New LCD-4 vs Utopia shootout from Innerfidelity.

1. Tyll and Bob katz's utopia don't measure the same. Bob Katz's is way brighter (+5db @4Khz IIRC).

2. The current theory is a discrepancy between early batch units and later ones.

3. People start putting whatever disagreement they have with reviews in this space.

4. Early batch unit's resell price is likely to soar.

 

im beyond pissed with this situation.

I bought the Utopia based on everyone review of the early Utopia batch.

at this point, i woudnt be surprised if Focal knew all along. I mean, isnt there someone at focal whose job is to ensure product matching? i think there is, if so, Focal knew all along.

 

Hey @Marvey --I am happy to bring my Utopias (SN 0017XX) from a later run over to you to see if they are different. I'm gonna try to get to @ultrabike to measure them as well so we have as many measurements out there as possible. I, and others, would love to see how a much later run fares compared to your review unit.

 

Whoa man--I think we're all a bit concerned and surprised by these findings, but to accuse Focal for knowingly allowing something like this to happen I think is very unlikely. Especially considering the fact that their customer service regarding an early Elear production issue was handled swiftly and very well by the company and with involvement of the CEO himself.

Let's give them the benefit of the doubt until we can get more data and more information before we decide to all travel to France with pitchforks. The way they handle this situation will tell everyone a lot about how much they value customer satisfaction and their brand image.

 

so you think nobody at their production plant is matching drivers together?

is there suppose to be a team at Focal matching driver together?
if focal didnt knew, it would be just as bad, maybe even worst situation.

 

The answer is that we don't know if there were people actually matching drivers (even if they were supposed to be). And if they were, were they the same people between production runs? What method were they using--subjective, objective, or both?

There are still a lot of questions to be answered. Let's give Focal the opportunity to say what happened and what they are going to do to fix this. In the meantime, getting a lot of Utopia measurements will help us try to at least get some data points out there that we could try to come to some degree of a crowdsourced consensus. If we find out that all headphones after serial number 200 or so measure bright, but the review samples that were sent out all were serial number 0-199, then we definitely have something to talk about.

 

The unit that Katz has is from a later run. Tyll's Utopia had a serial number ending in 000125. Bob Katz's Utopia had a serial number ending in 000971. Not sure what the third Utopia's SN was that Tyll measured, but it is assumed it was from a later run.

 

I'm either missing something or you've not seen the new article on innerfidelity yet? The only solid new information is that Focal sent another sample to Tyll, and it measured like Katz' unit:

http://www.innerfidelity.com/conten...nt-measurements-and-plans#JId5d3EVIOLooU7x.97

 

I actually found Bob's original picture to better show the difference in sensitvity at 500Hz. The driver tuning looks similar.


And this: http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/LCD4UtopiaMeasurements.pdf

Another thing that worries me with all this is that the three Utopias Tyll measured have very different impedance curve and bass extension measurements. The primary driver resonance is not at the same frequency and doesn't have the same Q-factor at all for the three. I never noticed such a big discrepancy with Sennheiser phones. So even if the diaphragm and motor are very similar between different drivers, could be that the suspension is harder to get consistent compared to a regular headphone driver where the diaphragm acts as its own suspension.

I think it's the other way around. The ones we've been listening to are bright, while the one Tyll listened to was the outlier. We'll see how it turns out. The third sample was almost identical to Bob's.

 

What's funnier is Tyll still thinks it doesn't have enough bass and used the Elear pads + EQ to get more. The guy is a basshead

 

The new Utopia has a little bump in mid-bass section that reaches almost the same level as 1khz, while the Tyll's Utopia seem to extend better but its level is around 4db lower than 1khz. I wonder If that's why Tyll might have prefered his pair with Elear pads?

 

We don't know what Focal manufacturing is like.

When you make drivers there is going to be variance. If Focal has inconsistent production then you are going to have a lot of frequency response variance. Focal have may have a target frequency response with +-3db variance or even more. So with two Utopias measured you may have one that is 2db brighter and one that is 2db less bright. That would give you 4db difference.

Throwing away drivers is expensive and Focal never state what they think think is acceptable variance.

With professional monitors any serious manufacturer puts their acceptable variance on the specifications page.

Free field frequency response 52 Hz … 21 kHz, ± 3 dB

 

Until more units across a range of serial numbers are measured it is too early to draw conclusions. It is possible that Tyll's Wall of Fame unit was an anomaly. It is also possible that some early units sound different from the Wall of Fame unit and from each other. Without more measurements all we know is that the more recent units tested do measure differently from Tyll's original and are more similar to each other and the "bright" unit measured by Katz.

If the brighter unit is the norm Focal's best bet might be to offer redesigned earpads that compensates for this for free to all original purchasers. Maybe the Elear pad already does this. If so it would be great to see the effect of these pads on both an earlier unit and a bright unit and have Katz compare both to his LCD4.

Regardless of what is discovered, if you liked your Utopia before this news broke nothing that has transpired should cause you to like them less .... unless you don't trust your own ears. My assumption is that at this price point most would have auditioned before buying. Also in the event that the demo unit sounded different from the one purchased those who did not like them after running them in after purchasing would have returned them for a refund or sold them already. Indeed that might explain the relatively large numbers of resale units already available.

Note that Audeze also have their own problems. There is no way for an owner to be sure that their unit sounds the same as Bob Katz's without measuring. Also it is interesting that the panel of experts all missed the difference in response levels between the LCD4 left and right channels. Interesting times ....

 

That remains one of the more eye-popping aspects of the story, and the least likely to get addressed.

 

if only the FR was the only problem

the 3 Utopia measured have very different Q factor and driver resonance (1 of the 3 have the peak at 60hz, the other 2 around 50hz IIRC). this, along the FR variations, is not encouraging.

that said, I still absolutely love my Utopia, but I thought Focal was more serious then this.

 

Don't know if anyone else saw this, but looks like Moon Audio has become the only US authorized reseller of Focal Utopia certified pre-owned headphones. You get a full 2 year warranty from Focal as well. The timing of this is awfully coincidental, as this announcement of this program occurred just after "The Smoking Gun" article by Bob Katz and on the same day as Tyll's response with measurements.

http://blog.moon-audio.com/focal-certified-pre-owned-headphones/

 

Totally agree. You can get the Utopias for a shade less than $3K now. But $500 gets you a 2 year warranty, especially considering the shitshow that they are currently experiencing with the differences in production runs.

I might have gone for this if I had known about the production line issue. As it is, I'll pocket the $500 that I saved and slide a little EQ through Roon