Focal Utopia Review (Headphone)

[Robbo99999]

This is a review and technical measurements of the Focal Utopia open-back headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $4,000 (not a typo).

The Utopia appropriately gives off a luxury feel:

View attachment 121876

The comfort was excellent despite the 500 gram weight without the heavy cord. The latter is super thick and weighs 185 grams by itself. The inside cup dimensions are 51 by 59 mm. And it is 23 mm deep.

Note: The measurements you are about to see are preformed using standardized GRAS 45CA headphone measurement fixture. Headphone measurements require more interpretation than speaker tests and have more of a requirement for subjective testing as a result. In addition, comparison of measurements between different people performing it using different configurations requires fair bit of skill. So don't look for matching results. Focus on high level picture. Listening tests are performed using RME ADI-2 DAC and its headphone output.

Mounting the headphone on the text fixture was easy requiring almost no manipulation to get proper meausrements.

Focal Utopia Measurements
As usual, we start with our stereo frequency response measurements:

View attachment 121878

As noted, we have our bass droop which is substantial as it is not even flat. Between 100 Hz and 1.7 kHz response fairly closely resembles our target. We then have some deficiencies but the highs seem to then hug the curve. There is some noise around 1.5 to 2.5 kHz which we also see in the Group Delay graph:

View attachment 121879

I don't know if it is diffraction, reflections or what. I prefer to not see this in high-end headphone.

Back to our frequency response, here is the deviation from target:

View attachment 121880

Distortion is exceptionally low at higher frequencies and only gets bad at 114 dBSPL:

View attachment 121881

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Impedance is quite uneven so best to use a solid state amp with low impedance to drive the Utopia:

View attachment 121883

Fortunately efficiency is good:

View attachment 121884

Focal Utopia Listening Tests
As is, the Utopia sounded just fine. Not a whole lot to rave about but no glaring, annoying response errors. As expected, deep bass was absent so out came the EQ:

View attachment 121885

I dialed in my quick shelving filter to bring out subbass. I increased its bandwidth to 70 Hz but was not sure that was a good trade off so went back to 50 Hz. A more precisely filter may work better. Tune this to your taste.

Above that, I dialed in two filters to fill in the dips in the response. As I have noted before, any increase in this region also has a nice bonus of increasing spatial effects. On this note, the Focal Utopia with this EQ is a delight to listen to. You get a halo of sound about 25 to 30% outside of your head with very nice instrument separation and excellent clarity. I wish I had the Sennheiser HD-800S to compare but what is there, reminds me of that headphone. Whatever magic Sennheiser has found there, Focal seems to have discovered as well.

Conclusions
Objectively we have the "old school" frequency response tuning with deficient sub-bass response and some in the upper mid-range, lower treble. What is missing is not significant enough to leave you disappointed if you paid $400. But at $4,000, you better find a way to add EQ and get the sound to the next higher level.

I struggled with what grade to give the Utopia. It straddles the fence between recommended and "happily recommended" with the latter being with EQ. At the end, I went with the latter.

EDIT: my son helped me with this review. Hoping over time he can do more of these since he likes headphones. And it frees me up to test other products.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Ha, good idea to get your son doing some headphone reviews for you - slave labour....although he might demand a contract!

These have dynamic drivers don't they (after I looked online), but the Group Delay problems and associated "fine-grass" deviations in the frequency response from 1-4kHz remind me more of what I've seen with planar headphones. When I say "fine-grass" I'm not referring to the deviations that you EQ'd out, but rather the fact that the line is not smooth like the rest of the frequency response - lots of fine small variations.

Seems like a good headphone from the measurements, but I don't like the "fine-grass" deviations from 1-4kHz (and Group Delay in the same area), plus it's one expensive headphone.

 

[ZolaIII]

Finally one's with good old Japanese tuning.

 

[solderdude]

How come they are so different?

Oratory wants 5dB more treble above 5kHz (which is strange as they are a tiny bit too trebly would use Amir's EQ) and Jaakko wants 4 dB less above 5kHz and rolls off -14dB at 20kHz !

Oratory seems to want 4dB more subbass than Amir yet Amir has a similar amount as Jaakko.

I guess one would have to try all 3 EQ's and see what they like. Young folks will likely prefer Jaakko's EQ.

I'll weigh in and show you my measurements. Those that would want to try some EQ should try to EQ my plot to a flat line on the plot. Do not EQ individual peaks just average levels. When I would apply smoothing (which the hearing does) then the sharp peaks and dips would not peak as high.

Below the utopia with '1/3 oct smoothing' (purple one is Elear)

I would agree with Amir about SQ compared to HD800S.
Below my comparison between an EQ'ed HD800 vs Utopia and thought it would be a hard choice in SQ.

