Far be it from me to stoke the fire, but in an attempt to put things into perspective, here are my .02.
The driver in the Utopia (and other Focal headphones) is indeed a proprietary technology the brand designed in-house. This is described in some degree of detail in their
Utopia & Elear Whitepaper, which states on page 9 it took them 2 years of R&D to develop the machine they use to shape beryllium into the dome they're using. It is my understanding that beryllium isn't the cheapest element one may use to manufacture headphone drivers, and headphones with beryllium drivers would therefore command a higher price than if they employed different/cheaper materials. Focal tops that with a proprietary dome design which is likely more expensive than an off-the-shelf driver one may purchase from Ali Express (I say "likely" because I don't actually know how much it costs to manufacture Focal's beryllium drivers.)
As an aside, Focal appears to employ proprietary manufacturing for all of their headphones. User oratory1990 (who, for those who don't know him, designs headphones for a living) briefly talks about it in
a post where he touches upon how AKG, Sennheiser, and Focal go about solving the dichotomy between the need for a soft driver that's easy to move and the need for a stiff driver that keeps HF distortion at bay.
In addition to the above, the Utopia provide a good-looking design, good build quality, and are designed
and manufactured in France (which means the cost of labor is higher—and I am more than willing to pay for it, as I personally consider outsourcing to low-income countries both short-sighted and unethical; YMMV.) Add to that the need for Focal to cover overhead costs such as marketing, accounting, legal, HR, etc. (all costs that wouldn't need covering if you built just one pair of headphones for yourself in your spare time), and I believe it is reasonable to expect a somewhat steep price for them.
You may still contend that $4k is too steep, and that's fair enough. It is Focal's prerogative to price their headphones at whatever level they want, and our prerogative as customers to vote with our wallet if we believe the price is unreasonable. However, there are a couple more considerations that I believe are worth making:
- A lot of people, myself included, paid a lower price than MSRP for the Utopia.
- In all fields, the MSRP for TOTL products from premium brands is subject to considerations that go beyond R&D and operational costs, to the point that it becomes a marketing tool more so than an equation to hit a target bottom line. By setting a higher barrier to entry by means of a steep MSRP, manufacturers create the psychological perception of an exclusive product for a select "lucky few", which contributes to making the product coveted. By contrast, setting the price too low may give the impression that your TOTL product isn't worth all that much, and vicariously so isn't the rest of your offerings. Bespeaking the status of the owner is inherent to the notion of TOTL, and I wouldn't be surprised if marketing considerations informed Focal's decision to price the Utopia at $4k.
Anyhow, my apologies for the long-winded monologue.
