It?s not often that one gets to meet a real celebrity; someone whose fame cuts right across cultures and households. In the real world, names like George Clooney and Julia Roberts come to mind. In the head-fi world, few are more famous than Utopia.
Focal?s flagship dynamic headphone has only existed for about two years, and yet ask most headphone devotees to name the headphone that sits right at the top of the tree and many, if not most, would say Utopia. That?s partly a consequence of the hype train that rolled into town when the French audio maker unveiled the double-whammy of its high-end dynamics, the ?mainsteam? Elear and flagship Utopia, and partly because of Utopia?s eye watering price tag of $4,000 at a time when most statement headphones were still selling for half that, or less.
Fast forward to today, and the Utopia is still the headphone I associate with the exclusive ?summit-fi? tier of head-fi audio equipment that only a select few enthusiasts can afford, let alone experience. As an enthusiast myself, I could never have imagined my climb up to the higher echelons of this devastatingly expensive but supremely enjoyable hobby would be so swift, and yet the headphone gear I now use and consider my ?endgame? is probably sat at Camp 2 or 3 compared to Utopia?s Everest summit.
So when Geoff (Stereo Musicality, www.stereomusicality.co.za) generously agreed to stop by my place with his prized Utopia, I jumped at the chance to smell the rarified air from a place I?ve always aspired to reach.
The Utopia in person
As an Elear owner I am intimately familiar with Focal?s headphone design and ergonomics, so seeing the Utopia for the first time was pleasantly unsurprising. I?ve read reams of reviews and participated in many discussions with Utopia users, but there was still a feeling of privilege handling and opening the large display-style box the Utopia was housed in. Not dissimilar to the Elear?s box, it was black and bulky, but finished with a matte black skin and red trim that imparted an understated sense of prestige.
The Utopia itself was, as expected, very Elear-like, though it felt slightly lighter in the hand. The leather finish of the headband and earpads is uber-soft, clearly made of a much finer grade of leather than the excellent Dekoni Elite sheepskin pads I use with my Elear. The memory foam is also much softer, though not as soft to the touch as the suede-like Elex pads I use as an Elear alternative (more on that later). The Utopia?s carbon fibre yokes have enough flex to sit the cups comfortably on your ears, but unlike the Elear the yokes and headband don?t creak when twisted.
The latter isn?t an issue for me personally - there?s no creaking when the Elear is worn - but it does show the extra level of detail and build quality that went into the Utopia?s design, despite the similarities of look and feel with the Elear, that bestow it with its flagship status.
On the head, the softness of the Utopia?s leather translated to added comfort, and despite not having a suspension strap (an oversight in heavier headphone designs), the headband didn?t immediately leave any hotspots on top of my usually sensitive scalp. It doesn?t exactly ?disappear? when worn, but it also doesn?t feel like you?re wearing a motorbike helmet, a-la the Audeze LCD-3.
First impressions
I?ve been anticipating Geoff?s visit all week, and so diligently prepared a list of test tracks I was hoping to hear through Utopia, running the gamut of my musical preferences from girl with guitar to male crooners, modern pop, classic rock and electronica.
First up was Heidi Talbot?s intimately beautiful ?If You Stay? (watch here) from her Love+Light album, a track I?ve listened to countless times with almost every headphone I?ve owned and auditioned. Heidi?s innocently sensual voice and breathless delivery lend the song an ethereal quality that can sound edgy with the wrong headphone and compressed when the source is too digital. There was never any risk of that happening with Audio-gd?s exemplary R-28 all-in-one ladder dac and headphone amplifier, and even though the Utopia was using the amp?s single-ended output (I unfortunately did not have balanced Utopia cables to experiment with), the analog-like qualities of the source were immediately apparent.
?If You Stay? starts off with a series of lower register guitar plucks that should, ideally, reverberate and resonate around your head, and give the simple intro a sense of palpable weight and warmth. That?s exactly how Utopia delivered it, with every nuance of the guitar clearly and crisply articulated. Heidi?s opening verse was perfectly separated from the instruments that continue to play around her, and I could immediately get a sense of both depth and intimacy, as if she were sitting in the same room, singing her song to me.