In the end... the HD800S is half the price and needs some help while I liked the Utopia without any EQ.
The Utopia had a slight metalic 'ringing' with some instruments which the HD800 didn't have but wasn't distracting nor SQ degrading.
Here's the CSD which shows some ringing and maybe shows the metalic 'sheen'

Ringing was also visible in the step which shows good tonality, excellent impulse response and the slight brightness (small bump till 0.3ms)

If I were to EQ on it perhaps very slightly lift subbass (+3dB around 30Hz), lift 2kHz a bit and lower the treble from 5kHz to 12kHz by about 2dB.

to get more data points here's Crinacle:

You can increase the bass a little when driving the headphone from a 10 ohm output R amp.

Excellent headphone.. a bit pricey and can easily get similar quality from the cheaper and lighter HD800S.

 

[jonfitch]

Love to see a high end headphone reviewd here and setting a benchmark. Thank you Amir for measuring! From what I saw, I thought all focal headphones had small sound stage, but this one seems to be wide from Amir's word. I also saw some graphs compare the frequency response of focal headphones, all of them are similar, elex is even completely the same as utopia. Does anyone has subjective comparison between elex and utopia, and the sound stage of this headphone compare to other headphone?

These are small drivers, so the image is not large. As far as soundstage depth, it's got more than Audeze headphones but much less than most full size headphones from Hifiman/Sennheiser/Audio-Technica etc.

 

[jonfitch]

Oratory wants 5dB more treble above 5kHz (which is strange as they are a tiny bit too trebly would use Amir's EQ) and Jaakko wants 4 dB less above 5kHz and rolls off -14dB at 20kHz !

Oratory seems to want 4dB more subbass than Amir but similar amounts as Jaakko.

I guess one would have to try all 3 and see what they like. Young folks will likely prefer Jaakko's EQ.

I'll weigh in an show you my measurements. Those that would want to try some EQ should try to EQ my plot to a flat line on the plot. Do not EQ individual peaks just average levels.

I would agree with Amir about SQ compared to HD800S.
Below my comparison between an EQ'ed HD800 vs Utopia and thought it would be a hard choice in SQ.

In the end... the HD800S is half the price and needs some help while I liked the Utopia without any EQ.
The Utopia had a slight metalic 'ringing' with some instruments which the HD800 didn't have but wasn't distracting nor SQ degrading.

If I were to EQ on it perhaps very slightly lift subbass (+3dB around 30Hz), lift 2-4kHz a bit and lower the treble from 5kHz to 12kHz by about 2dB.

to get more data points here's Crinacle:

You can increase the bass a little when driving the headphone from a 10 ohm output R amp.

Excellent headphone.. a bit pricey and can easily get similar quality from the cheaper and lighter HD800S.

Yeah I agree the Utopia has some hashiness to the sound that doesn't exist in the other models. I haven't heard the Stellia so I can't comment. I wonder if that is the result of the decay measurements from Amir.

 

[Tks]

4K? I thought the Empyrean was at an insane 3K.

Bro headphones turning into cars (with stupid shit like 5 million dollar+ MSRP of some cars).

At least this one performs okay from a distortion perspective (but I wish we could get TDH measured after equalization to target, I feel that would be such a nice test, as Amir did it once when requested for the HD650 I think in the comments).

 

[phoenixsong]

Didn't like it for the ringing, but it's still one of my favourite technical headphones (last tested end 2019). It's been a while since I was in the game

 

[Racheski]

Why does these cost $4k? (2020 version is $4.4k)

• Beryllium drivers
• There is a little bit of carbon fiber in the frame?
• Manufactured in France
• Focal is bad at manufacturing efficiently?
• They are inflating the price substantially knowing some people will inevitably pay for a flagship headphone after enough hype

What else am I missing here?

 

[respice finem]

For this price it should also make coffee, at least
But seriously, it's interesting how sometimes price and performance are not really much related, in headphones even more so than the rest of the Hi-Fi world. While the Utopia is good, you can get similarly performing headphones at a fraction of its price.

 

[Rja4000]

Hi @amirm
Thanks for the review

Just by curiosity, before yoi send this one back to iits owner:
If you do add the bass only on one channel, would that make it boring, as you said the Celestee was ?

In other word: how important is the impact of a good bass balance between channels for your satisfaction ?
Isn't that worth a try ?

 

[amirm]

In other word: how important is the impact of a good bass balance between channels for your satisfaction ?

Bass is usually mono so channel balance is not the issue. The total amount is. To the extent one channel is much weaker, it contributes less to total bass.

 

[edahl]

Great review. Happy to see your son engaged in headphones!

It seems clear to me you need an HD 800S around for reference, haha

 

[2M2B]

Why does these cost $4k? (2020 version is $4.4k)

• Beryllium drivers
• There is a little bit of carbon fiber in the frame?
• Manufactured in France
• Focal is bad at manufacturing efficiently?
• They are inflating the price substantially knowing some people will inevitably pay for a flagship headphone after enough hype

What else am I missing here?

