New LCD-4 vs Utopia shootout from Innerfidelity.

I was referring to fellow forum members

 

It looks like they listened to five different pairs and Utopias did not sound the same. So how many times Focal changed the signature of their 4k headphones because apparently they felt they could sell enough without bothering with QA.

 

Final Impressions and Wall of Fame Adjustments for the Focal Utopia and Audeze LCD-4
https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...ame-adjustments-focal-utopia-and-audeze-lcd-4

 

Here's hoping it doesn't last too long. Someone's got to come along with something really worth $3000 and take the money sitting on the table.

 

I'm getting to the point in the hobby that I'm pretty content spending $300 instead of $3000 on my hd650. Plugged into my Crack amp, the 650 is pretty hypnotic and makes me forget about chasing the pipe dream of a super 650.

 

well modded hd800?
they used to be analytical but for me, with SBAF and SDR mod, they are not analytical anymore and easily competes with my Utopia

here's for hoping sennheiser to fill that gap!

 

^^ Agree on the hd800 with mods and or good EQ. IMO mods and EQ get my to a happy place with the hd800 a lot quicker and cheaper than spending mega bucks on upstream gear.

 

I agree with others. A modified pair of HD800's with a good amp/source is basically unbeatable, at least for my preferences.

 

Personally, it has made me see the folly of even aspiring to three grand headphones. Given how much you can get from judiciously modded HD650/HD800, right now I feel like any spare budget is better spent earlier in the chain. In terms of bang for buck, that seems to give much better and more reliable results.

If someone with the unit-to-unit consistency and liberal after-sales support of Sennheiser made a really modern TOTL transducer, I might be tempted. However, overpaying vastly for wearable dice rolls is rapidly losing its appeal.

 

At least two . My understanding of the @Serious post was that they compared the SN 1xxx that belongs to Muse Wanderer with four other. SN 1xxx had the best sound. The newest of the remaining four was the worst, and three were close but different from SN 1xxxx

 

The newer ones were all pretty close. I'm inclined to believe it's mostly pad wear (bass and midrange tonality) and burn-in (treble smoothness) that is responsible for the differences. Generally the older, the better it seemed. All the ones we heard at High End at the Focal booth were brand new and sounded like they definitely needed some burn-in to help with the sharpness.
I still think the general unit-to-unit variation is not quite on the level of Sennheiser, but I don't really have any evidence. They're probably close enough where it doesn't matter. Even then some HD800s sound better than others.

The differences in the measurements look like pad wear to me. More middle to upper midrange energy is something we often see with slightly softer pads that compress more (driver is closer to the ears).

EDIT: I want to reiterate that it definitely didn't seem like there were changes to the voicing, at least from the 6 different Utopias that I got to hear. Tyll's early review pair was most likely defective and that's it. All the others seem to be close enough. There are just subtle differences that overall led me and @Muse Wanderer to prefer his over all the others that we heard. Even then a cable change made as big or an even bigger difference than the headphones.
Here are my measurements: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...l-utopia-measurements.2670/page-6#post-140944
Note that because I didn't have any time at CanJam my original coupler measurments weren't accurate.

 

@Marvey gilberto measured my utopias, they were the same essentially as the pair you had.

They are at the very bottom of the page here:
http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/focal-utopia-measurements.2670/page-5

 

Seems like they are all equally inferior then. All is well in the world

 

The investigation seemed to be measurments based alone, Focal were unable to locate the original review unit. Aside from the frequency response of Tyll's review sample being different to the rest the other takeaway was the variance in all the sample's impedance curves.

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/seven-focal-utopias-measured

 

Haven't really being paying that much attention to this (possibly because my Utopia twins don't sound discernibly different), but I did get my LCD-4 fixed (sanity prevailed and Chris @ Audeze was able to send me out the part the same day I got to talk with him). While it appears it may be too late, then when I get back from my next little excursion (which starts here in a few), if @Tyll Hertsens stills wants LCD-4 to measure, I can make that happen.

It's only one pair, of course.

 

You joke, but I wonder what a top flight system of both would sound like in comparison. I don't believe there is anyone with say, a Studio + HD650 and Stellaris + HD800, with nice glass in both both cases. I suppose it would come down to preference.