Focal Utopia overview: Put together for revelatory audio experiences | Tech Ready

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Professional Ranking

benefit

• Thoughts-blowing efficiency
• Balanced and unbalanced connections
• Lovely design and distinctive construct high quality
• Extremely snug for lengthy listening periods

Cons

• Headphone wire markings are troublesome to learn
• very very costly

our verdict

Focal Utopia will reveal particulars of your favourite albums that you’ve got by no means been capable of hearken to with much less gear. That is an audiophile headphone that justifies its excessive price.

Value when reviewed

$4,999.00

Finest Costs In the present day: Focal Utopia (2022)

Not obtainable

Focal has fully redesigned its flagship open-back headphone, Utopia. It is a luxurious audio machine with a dizzying price ticket of $5,000. Let that sink in for a second, however do not make the error of dismissing these cans as an overpriced novelty designed to bleed money out of huge boys with deep pockets.

Utopia is the thinnest headphone I’ve ever heard, delivering audio high quality and element that compares favorably to the output of floorstanding audio system costing tens of 1000’s of {dollars}.

This overview is a part of TechHive’s protection of the perfect headphones.

Unpacking of utopia

James Barber/Foundry

The Focal Utopia is available in a black “leather-based impact” (Focal’s time period) upholstered case. Slide the highest half in from the underside (and I imply slide; the within of the field has a black felt lining) and you can see the black cloth case that comprises the headphones and one other upholstered field that comprises the balanced headphone cable and a black sheet of paper that comprises the instruction guide and a flyer for the Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Version Amplifier & Transmitter (a part enthusiastically reviewed by TechHive in September 2021).

All the presentation has the sort of flare you’d anticipate when you had been looking for a Ferrari or Lamborghini. That is not a foul analogy for what is going on on right here. Utopia is the top-performing, top-priced audio equal of these unique sports activities automobiles. In case you purchase one, Focal’s presentation will make you’re feeling such as you’ve made the correct choice earlier than you even begin listening.

What’s new within the second technology of Focal Utopia?

The large change right here is the voice coil. The 100% aluminum model of the unique Utopia proved to be a bit brittle, so the redesigned voice coil is constituted of 30% copper and 70% aluminum to enhance reliability whereas sustaining the identical excessive degree of acoustic efficiency.

There are additionally modifications to the motive force’s grille. The Utopia now has the M-shaped grill that Focal launched with their open-back Clear Mg headphones. The M follows the form of the dome and the beryllium driver inside, decreasing the hole between the motive force and the grill. This modification is designed to enhance the linearity of the frequency response, primarily within the treble vary.

James Barber/Foundry

The brand new design incorporates the distinctive honeycomb sample you may discover on many different Focal headphones. The producer says this design provides a extra open sound with extra driver motion. The yokes are solid recycled carbon fiber, leading to a lighter, extra snug headset.

Focal provides two cables: a 1.5 m (5 ft) mini-jack cable with a 6.35 mm (1/4-inch) jack adapter and a 3 m (10 ft) cable with an XLR connector. for headphone amps with balanced outputs.

The Utopia headband is fabricated from real leather-based, as are the ventilated reminiscence foam ear cups. They’re snug for lengthy listening periods, and the perforations on the earcups echo the design of high-end driving gloves.

Listening periods with Focal Utopia

As my major listening to testing units, I used the Focal Utopia headphones with the Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Version amplifier and the brand new Astell&Kern A&ultima SP3000 digital audio participant that I not too long ago examined.

I additionally used my private pair of closed-back Focal Celestee headphones ($999) for comparability, listening to each headphones with a Questyle M15 transportable DAC plugged into an iPhone 13 Professional Max.

James Barber/Foundry

Listened to a 24bit/96kHz excessive decision Qobuz feed of Giles Martin’s 2019 remix of The Beatles abbey street and the outcomes had been spectacular. “One thing” was a specific revelation. I grew up listening to the music on a capitol vinyl from the late Seventies, and George Harrison’s guitar components and George Martin’s distinctive string preparations fused into one stable serving of midrange audio. Listening by Utopia, every particular person instrument might be recognized, and Ringo Starr’s distinctive drum half is in precisely the correct place within the combine.

To be clear, this observe nonetheless comes throughout as a cohesive combine. It is simply that there are such a lot of layers that will likely be revealed with nearer listening. Headphones this open good hour of discovery on tracks you thought you already knew extremely properly.