Having said that, the Elex is no slouch, and so having ?calibrated my brain? by first playing the track through the Elex, I was left a little underwhelmed when the Utopia hardly deviated from what I?d just heard, minutes before. In a blind test I would be hard pressed to tell which headphone was which, other than the obviously cooler Utopia pads around my ears.
Similarities aside, the reason I keep going back to this expertly-mastered track is because good gear will almost always render it correctly, and any deviation is a solid strike against. So far, so good, but the first view from the summit was one I?d already seen before. Also, you may have noticed I used Elex to describe the Elear above, because having switched to Elex pads, that?s exactly what the Elear becomes. Since the Elex has a very similar FR graph to Utopia - and is often described as a ?baby Utopia? - I wanted to compare apples with apples, rather than use the more strident, dynamic and punchy Elear.
Change of pace
Strident, dynamic and punchy was exactly what I was looking for from the second test track, AC/DC?s seminal ?Thunderstuck? (watch here). Again a gorgeously mastered track, with good gear you should be able to get a real sense of stage width and space as the iconic guitar riff slowly builds up and around you, followed by the ?kick? of the kick drums - even before Brian Johnson?s unique delivery is heard over the backing vocals. Being treble sensitive, I use this track to test for glare in the higher notes of the screeching guitars, and as a bass aficionado, I want to feel the drums in the mix, not just hear them. This isn?t always an easy trick to pull off with headphones, but the really good ones will find just the right balance, even at higher volumes, without causing fatigue.
The three most obvious qualities immediately apparent in Utopia?s presentation of the track was its remarkably clean highs, superb instrument separation and ink black background. The sound appeared ?out of nowhere? and disappeared from the stage with equally stealth-like speed. I?d read all about the Utopia?s fabled ?speed?, but didn?t really understand what that meant until I heard this track. You could almost slice the details with a scalpel, but at such speed that it would be humanly impossible to do so. The fastest headphones I?d heard prior to this was a higher-end Stax electrostatic, and this was every bit as fast if not faster.
Speed isn?t the only trait the Utopia seems to share with electrostatics. Not known for moving much air, ?stats specialise in the delivery of tight, clean and detailed bass that often lacks the weight of real instruments or the rumble of electronic drums. This was a disappointment when hearing my first Stax, and likewise when hearing Thunderstruck through the Utopia. While not specifically a bass-driven track, I?ve heard the kick drums in the intro and the cacophony of drums in the body of the track conveyed with a real visceral impact on the likes of ZMF?s Atticus and the LCD-3, and even the Elear has a certain dynamic punch that makes Thunderstruck?s kicks stand out in the mix. The Utopia, while perfectly articulate, just didn?t do that for me. It was almost a sanitised rendition of bass, like one might expected from the likes of a Sennheiser HD600 or HD650, albeit a touch fuller than Sennheiser?s midrange models, and certainly more detailed.
But where you sometimes want to let your hair down and rock out to a track like Thunderstruck - or similarly styled tracks like Joe ?Satch? Satriani?s ?Always With Me, Always With You? (watch here) off his ?Surfing With The Alien? album - you?re more likely to sit and clap to the beat while tethered to the ?oh so polite? Utopia. And that?s ok; the Utopia is not, as far as I can tell, a balls-to-the-wall headphone, and that?s by design. There?s just too much detail, nuance, and subtlety in its approach to really bring on the grunge. For many audiophiles that?s a plus, and my penchant for tastefully elevated bass isn?t something these folks will lose much sleep over.
