[montanari]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1Pc-Headse...hash=item51fa7712b6:m:mTUJoAk8rwV55HtsEe2kQpg
so it doesn t get dirty+you improve a little the comfort

 

[SteveM324]

What are you trying to protect it from? It’s fine as it is.

I agree it’s fine as is. I’ve had my Utopia for over 3 years and it shows no wear at all. I clean the pads and headband several times a year with a leather cleaner/preservative. That’s all you need to do.

 

[PaulMiami]

If anyone is reading this thread and thinking about buying a Utopia, rest assured you don’t need a $4k DAC to optimize performance. Rather far from it.

The Utopia are relatively easy to drive, to me they sound surprisingly good even on my iPhone on the Qbuz app. That said, they are very transparent and will reveal flaws upstream.

I use them now mostly on a Sony TAZ, but I also have a Berkeley Reference DAC for my speaker system driving a Gilmore Lite Mk2. The Berkeley is surely more transparent than the Sony, more “black” space between notes is very easy to hear. That said, the Utopina sound great with the Sony, just slightly muddled compared with the Berkeley. I’d say with my iPhone I’d give it a 7.5 of 10, the Sony an 8.5, the $20,000 Berkeley 9.5.

Just as a comparison, my speakers are TAD R1s with Constellation Performance Mono amps. Before that I had Mágico Q5s. The Utopia outperform both speakers in terms of transparency, even with an iPhone driving them. They are quite amazing.

 

[montanari]

Great speaker you have
The Best I ever listen

 

[Neilsoto30]

Hi, guys. I just bought a lightly used focal arche and utopia bundle. I'm using it with a supra USB cable, and its connected to a 2019 razer blade pro gaming laptop with 64gb ram, a rtx 2080, and 3tb ssd that has about 300gb of hi res audio on it. I was wondering if anyone with the utopia-arche setup could chime in? I purchased it on ebay and just wanna make sure everything is okay with it. So I have it on high gain. I realized this issue a few days ago: when I turn up the volume to 65 or above, I hear this sound as the bass hits, almost like it hits twice where it's supposed to hit once. It's almost like a double sound on certain bassy notes. It doesn't happen on all songs. I don't know if it's distortion?? But it doesn't sound staticky. Now I listen to the setup with the laptop's volume all the way up, and I adjust the volume on the arche as needed. But of course 65+ is way too loud for regular listening. I listen more in the range of 20-42. As others with the focal arche know, it goes up to 100. Is this some type of audio clipping? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a ton, guys.

P.S. it may not just be on bass notes, it may be on treble, too. To be honest, I'm note entirely sure.

 

[supervisor]

Hi, guys. I just bought a lightly used focal arche and utopia bundle. I'm using it with a supra USB cable, and its connected to a 2019 razer blade pro gaming laptop with 64gb ram, a rtx 2080, and 3tb ssd that has about 300gb of hi res audio on it. I was wondering if anyone with the utopia-arche setup could chime in? I purchased it on ebay and just wanna make sure everything is okay with it. So I have it on high gain. I realized this issue a few days ago: when I turn up the volume to 65 or above, I hear this sound as the bass hits, almost like it hits twice where it's supposed to hit once. It's almost like a double sound on certain bassy notes. It doesn't happen on all songs. I don't know if it's distortion?? But it doesn't sound staticky. Now I listen to the setup with the laptop's volume all the way up, and I adjust the volume on the arche as needed. But of course 65+ is way too loud for regular listening. I listen more in the range of 20-42. As others with the focal arche know, it goes up to 100. Is this some type of audio clipping? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a ton, guys.

P.S. it may not just be on bass notes, it may be on treble, too. To be honest, I'm note entirely sure.

you don’t say what app you are using to play music

 

[Neilsoto30]

you don’t say what app you are using to play music

Good point, I'm using AIMP.

 

[Neilsoto30]

In case anyone else ever has this problem, I spoke to Focal today about it. They said that this is normal, but that I should immediately refrain from turning them up to those levels because it causes the headphones to overdrive, leading to permanent damage to the drivers. They said this is something that especially affects open back headphones. Cheers.

 

[up late]

this issue has been reported before in the thread and seems to be caused by driver excursion. the drivers in the utopia behave like long throw loud speaker drivers. you can see the driver in action at the 18.51 minute mark of jude's video.

 

[dontfeedphils]

Hi, guys. I just bought a lightly used focal arche and utopia bundle. I'm using it with a supra USB cable, and its connected to a 2019 razer blade pro gaming laptop with 64gb ram, a rtx 2080, and 3tb ssd that has about 300gb of hi res audio on it. I was wondering if anyone with the utopia-arche setup could chime in? I purchased it on ebay and just wanna make sure everything is okay with it. So I have it on high gain. I realized this issue a few days ago: when I turn up the volume to 65 or above, I hear this sound as the bass hits, almost like it hits twice where it's supposed to hit once. It's almost like a double sound on certain bassy notes. It doesn't happen on all songs. I don't know if it's distortion?? But it doesn't sound staticky. Now I listen to the setup with the laptop's volume all the way up, and I adjust the volume on the arche as needed. But of course 65+ is way too loud for regular listening. I listen more in the range of 20-42. As others with the focal arche know, it goes up to 100. Is this some type of audio clipping? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a ton, guys.

P.S. it may not just be on bass notes, it may be on treble, too. To be honest, I'm note entirely sure.

Any reason you're using high gain? Can't imagine you need it for the Utopia.

 

[Neilsoto30]

Any reason you're using high gain? Can't imagine you need it for the Utopia.

no particular reason, other than being able to move the knob less to get to and from lower levels. Does running on high gain affect either the utopia or arche negatively? Thanks for the help

 

[dontfeedphils]

no particular reason, other than being able to move the knob less to get to and from lower levels. Does running on high gain affect either the utopia or arche negatively? Thanks for the help

Rule of thumb is to stick with low until you run out of volume adjustment, then move up to high if needed. Less distortion/noise I suppose.

 

[Neilsoto30]

ok, great. thanks for the advice. will definitely begin to use it.

 

[paul30d]

Rule of thumb is to stick with low until you run out of volume adjustment, then move up to high if needed. Less distortion/noise I suppose.

I have never seen the arche. But I thought it had a specific setting optimised for each of the focal headphone models. So you might want to find the utopia setting and use that.

 

[up late]

^ that's my understanding as well