Audiophiles mostly Reddit/Head fi ones don't like being told they could get the same detail & more from $350 Planar/BA headphones. Which is why every review on them is "Planar/BA timbre" or that the bass is too fast despite them loving that same speed on Utopia/Stax L700 MK II??. This really reminds me when CRT's tried to stay afloat by showing 720p/1080i HDTV's before LCD became the norm. Since It was really hard to not have a CRT have flicker effect which made my eyes hurt.

 

[Rja4000]

Bass is usually mono so channel balance is not the issue. The total amount is. To the extent one channel is much weaker, it contributes less to total bass.

Still, you explained in the Celestee review that your listening experience didn't match the relatively good measurements. The main particularity being this bass unbalance. So why not to try and check if that doesn't have a bigger impact than just lack of bass ?

Headphones is different than loudspeakers, since the sound that reaches each ear can be very different (not the case with speakers in a room, and non directionality may be due to low frequencies wavelength compared to distance between our ears, I suppose)
So that may have way more impact for headphones and be listed as a condition for good headphones experience.
Since you were the one describing the experience with Celestee, I think it's better if you do this test as well (and you have way more experience).

You could check the difference in your satisfaction if you have, say, 0dB bass in one case, and +3dB left and -3dB right in a second case.
Even do that as a blind test with your son ;-)

You could do it with any good headphones though.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Why does these cost $4k? (2020 version is $4.4k)

• Beryllium drivers
• There is a little bit of carbon fiber in the frame?
• Manufactured in France
• Focal is bad at manufacturing efficiently?
• They are inflating the price substantially knowing some people will inevitably pay for a flagship headphone after enough hype

What else am I missing here?

Offloading R&D costs.
Utopia was Focals first "big" can, designed in a "no holds barred" manner and priced accordingly.

They then scaled it down to price points with Elear and Clear.

 

[Jimbob54]

Oh, forgot to talk about that. No, it just gradually crackles more and more as you turn up the volume. By the time it starts, it is quite loud. I would say Sennheiser HD650 and such handle a lot more power but what is here is not much of a limit.

After EQ, significantly different to the Clear? Or similar sounding but none of the driver issues?

Put another way, should a cash rich Clear fan think about these? Or not enough difference to bother?

 

[jonfitch]

Audiophiles mostly Reddit/Head fi ones don't like being told they could get the same detail & more from $350 Planar/BA headphones. Which is why every review on them is "Planar/BA timbre" or that the bass is too fast despite them loving that same speed on Utopia/Stax L700 MK II??. This really reminds me when CRT's tried to stay afloat by showing 720p/1080i HDTV's before LCD became the norm. Since It was really hard to not have a CRT have flicker effect which made my eyes hurt.

Other than Yamaha in the 70s, it was pretty much obscure outside of Paradigm and JM Lab speakers for many years. I think the Beryllium hype really started with the release of the Revel Salon 2 in 2008. Once Harman International's marketing machine got behind it, it became the new "It" thing, which started the beryllium arms race, everybody and their mother jumped on it, spawning a bunch of "me-too" beryllium flagships culminating with TADs ultra expensive Reference line.

I think since that mystique was built people associated Be with high end, regardless if it's even well executed, which is sad unfortunately. I think the Performa3 has really shown you don't need exotic materials to have flagship level performance.

 

[sarakyel]

You get a halo of sound about 25 to 30% outside of your head

I have a hard time wrapping my head around this. You wrote something similar about the HD 800 S, but I spent quite a lot of time with one and I never perceived anything THAT different/better than with a HD 600/650 (except for a slightly more "trebly" response). Actually with a well recorded, high quality source, I never heard anything that felt more "true and accurate" than the HD 6 series.

But in general, with open-back headphones, I don't perceive the sound as if it was coming from "inside" my head, which is something I tend to get a lot from mid-priced closed back models (i.e. HD 280 or ATH-M50x). Could this be a subjective perception thing that depends mostly on subtle factors such as ear shape and drivers angle?

 

[respice finem]

Bass is usually mono so channel balance is not the issue. The total amount is. To the extent one channel is much weaker, it contributes less to total bass.

With headphones this should be a bit less so than it is with loudspeakers, because their left and right channel don't mix, as they would in a listening room. Then again, if you have bass on one side you can localize better than with speakers, crosstalk being only what mics have recorded. The "soundstage" experience should be rather better (nearer to the real thing). The "worse" perception may be psychoacoustic, because it's not a situation the brain is acquainted to and expecting.

 

[Nango]

Great review. Happy to see your son engaged in headphones!

It seems clear to me you need an HD 800S around for reference, haha

I thought K371 around 100€ is the reference.