It all comes together
Normally when I audition a headphone, lack of impact is one of the first things I notice, at which point I generally lose interest. But the Utopia was doing too many things too well for me not to pay attention - including the way it described rather than viscerally delivered the bass in the mix. Owl City?s electronically layered ?Saltwater Room? literally invited me to walk in and explore the different points of sound emanating all around the space Utopia created. Every layer was separated like an onionskin at the hands of a master chef, and expertly arranged so that the parts were never removed from the whole. On brighter headphones that lack a sense of nuance or control, the sweetness of Breanne Duren?s supporting vocals - which really steal the show from lead singer Adam Young - can be lost in the mix. Instead, the Utopia let me meander through the treble-laden track as if it were lush and rolling midlands, with Adam and Breanne walking with me and around me. It was quite magical really, and prompted me to write in my notes: ?best treble I?ve heard in a headphone.?
Cohesiveness is probably the defining character of this headphone. Whether your leaning is more synthesised like Owl City and Daft Punk, or soft rock like Def Leppard, the Utopia presents you with a sound that is both richly detailed and highly musical, without favouring any parts at the expense of others. It?s impossibly smooth, lush and clinical all at once; and unwaveringly musical to my ears. Unlike other high-end headphones that specialise in doing some things well - the space and resolution of the HD800, the speed and transparency of the Stax, the warmth and weight of the LCD-3, the natural realism of the Auteur - the Utopia takes all these elements and melds them together into its own unique sound.
Of course it?s not without its faults, small as they may seem at these dizzying heights. Daft Punk?s ?Contact? (listen here) from their masterpiece album ?Random Access Memories? is a typical slow-burning, quickly building piece of artful electronica that goes from spartan emptiness to crazy mayhem in a few short minutes. There?s a frantic energy conveyed by the sudden advance and attack of the ?aliens? that Utopia?s measured approach somehow fails to grasp. With all the elements neatly intertwined, it almost holds itself back from giving any of the crazy effects prominence over another, but that?s exactly what you want to hear, and many less poised headphones will give you just that.
Utopia is also too fast, in my opinion, at conveying decay, which can make it sound a little dry at times. The droning decay of the deep drums that softly underlie Katie Melua?s ?Red Balloons? is a case in point, as are the big, bold booms in Dadawa?s ?Sister Drum?. In both cases Utopia lets you know what you?re hearing - heck it?s so detailed you can probably read the label on the backing material of the drums used in the track - but the size is all wrong. Perhaps it is Utopia?s expensive and exotic Beryllium drivers at play; the Elear and its equally sized drivers doesn?t seem to have too much trouble with the drums in those tracks. It could just be that a buttery smooth rather than hard edged articulation is exactly the sound Focal was seeking, in which case they?ve nailed it.
Back on terra firma
Later that day, after my climb down from the summit, I was reflecting on the experience with my brother, who?d extensively listened to the Utopia in days gone by. In his own words, ?the Utopia?s refinement has an incredible way of dissecting the music yet presenting it in an incredibly musical way, so it is articulate all the while being delicate and pleasing, and not sanitised like so many ?audiophile? headphones.?
I couldn?t have said that better myself, so I didn?t. What I will say is that, combined with the right system, the Utopia earns its praise and position among the very best of the best. While I consider my system to be of a very high standard, there?s no question a headphone like Utopia will benefit more - and give you more - from a system more commensurate with its price tag. That?s not to say the system I?m using was necessarily a limiting factor, but that there are more gears to be shifted if you have the means to do so. Add to that the mysterious effect that synergy may yield with different components, which Utopia is undoubtedly transparent enough to respond to.
Closing thoughts
Which brings me to the reason I decided, in the end, to take leave of the summit, regardless of how stunning I found the view. Truth be told, the difference between high-end and summit-fi is not nearly as large as you?d imagine based purely on how much it will cost you to walk those extra few steps to the top. If, like me, you?re willing to spread your listening between two or more headphones, each of which does something different or better than the other and is therefore more suited to different types of music, then putting all your eggs in one very expensive basket like Utopia is not necessarily the best way to spend your money.
Then again, if money is no object, and the price of Utopia doesn?t make your palms sweat and eyes twitch, then few headphones I?m aware of can elevate your music to extreme levels of fidelity like Utopia can. It may not get you up and dancing, but it will make you cry - and not because you had to sell your car to buy it.
A big thanks once again to Geoff, and if you like what you've read, he may still have a Utopia with your name on it...