My day by day driver headset is the Focal Celestee. They’re additionally implausible cans that provide unimaginable worth and have offered many hours of wonderful listening. Regardless of how nice “One thing” sounds by Celestee (and it sounds implausible), there’s an additional degree of element with Utopia that Celestee simply cannot match. Take the descending keyboard line that occurs round 1:25 on “One thing”. There is a delicacy to that half that Utopia nails, however Celestee cannot fairly seize it.

James Barber/Foundry

Swap to the Questyle M15 DAC related to an iPhone and the hole between the 2 fashions is far much less pronounced. The $250 M15 is a good transportable DAC, however it could possibly’t carry out on the degree of the highest Naim headphone amp or Astell&Kern digital audio participant. If you are going to spend money on the Focal Utopia, be ready to spend some cash on a high-quality headphone amp and DAC that may help you expertise its full potential.

One other revelation was the 24-bit/192 kHz Qobuz transmission of interior visions, the 1973 album that Stevie Surprise recorded with digital wizards Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil. As soon as once more, listening to the instrumentation on a observe like “Greater Floor” with such discreet separation between devices offers the phantasm that you’re within the management room listening to a mixing session in actual time. It is each an added degree of listening enjoyment and an extremely illuminating expertise for anybody inquisitive about how a document is put collectively.

In fact, nice studio work is not restricted to the ’60s technology. Taylor Swift’s 2020 album More and more it is an distinctive recording, and a 24-bit/88.2kHz Qobuz transmission of the music “champagne issues” shines by Utopia. The music opens as a duet of vocals and piano and the harmonic vocals, bass and guitar are slowly launched all through the music. It is a spare observe total, however the pleasure comes with the choruses. Particular person voices within the background array might be clearly recognized; It isn’t simply the undifferentiated mass choir you’d hear in decrease decision when streaming from a service like Spotify.

James Barber/Foundry

I may write a number of thousand phrases about different discoveries I remodeled a couple of weeks with Utopia, however this is a brief listing of hi-res albums I listened to in complete new methods with this headphone: Scott Walker’s Scott 4huge assaults blue tracesThe Conflict’s london callingby Stan Getz Getz/GilbertArctic Monkeys’ Tranquility Base Resort & On line casinoLed Zeppelin IVby Björk Utopiadiscuss discuss the colour of springand Booker T. and the MGs McLemore Avenue. I do know all of those albums properly, and Utopia has revealed particulars about every one that I’ve by no means heard earlier than.

Nothing is ideal, not even Focal Utopia

Would you like a defect? Okay, I discovered one. Possibly it is extra of a choosy eater, but it surely’s one small factor that is lower than supreme within the Utopia headphones. Whereas the left and proper ear cups have easy-to-read L and R markings on the base of the scarf, the L and R of the headphone cables are etched into the blue cable covers with no white spotlight within the melancholy. .

Which means it is arduous to see which cable connects to the left and which to the correct except you are in direct mild. The opposite minor quibble is that the purple dots on the earphones that have to line up with those on the cable when plugged in are additionally a bit arduous to see.

James Barber/Foundry

I won’t have seen if it wasn’t for the direct comparability to the Celestee. The L & R’s are printed on the steel sleeves subsequent to the plugs for that mannequin and are extremely straightforward to see. The embossed L and R on the earphones are additionally a lot bigger and are proper subsequent to every earphone jack.

Is that this actually a defect or only a downside associated to my failing eyesight? Most likely the latter, however let’s face it: the Utopia market is dominated by consumers in a demographic that has labored arduous sufficient to see their eyes begin to fade. Get your self a flashlight to go together with your new headphones.

is the focal utopia Actually price 5 grand?

The Focal Utopia is designed for attentive and targeted listening. I’ve by no means heard something exterior of a recording or mastering studio that may reveal the main points of a terrific recording like these headphones do.

The opposite aspect of the coin, in fact, is that such good cans may also spotlight flaws in recordings which have been blocked in mastering, or the place there’s an excessive amount of auto-tuning on vocals, or modifying has been used. extreme to bond a usable materials. drink. There are many data made with these strategies that sound nice by an excellent pair of low-cost headphones, as a result of that is how they had been designed to be loved.

Utopia is a headphone for listeners whose tastes vary from recordings from the golden age of stereo, meticulously recorded classical and jazz albums, and pop and rock music that captures the sound of bands taking part in collectively in a room.

Focal Utopia is for individuals who take pleasure in data as a lot or greater than music. With the correct audio supply, they provide a window into the inventive course of behind the recordings greater than some other dwelling audio product you have ever heard. They’re actually magical.