[youurayy]

Ain't no "driver failure" until you have a Hazmat team cleaning your living room from Beryllium. /jk

 

[rgs9200m]

Thanks Jason for clearing that up. That's good to know about Sonus Faber.
And also thanks for being active on the forum. I think IMHO it's great to have dealers talk about their products since the more info I can get and evaluate, the better.
I wish more dealers would make themselves available in the forums for questions. It's a brave thing to do and a lot of work.

 

[TSAVJason]

Oh! I forgot to mention this for those of you in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. An existing dealer has decided to embrace the personal audio community similar to us by having an audition showroom. They are currently building their new store and it will include a pretty good start in personal audio gear.

The store is called Acoustic Designs. .......good people ....you guys in that area will enjoy the visit when their new showroom opens. Maybe get them as a local sponsor for your meets.

 

[up late]

Thanks Jason for clearing that up. That's good to know about Sonus Faber.
And also thanks for being active on the forum. I think IMHO it's great to have dealers talk about their products since the more info I can get and evaluate, the better.
I wish more dealers would make themselves available in the forums for questions. It's a brave thing to do and a lot of work.

there is a sponsor announcements and deals forum for that

 

[esauseesaw]

I had the Sonarworks measuring team here last week. As a result the Utopia will now be included in their range of profiles but also I have the headphones used for calibration available. Each has its own unique calibration ID, which can be used with their products to load the specific calibration for the headphone. If that's of any interest to anyone in the UK please PM me.

 

[ra990]

Just chiming in with my experience between HD800S and Utopia. With Utopia you get far better bass reaching very low while remaining very accurate across the entire frequency range. With HD800S, you get a massive soundstage and probably one of the most comfortable headphones out there. The general opinion of the Utopia being very dynamic and involving holds true as well. It easily won over the HD800S for me.

 

[LCMusicLover]

I had the Sonarworks measuring team here last week. As a result the Utopia will now be included in their range of profiles but also I have the headphones used for calibration available. Each has its own unique calibration ID, which can be used with their products to load the specific calibration for the headphone. If that's of any interest to anyone in the UK please PM me.

To be sure I understand, you are saying that they measured several pair of Utopia, and you have those sets with the associated calibrations available for sale, correct?

It would be interesting to know how much variation there is between the various sets' calibrations -- i.e., how much variability there is between Utopia instances. Also, how do they create the profile in their software? Take some average calibration derived from the individual calibrations they got from your sets?

 

[McMadface]

I haven't seen this posted in this thread yet, but the attached PDF contains the EQ settings that will get the Utopia to match the Harman Target Response Curve. u/Oratory1990 posted this on Reddit. He measured and confirmed the EQ settings using a GRAS 43. It seems to be pretty much what you would pay Sonarworks for, if I'm not mistaken. I've tried out the settings and they sound awesome. It's like having 2 sets of TOTL headphones -- the Utopia and a kick-ass Harman headphone.

 

[llamaluv]

I haven't seen this posted in this thread yet, but the attached PDF contains the EQ settings that will get the Utopia to match the Harman Target Response Curve. u/Oratory1990 posted this on Reddit.

Thanks for cross-posting this. I've been trying this out this evening and having a lot of fun with it.

It's funny, up til now I've frequently used a similar low-shelf filter on the bass on the Utopias, but only by +3dB. I've always known I've wanted more, but have been shy about going further than that due to some vague and misplaced "audiophile" notions. So this +5dB bass hump is kind of validating to me, and kind of frees me of such (silly) inhibitions on that score, heh.

 

[arnaud]

I wonder if we’ll see more dead drivers if people start boosting sub-bass like this. The suspension system of the utopia is perhaps one of the achievements of this driver but I’d be somewhat cautious applying this sort of eq given the issues reported here and then.

 

[McMadface]

Thanks for cross-posting this. I've been trying this out this evening and having a lot of fun with it.

It's funny, up til now I've frequently used a similar low-shelf filter on the bass on the Utopias, but only by +3dB. I've always known I've wanted more, but have been shy about going further than that due to some vague and misplaced "audiophile" notions. So this +5dB bass hump is kind of validating to me, and kind of frees me of such (silly) inhibitions on that score, heh.

I've been enjoying it and wanted to share, in case anyone missed it on Reddit. The 5 db shelf is from 60 hz down, so shouldn't affect the overall balance too much. I gotta say that the sound with this EQ profile reminds me of an LCD-4 but without more punch.

 

[JimL11]

I agree with @arnaud. Remember that driver excursion for the same power input increases as the frequency decreases - in fact, for each octave decrease the excursion increases four fold. Further, a +3dB boost is double the power and +5dB boost is triple the power, so boosting the bass really exercises the driver, and can possibly overdrive it.

 

[McMadface]

I wonder if we’ll see more dead drivers if people start boosting sub-bass like this. The suspension system of the utopia is perhaps one of the achievements of this driver but I’d be somewhat cautious applying this sort of eq given the issues reported here and then.

It's +5 db, so I wouldn't be worried too much unless you're really cranking the volume with this setup. Even then, you should be inducing the "dreaded" mechanical clipping before you do damage to the surrounds. I'll admit that I have absolutely nothing to back that claim up but so far everything has been good.

 

[llamaluv]

Ugh, a 5dB bass boost leading to an increased the risk of driver failure would constitute a pretty serious design fail, IMO.

 

[bfreedma]

Ugh, a 5dB bass boost leading to an increased the risk of driver failure would constitute a pretty serious design fail, IMO.

Better to cut rather than boost with eq. Why not leave the low shelf at 0db gain and cut all of the other frequencies 5db from the current settings?