implies to avoid any heat soldering) with 4 points terminaisons, silver platted OCC rather than mere OFC. Why doesn't hat make sense ? OCC instead of OFC should be an evidence for a $4K headphone. And why other cables wouldn't sound better ?

If we go further (may be there's already a thread or it might be interesting to open), it seems obvious that not normalised headphone terminaisons is quite a problem : the cable one owes almost stuck you to a brand or even a model (can't plug an HD650 cable on an HD700). If there were only 2-4 terminaisons availables, it would help greatly to compare cables and to change headphones without extra cost.

If only a good cable manufacturer used a design similar to the Atlas speaker transpose plugs, that would be a big step and hudge savings for cable owners. But that's a dream.

with respect, all you are doing here is expressing your own subjective opinions and personal preferences, which are no more factually correct or valid than anyone else's

 

[up late]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the new Utopia. Unfortunately, I temporarily owned two Utopias - one brand new right out of box, another almost year old with ~ 500 hours - and I swear they sounded almost exactly alike each other, even from hour 1 on the new pair. I feel that any minor differences between the 2 could be fully accounted for by pad conditioning. Maybe you're having fit/seal issues?

My 1st experience with Utopias was my dealer's demo pair late last year - which makes the 3rd pair I've heard, and it sounded just like the other 2 pairs. I heard that one with the stock cable from the jack of a Naim integrated, and it still impressed the hell out of me, enough that I bought in despite already owning a Stax 009 + BHSE.

i've listened to three different utopia's - two store demo models and my own, and didn't notice any apparent differences in how they sounded

 

[TSAVJason]

Yep, there is the difference between audiophile and melomane.
An audiophile usually refers to a Hi-Fi enthusiast but whose goal may deviate from a high-fidelity quest to the one that is essentially subjective in terms of hearing satisfaction.
a melomane will want to hear the music as it was played or as the artist validated it, which means faithfully reproduced (well as much as possible as it is a Grall quest) which implies that the equipment doen't has to add or remove anything and most of all shouldn't force the listener to accept those changes. If the listener wants to do so, they are many equipments for that such as equalizers but the result must be the sum of the "corrections" made by the audiophile.

May be that if I hadn't spent thousand of hours sweating off fighting with my piano, I would be an audiophile. But I'm a melomane as I respects other musicians much more skilled than I am and who spend hours working on just a bar, trying to get what they consider as the right sound. A violinist will want to hear a flat as minus 4 comas and a sharp as plus 5 comas.

It's rather strange than ater having spent 46 years building equipments (which equipment you built would you think to be closed of the perfection you love ?) you're don't understand "Why does anyone have to follow a set of guidelines created by other people?". Because those people where artists and wanted their work to sound one way and not another. That's might be why you never reached the nirvana.

Both points of view are equally respectable IMHO, but shouldn't be part of this thread.

I’ll accept your answer but I do still pose the questions as they are.

Let me give you just a slice of my backround. I’m a classically trained bassist with a graduate degree in comp and theory, I’m also a graduate in electronic engineering. I’ve been behind both recording consoles and live sound consoles since I was 16. That’s 50 years.

My point is no 2 sets of ears hear the same thing the same way. So how does one know if they are hearing it as the true sound. You can’t, other than to trust your ears are creating the relevance you seek. A meter doesn’t tell you how things sound. A graph can’t tell you how things sound. So when you think about it it’s really on you and your ears. Pitch is different that is a frequency that is absolute but can still be heard differently but with the recognition that it is harmonically correct or not with other frequencies

 

[doraymon]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the new Utopia. Unfortunately, I temporarily owned two Utopias - one brand new right out of box, another almost year old with ~ 500 hours - and I swear they sounded almost exactly alike each other, even from hour 1 on the new pair. I feel that any minor differences between the 2 could be fully accounted for by pad conditioning. Maybe you're having fit/seal issues?

My 1st experience with Utopias was my dealer's demo pair late last year - which makes the 3rd pair I've heard, and it sounded just like the other 2 pairs. I heard that one with the stock cable from the jack of a Naim integrated, and it still impressed the hell out of me, enough that I bought in despite already owning a Stax 009 + BHSE.

With the dealer's help I will try to test another new pair of Utopia just out of the box and see if they sound the same as mine.
If like the dealer says it's run-in, than another pair new out of the box should sound the same as mine...

