Focal Utopia Review (collective stream of consciousness)

Well, honestly, the thing is... most of the "over-reaction" with regards to the Z1R has to do with its price, or at least that's what I would nitpick first and foremost.

While I agree with you that the Z1R is not as bad as people are making it out to be, for the asking price ($2000), it should be far better than what it is.

Sony has a weird tendency to get some things right, and then some others are just off. For instance: I have their Sony NW-ZX2 DAP, and the DAP has weird software tweaks that you can't very easily disable... and that take away from what the hardware is truly capable of.

The Z1R is just the same for me: I enjoy its tonal balance, and it does get a few things right (not amazingly so, though), and then there are things that are just off/weird. For the asking price, again, it should be far better. Honestly, while I like it, I think Z1R is beat at certain aspects by some other headphones that are cheaper.

I would also complain about Utopia the same way, but considering that it's amazing at certain things, its strengths make up for its price tag. I don't think the Z1R has any strength over anything in its price bracket, or even under, so that's why it's taken that way. I have actually talked to some Sony people about this, and they generally agree with me that the tuning of their gears has this weird tendency to go "bad." I think they're probably trying to figure things out still, and they're afraid to "go all the way."

For myself, honestly, I like Z1R but I don't think it's a "success" per se. There is still more that can be done with it. It's still not up there with R10, and yah, I've heard R10 as well. Z1R is still very far from reaching the levels of R10.

 

Not sure I can totally agree with all of your thoughts, but that is the nature of subjectivity right? First up I would have to point out that the Z1R street price landed below $2000 frequently enough that I would have to think it should be regarded as retailing below $2000, some people on head-fi paid well below $1500 so that certainly helps the value proposition. I haven't owned enough breadth of gear to be as well versed as some, but I have owned LCD 2 (2016), HE 560, HE 400i, TH 900, TH600, ZMF Vibro X, HD 800S, HD 650, HD 600 and others, and I feel that in some areas the Z1R was quite brilliant. I had it for quite a long period of time so many hours with it to form that opinion. Again, that is of course purely subjective and for me I felt that if I had to pay about $1500 US for it, that would be comfortable enough. The Utopia, certainly with my limited time I wouldn't mind sinking say $2000 for it, but beyond that, well, getting hard to justify.

I do agree that Sony needs to take their tuning to that final place where they dare to stand toe to toe with the likes of the Utopia or LCD 4, HE 1000V2 etc. Certainly the Z1R could have been significantly improved if that odd spike from 3kHz -4kHz was eliminated (although oddly I didn't get bothered by it much so perhaps I have a deficiency in that range?). I think that with that fix alone, the other aspects that the Z1R did quite well would have been more noticeable. Anyway, I'm done going on about this, and I do really appreciate the perspectives from all and hopefully I will have the opportunity to spend some quality time with a Utopia in the future.

 

The Utopia reminded me of the Yggdrasil - technically brilliant, but a little too forward and energetic for my tastes. Too much happening in the treble. Not my thing.

I moved across to the HEKv2 and Pavane for headphone / DAC and this combination works great for me. More relaxed and laid back sound.

I can certainly understand how the Utopia pushes many folks buttons. In many areas it is superb (as is the Yggdrasil).

I do feel that Tyll went a bit OTT with his review though. Maybe a bit of new toy syndrome? It's a great headphone, but not flawless.

 

As much discussed here and elsewhere, Tyll's original review was based on an atypical sample of Utopia. So far as I know no account of what happened to that unit causing the abnormaly has been provided by Focal.

 

Where can I order the atypical sample?

 

Well, I wish to know a positive answer too. Let's hope Focal will develop a new model soon for that effect. After all, just like Paradigm can make the Be tweeters sound the least fatiguing in their Persona speakers, Focal might be able fine tune their Be drivers to produce a less forward and energetic sound with headphones.

 

I've been thinking about the Utopia, my setup is Yggdrasil to either modified Torpedo 3 (edit: removed output CCS, better caps, that's it nothing else fancy ) or balanced to a Gilmore Reference with HD6xx.

I've read through the entire thread and only came across posts from a handful of posters that said they were heavy classical listeners, this makes up the vast majority of what I listen to.

Worth mentioning what I find lacking and what I like about my setup. First what I really like is the accuracy of timbre with acoustic instruments, nothing stands out and I can forget I'm listening to them as headphones after I get adjusted to the initial clamp.

What I don't like is that the soundstage and imaging is nothing impressive. It's a straight plane 1 or maybe 2 dimensional sound and I know for some recordings this isn't how they are supposed to sound. This is slightly more obvious with the T3, but the T3 has superior tone to the Gilmore. Balanced with the Gilmore the stage widens a bit and also has a small bit of depth, but instrument timbre is lacking.

This is where I've become interested in the Utopia since people say they have great image depth, are wider than the the HD6xx and have excellent tone. FWIW I do not care for the blown up diffuse stage of the HD800/HD800s and am really just looking to improve upon image specificity (ie some more 3D sound) and maybe a slightly larger stage.

The best image depth headphones I have heard were the Stax SR-007, but they sound very wrong with instrument accuracy probably due to their weird frequency response.

