[montanari]

This is a nice one!
One of the bests!

 

[Trance_Gott]

I wanted to buy an Utopia. Prefer location EU. Send me offers.
One question: What about the 5 years guarantee. Do I need the original invoice from the pre owner or not?

 

[Audio Addict]

I wanted to buy an Utopia. Prefer location EU. Send me offers.
One question: What about the 5 years guarantee. Do I need the original invoice from the pre owner or not?

I had to get a RMA from my dealer and include a copy of the original sales receipt to send mine in for repair to Focal. If you buy used, I am not sure how this works. For now the 5 year time period isn't a problem but after 2021 how would you prove they are under 5 years old?

 

[llamaluv]

Here's something I wanted to raise for other owners' consideration, seeing how many Utopias out there must be going on 2-3+ years in age:

When I recently popped out my old pads in order to replace them with some new ones, I discovered a sticky/gooey substance on the exposed inside part of the drivers, around the flat ring-shaped surface that makes contact with the pads. This was easy enough to rub off.

The same sticky stuff was on the flat inside surface of the outgoing, original pads. It kind of looks like oil or grease in the pic:

I proceeded to try to rub this out, too, as described above. Turns out the sticky substance is coming from the pads themselves, and I ended up causing this (mostly) cosmetic damage:

The flat ring-shaped surface there seems like it's just regular hard plastic, but on closer inspection, is slightly soft to the touch. And possibly degrades over time, turning sticky (??).

My current thinking is that this isn't unique to my pads, as a friend of mine had discovered the sticky stuff on his old pair as well, and had no clue where it had come from.

[EDIT] Anecdotally, my first pair of Utopias (which I used throughout the year 2018 before I sold them) never showed any residue, and I remember pulling out the pads on two or three occasions.

Anyway, others may want to give their pads/drivers a quick inspection as well...

 

[Tobes]

Here's something I wanted to raise for other owners' consideration, seeing how many Utopias out there must be going on 2-3+ years in age:

When I recently popped out my old pads in order to replace them with some new ones, I discovered a sticky/gooey substance on the exposed inside part of the drivers, around the flat ring-shaped surface that makes contact with the pads. This was easy enough to rub off.

The same sticky stuff was on the flat inside surface of the outgoing, original pads. It kind of looks like oil or grease in the pic:



I proceeded to try to rub this out, too, as described above. Turns out the sticky substance is coming from the pads themselves, and I ended up causing this (mostly) cosmetic damage:



The flat ring-shaped surface there seems like it's just regular hard plastic, but on closer inspection, is slightly soft to the touch. And possibly degrades over time, turning sticky (??).

My current thinking is that this isn't unique to my pads, as a friend of mine had discovered the sticky stuff on his old pair as well, and had no clue where it had come from.

Anyway, others may want to give their pads/drivers a quick inspection as well...

Yep, discovered the same thing myself a few months ago.
Like you say, it appears to a breakdown of the pad surface where it meets the headphone.
I don't think its likely to migrate to the driver area but disappointing nonetheless.

 

[dontfeedphils]

Here's something I wanted to raise for other owners' consideration, seeing how many Utopias out there must be going on 2-3+ years in age:

When I recently popped out my old pads in order to replace them with some new ones, I discovered a sticky/gooey substance on the exposed inside part of the drivers, around the flat ring-shaped surface that makes contact with the pads. This was easy enough to rub off.

The same sticky stuff was on the flat inside surface of the outgoing, original pads. It kind of looks like oil or grease in the pic:



I proceeded to try to rub this out, too, as described above. Turns out the sticky substance is coming from the pads themselves, and I ended up causing this (mostly) cosmetic damage:



The flat ring-shaped surface there seems like it's just regular hard plastic, but on closer inspection, is slightly soft to the touch. And possibly degrades over time, turning sticky (??).

My current thinking is that this isn't unique to my pads, as a friend of mine had discovered the sticky stuff on his old pair as well, and had no clue where it had come from.

Anyway, others may want to give their pads/drivers a quick inspection as well...

That's strange. I just changed my pads after 3 years of ownership and didn't see anything like this.

 

[puppypatrol]

Yep, discovered the same thing myself a few months ago.
Like you say, it appears to a breakdown of the pad surface where it meets the headphone.
I don't think its likely to migrate to the driver area but disappointing nonetheless.

I saw this too, mine had so much goo and sticky substance i couldn't get it all off - tried washing the pads too, left most of the goo on the headphone and decided to live with it hoping it didn't seep out further onto the pads - but yeah, disappointing.

 

[ev666il]

The sticky goo has to be the glue that keeps the pad attached to the layer underneath it that plugs into the headphone. If that layer is not plastic and is subject to wear over time, it may wear to the point of tearing and let the glue out.

 

[PaulMiami]

Recently swapped my Sony TA-ZH1ES for a Focal Arche. To my ears, the Utopias do sound better with the Arche. There is more texture to the music. Vocals are very natural. Bass is powerful and more present. Treble is detailed and smooth. Arche is fed by microRendu USB running Roon.

 

[Hoegaardener70]

[

... the Utopias do sound better with the Arche. There is more texture to the music. Vocals are very natural. Bass is powerful and more present. Treble is detailed and smooth.

Agreed. With my lesser but very good DAC (ifi micro BL), the Utopia can sound harsh and shrill. With the Arche, all is smooth and more balanced . Great device for the price (even with mrsp).

 

[PaulMiami]

It took a bit work to get the microRendu working with the Arche, but after updating the Arche firmware and setting it up as a Custom DAC on the microRend, it works perfectly, but limited to only to sample rate 192khz. Im quite positively surprised with just how good the Arch/Utopias sounds. At some point I will try the Arche just as an amp with my Berkeley Reference DAC. The Berkeley DAC surely was better than the Sony. That said, the Utopias on the Arche are extremely synergistic. Truly a match.

 

[LCMusicLover]

Here's something I wanted to raise for other owners' consideration, seeing how many Utopias out there must be going on 2-3+ years in age:

When I recently popped out my old pads in order to replace them with some new ones, I discovered a sticky/gooey substance on the exposed inside part of the drivers, around the flat ring-shaped surface that makes contact with the pads. This was easy enough to rub off.

The same sticky stuff was on the flat inside surface of the outgoing, original pads ...

No goo on my exactly 3 years-old set — just checked.

 

[supermj]

It took a bit work to get the microRendu working with the Arche, but after updating the Arche firmware and setting it up as a Custom DAC on the microRend, it works perfectly, but limited to only to sample rate 192khz. Im quite positively surprised with just how good the Arch/Utopias sounds. At some point I will try the Arche just as an amp with my Berkeley Reference DAC. The Berkeley DAC surely was better than the Sony. That said, the Utopias on the Arche are extremely synergistic. Truly a match.

Has there been a recent firmware update ? Could you tell what the firmware update number is ? Mine is 01.01.08 I have to turn mine on and off a couple of times (not good for electronics) to make it connect to a computer or a DAP either with USB or Toslink. It's a bug that Focal know about and are supposed to be sorting it.

 

[PaulMiami]

Yes I have that same firmware.

 

[PaulMiami]

Does the Focal Arche have MQA support? Also is it 24 or 32 bit?