 

[up late]

i stand by my comment,i venture to say the cable costs them less than 40 bucks

it's easy to stand by a comment when you are not required to substantiate it, but you appear to be passing off your opinion as fact. can you provide evidence in support of your claim?

 

[TSAVJason]

With the dealer's help I will try to test another new pair of Utopia just out of the box and see if they sound the same as mine.
If like the dealer says it's run-in, than another pair new out of the box should sound the same as mine...

They should sound close but because one is brand new and yours has hours on it there could be a difference burn in occurs in stages not just one big door opening however it is common to hear the final step of burn in more dramatically

 

[495045]

I’ll accept your answer but I do still pose the questions as they are.

Let me give you just a slice of my backround. I’m a classically trained bassist with a graduate degree in comp and theory, I’m also a graduate in electronic engineering. I’ve been behind both recording consoles and live sound consoles since I was 16. That’s 50 years.

My point is no 2 sets of ears hear the same thing the same way. So how does one know if they are hearing it as the true sound. You can’t, other than to trust your ears are creating the relevance you seek. A meter doesn’t tell you how things sound. A graph can’t tell you how things sound. So when you think about it it’s really on you and your ears. Pitch is different that is a frequency that is absolute but can still be heard differently but with the recognition that it is harmonically correct or not with other frequencies

Once again, this is not the right thread. Graduated ? Which level ? How does one know if they are hearing the sound that was accepted by the artist ? If you don't know, what were you doing behind the consoles ! A graph can't show anything. But let's respect other members and keep to the subject. Thanx

I won't answer any of your messages not related to this thread.

 

[495045]

with respect, all you are doing here is expressing your own subjective opinions and personal preferences, which are no more factually correct or valid than anyone else's

You right, they are no more nor less factually correct and valid than yours or any other membre.

 

[PeteSTRADAMUS]

Looks like I'm going to back the good old Utopia. My 4z experiment is coming to an end. The female vocals make my ears sensitive. I don't know what it is. And the headphones sounded better out of my phone over using my Mojo. Very weird, the bass was excellent but the highs weren't for me. Sucks otherwise they were pretty good.

 

[BunnyNamedCraig]

Yeah, maybe in another life... It's nearly impossible. The wife is complaining about "do we really have to hear this the whole day?"
Also, with my 1.5 YO little devil around it would take him 30 seconds to find them, pull them out of the cabinet (preferably dragging my $10k Dave on the floor) and chew both pads as a teething exercise...

No, not an option. I live in a city where space is a luxury and my HiFi cabinet space is a 1sqm corner in the living room...

Don't forget y'all you can wrap your cans in a blanket and let em burn in without having to hear them in the next room. I know that you are trying a different set of Utopia ect now, just a thought for everyone since you brought it up.

Happy wife= Happy life.

 

[BunnyNamedCraig]

Looks like I'm going to back the good old Utopia. My 4z experiment is coming to an end. The female vocals make my ears sensitive. I don't know what it is. And the headphones sounded better out of my phone over using my Mojo. Very weird, the bass was excellent but the highs weren't for me. Sucks otherwise they were pretty good.

Thats fascinating... Not trying to beat a dead horse here but is there any way that burn in would help the hot treble come down enough? Or would that still not be enough for your ears?

 

[336881]

Do you guys think it's acceptable that I haven't received any reply after two messages to Focal where I was enquiring about some doubts I had with the burn in of my cans?
I am really, really upset with this behaviour.
We're here debating about a ton of legitimate question marks about Focal's policy (stock cable, no case, non transferable warranty etc..) and of top of that these guys dare to completely ignore a customer who purchased a headphone costing almost like a bloody city car.
Am I the only one who had problems getting an answer from Focal's customer service?

What you are really upset about is peanuts compared to other companies. Look up He1k bait and switch or just HFM as a whole. Audeze building heavier and heavier headphones. Look at JPS labs with a $6k planar with a $2k cable that makes nil difference. Even Stax had massive problems with Yama and price japan.

Sennheiser is your best bet if this really upsets you but I would not buy anything post beats/ hd800. They turned urbanite after the hd800 and while I'm sure you will get great customer service from them you will get a dud product if it is post hd800. Even the new baby Orpheus I'm fully expecting to be a dud.