Focal Elear and Utopia

It's too bad you'd have to spend 4,000 dollars to avoid a 20db dip in the upper midrange/lower treble transition. Possible measurement aberrations aside, can't wait to start seeing the HD800/S vs Elear comparisons.

 

Great to see more competition!

These make the LCD-4 and HE-1000 look like they are put together in a garage.

If they sound good everybody has to up their game which is exactly what we want.

As far as pricing goes I prefer to vote with my dollars rather than bitch about it. I'm the proud owner of a $529 ZMF Blackwood and preferred them to many TOTL flagships I heard...

 

The Focal Utopia is the Maginot Line of headphones. It looks great until the bump at 1500hz and then a bit wonky like the HD 800. That bump could sound be AKG bad in practice. I doubt the Utopia will replace the HD 600/650 as my favorite overall stock headphones. The drivers look promising but drivers aren't everything, eg Fostex sticks their great biocellulose dynamic drivers in wonky OEM housing you can buy on Alibaba yourself.

The Elear looks terrible for the price with that DT 770 and AKG K7XX/K712 like Sarlaac pit null.

The LCD-4 is put together in a garage...

 

Glad everyone is speculating based on a limited set of measurements from a notoriously unreliable source....

I am open to the possibility that the headphones could be very awesome sounding. It is a dynamic after all.

 

FR seems to have much more in common with HD-800 than with their own Spirit Pro.

 

When I heard that 4K is the way of the future, I didn't think it was describing headphone pricing...

The Utopia looks a good deal leaner than the HD800 through the mids into the bass (even if it has better extension). Not sure that's a great idea. I wonder what the impedance measurements are like. I don't get the trend to make huge desktop headphones that are marketed as being playable through an iPhone.

They look REALLY well built though... I'll be over here with my plastastic ESP/950's.

 

Headphone pricing seems to be going the way of designer handbag pricing.....

 

The HD800 is a very consistent headphone and the frequency response measurements aren't flattering to either headphone. I think Jude is using a GRAS 45CA judging as that was shown in the video.

I do wonder how much frequency response varies with position though.

It doesn't look bad (looks pretty good) but that 7Khz peak is concerning.

As headphone flagships go this looks like a serious competitor and not another Pioneer/Shure joke.

 

Relatively, 4K should be spent on a TT-speaker setup to maximize the value. On an absolute scale, it would be applaudable if Focal can pull anything (well if any) superior than Sennheiser master race. I'm not going to discredit something until more trusted ears or myself have heard it. Previous Focal head stuff have been great.

 

Given that the phono cartridge is about as important as the speakers, I can understand spending $4K on one.

 

They seem to indicate so, but I heard there is also a brick and mortar nearby where you can just stop in to hear them any time.

 

Man that place can really generate hype. I received a pm over there to notify me of these new phones. Sigh.

 

Looks like they have a pair of new closed cans as well for portable listeners called the Focal Listen. Might be replacing the rest of the Spirit line.
Or considering how they are calling it "urban headphones," they will pretty much be the Senn Urbanite versions of the Focals (bleh).

 

I wonder why everyone is complaining about the driver size.
Large diameter voice coil with high excursion, no compression and a rather flat, big dome. Can move alot of air, eventually good directivity, linear drive, good extension and not prone to break up and wiggle like the K812.
Especially the Utopia driver looks rather complex and costly.
Measurements look very good, too bad Jude measures at such high SPL to make the 800 look worse.
Not a fan of the looks though. The headband looks kinda big and disproportionate.
I think the Elear is gonna be a nice option, especially when the price drops to 700USD territory.

 

Is everyone ready for their big reveal where they announce the Thomas More tie-in? Audiobook bundle, anyone? Oh yeah.

"A partnership 500 years in the making..."

 

Longing for the diamond drivers for headphones.... and carbon fiber, ceramic, titanium, sandwich, underhung, short voice coil.... Kudos to speakers.