So any comments regarding these things would be very welcome. Unfortunately the headphone scene in the northeast is non-existent but I would try and travel to hear them, probably next time I'm in NYC.

One other question, has street retail price come down on these? Someone on the SH forum was selling 2 pairs (!) and he said he was able to find them for $2800 and the second one he dropped the price down to $2500, both times claiming they were unused.

 

@Anders
Right now you can get the utopia new, with two year warranty from Adorama for $3000, or with a five year warranty from Moon, but with moon you need to "trade-in" something (just get some $60 MSRP headphones at amazon to trade-in. When you buy used, even unopened, you get no warranty from Focal. If you have a local focal dealer, you might even get them to drop the price well below $3000 since the $1000 discount is a focal incentive.

It certainly sucks for current Utopia sellers, but $2500 for a used Utopia right now (until the end of Sept) is way too much. Unopened is even worse, since you have no idea if it has an issue. I would only buy an unopened Utopia if I were local to the seller, and he agreed in advance to help with any warranty issues.

 

I have been offered $2750 by authorized dealers after this promotion with no trade in needed. Don't buy used , too risky with those beryllium drivers. Replacing them will be close to $2000 is my guess.

 

Well, this is my afternoon. I need to take some on-line training at my work. here's the introduction:

Doing the reading with my Utopias

 

Thanks guys! I caught up with the other thread on LCD-4 by Bob Katz, I am definitely going to wait to hear them first now that it seems like Tyll had a pair quite different from what Katz had the two times he reviewed them. Tyll and @Marvey listening impressions sound just like what I would like, Katz (and those measurements) not so much.

 

Where did you see utopia for 3k?
Adorama it's selling with regular price: 4K

https://www.adorama.com/foutopia.html

 

Well damn, Adorama did get the hand slapped by Focal for selling at the promo price, but with no trade in. Bad Adorama!

You can still get them with the trade in (any clean headphone in original packaging with MSRP > $60) at $2999 from any reputable focal dealer. For example,

http://www.ttvjaudio.com/Focal_Utopia_Open_Reference_Headphone_p/foc0000001.htm
https://www.moon-audio.com/focal-utopia-headphones.html

Or go to your local Focal dealer and see if you can get to take a few hundred more off.

 

No idea when/if Moon will send a RMA, but they did ship the HPs. Admit I'm a bit of cynic and wondering if this is a blow out deal, new V2s are on the way, and the trade-in aspect is just a feel good marketing/whatever thing to ease the minds of those who paid full price. We will see. Oh and not that I'm concerned about V2s, there is always something else 'new', but it seems like a lot of messing around for the distributors (and customers who can just pass unused inexpensive cans to friends, family, etc. I know I do).

 

I wouldn't say Utopia bests HD800 in all areas, but it does in enough areas for me to consider it overall better technical performer.

I find the price hard to swallow though. It performs well but Focal made it too expensive (for me) and their support seems unforthcoming. At 4k I would expect lifetime warranty no questions asked. I guess for Focal the Utopia is an expensive to manufacture yet low margin product, while for headphone companies and enthusiasts, it's just extremely expensive. Its not my problem how much it costs to make. I only care what it sounds like and how much it costs me. Very different perspectives. Still...

 

@drez - It's predictable. Might have been Jason @ Schiit that spoke to their awareness that the market for headphones, and accessories, was on the rise, and arguably has exploded over the last few years. Thank portables and phones. More people listening to music through headphones, so more interest in headphones. On the plus side we benefit from MANY choices, both at the affordable end, and not so affordable end, etc. But yea, the Utopia is in niche territory pricing, but looks like a deal as compared with the Orpheus, and Shangri-La.

 

Based on my 30ish years in the manufacturing / retail game I would suggest that is highly unlikely. If the cost of manufacture exceeded $500 I would be surprised. If it exceeded $1000 I would be stunned.

This is all speculation, of course, but speculation based on quite a few years in the game. A boutique high end product like the Utopia is going to be high margin, by definition. The fact that there are already 'trade in' deals for 3K suggests that.

 

I think it was somewhere on this forum where someone did a hypothetical breakdown of costs and found the margin on the Utopia to be worse than the Elear.

 

I had the opportunity to do some extended listening on the Utopia. And I loved every minute of it ... as long as I resisted the urge too go too loud, which the Utopia does all too easily.

So I started scheming and plotting to release funds for a pair. And then as a final sanity check I compared them to stock HD800 with Sonarworks, B&K target curve, 50% wet, linear phase. And the urge to upgrade evaporated. I fully understand the unfairness of this comparison but discounting the Focal's very substantial pride of ownership proposition the $1000 HD800 plus $100 plugin does very much the same thing as an un-EQd $4000 (now $3000) Utopia.

 

Don't need to speculate that far, the limiting factor of the price of Utopia is the price of Materon Truextent beryllium foil. If we look at OEM/1000 pricing of similar drivers using Truextent foil we can roughly surmise a pair of 40mm be foil drivers would cost probably around $700-750 a pair. The rest of the headphone probably doesn't add up to that much, probably less than $50 in materials, with the carbon fiber and neodymium magnets taking up a big chunk of it.