And that’s what I did.
That has to be it, that’s the only excuse. Still flipping ridiculous.
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I’m still kicking myself for not getting one at $2k a while back…
I really like Focal headphones but it really passes me off to think that they feel they can treat customers in this way. Some are repeat customers too. It’s a damned disgrace charging all that for a replacement headband.
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I’m certainly not defending Focal’s ear pad prices, but carbon fiber parts may be a challenge. They are notoriously expensive – Focal may pay a supplier a fortune for the parts. Genuine, structural carbon fiber is a different beast than “carbon fiber look” plastics and decals.
A Ford Mustang carbon fiber wheel costs $7K.
A Ferrari carbon fiber rear fender was $60K.
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I’m building a cable to Utopia soon, can someone check pinout for the Lemo-connectors? It propably had a notch on one side of the 2-pins, you can draw it (better) or tell me which is which.
I’ve been doing cables for myself and a friend but made a post on local forum so people can order more, I make fairly good / cheap price and superb quality cables. I’m in Finland, so don’t get excited.
But thanks for help everyone! 
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Head over to this thread where someone else has posted a pic of the pinout:
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what’s everyone’s favorite amp with the Utopia so far?
The ampsandsound Kenzie Ovation is a gorgeous companion
Donald North Audio. It’s the best I’ve heard the Utopia and DNA.
Based on their gear selections, I believe @perogie @dncnexus @andris concur.
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That’s a really nice picture!
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The EC Studio B is the perfect amp pairing for my taste. Wish I still have the utopia on hand.
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The Studio B helps with the small soundstage of the Utopia, but I don’t think it does it any favors in terms of timbre or tonality. I think although the staging is smaller on the DNA + Utopia, the upsides of the timbre/tonality puts it ahead of the Studio B in regards to pairing with the Utopia. Just my opinion though.
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Studio B sounded good. DNA introduced elevated elements of texture and dynamics among other things.
The Studio B and RAD-0 was also a special pairing.
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This set up needs some visual love, three different woods, varying shelving, cable scatter, tubes laying wasted, amp missing tubes, and look at that ghastly mess of disorganization 
For all this nice equipment, quite the ghetto arrangement…
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That’s right. My personal favorite so far is the DNA Stratus, and the Woo WA5 in a fairly close second (all stock tubes swapped out for both of those). Based on my experience with the demo DNA Stratus, I ordered a Stellaris with a few optional upgrades.
Other amps I’ve liked include the ZMF Pendant (built by ampsandsound) and LTA MZ3.
I did not like the Feliks Audio Euforia (AE), but go figure, because that’s apparently the amp Focal themselves have used as a good tube pairing for the Utopia. Goes to show you that so much of this is personal taste.
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Tough but discerning critic you are. I took no issue with the well appointed eclectic motif, including the luxurious Herman Miller listening chair (not pictured).
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Certainly understand why you’d hear it this way. DNA amps are voiced very different from EC amps. Immediately apparent when I compared my studio and starlett side by side. Both sound great and I’m contemplating getting rid of my starlett to get stellaris…
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Well, the Herman Miller chair can class up a dumpster 
Now if there was a sword on the wall, then this could be a place worthy of the Utopia and RAD-0…
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So, I know there’s nothing that I can say about Utopia that hasn’t already been said a hundred times, but now that I’ve spent a few weeks with them I wanted to add my 2 cents.
When I decided to buy Utopia it was mostly because I felt that I couldn’t move forward in my audio journey without understanding this particular headphone. Utopia is a touchpoint, a legend, the undisputed king at the top of the mountain. I had to know WHY. Sure, I could have gone to one of several hifi shops in the city to hear it, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my journey so far it’s that I cannot form a reliable opinion on something from just hearing it once or twice. I need to spend days or even weeks with something before I can confidently say I understand what it’s all about. And so I decided to buy a Utopia. Honestly, I expected the “dry, analytical” sound I had heard so much about to not really appeal very much to me, but even so I wanted to spend some time with it to understand it. To be perfectly frank, I rather expected I would probably keep Utopia for a few months, long enough to understand it and then move on. Spoiler alert: I was super wrong. I’ve seen (heard) Utopia, and it is good. VERY good.
I started my hifi journey with HD800S, which is purported to be a “detail monster”, and have since moved on to Verite & Arya - both also renowned for their technical ability. But to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I even understood what “detail” in a headphone was until I heard Utopia. Would I hear sounds I wouldn’t hear on other headphones? Would my music sound different? Well, no, not exactly, but Utopia resolves spacial cues and complex “busy” passages in a way that lesser headphones just can’t, and it actually resolves the presentational nuances of the equipment you’re listening on and the very FILES you are listening to in a way that I plainly did not even know was possible. Bouncing between Utopia and Arya, which I previously had believed to be a VERY detailed headphone, it sounds like a whole layer of sound is missing - when I listen to Arya now I find myself reaching, trying to find the details that I now know are in the music, like if maybe I just listen hard enough I’ll find them, but the truth is there’s a whole layer of information in many recordings that other headphones just can’t reproduce. Is it subtle? Well, yes and no. Once you hear it you can’t UNhear it, though. (*NOTE: I do not mean to pick on Arya specifically, it’s just the other headphone that I have on hand to compare with and one that I found very interesting to compare with Utopia)
A lot has been said about Utopia. A common theme is that it “only sounds good with well recorded music”. This is more or less true. But I would counter with: why are you listening to bad music in the first place? And why is it Utopia’s fault if your bad music sounds bad? Bad music is bad. Life is too short to listen to bad music, so just stop, and stop blaming Utopia. Another common theme is that Utopia sounds “analytical” or “bright”. Both false. I would counter that Utopia has NO inherent quality of its own, Utopia is transparent - it is whatever you feed it. If you feed it bright music from a dry analytical chain, then bright & analytical is exactly what you’re going to get. One thing Utopia won’t do is lie to you. But feed Utopia well recorded well mastered music on a well designed audio chain, and Utopia gets you up close and personal with your music in a whole new way. It’s a very intimate experience - I had never consciously realized how “colored” every other headphone & speaker I’ve ever heard before has been. Some for better, some for worse, but every single one of them added its own personality to the sound in the process of reproducing it. Somehow, Utopia feels like it doesn’t do that. It just sort of disappears, leaving absolutely nothing between you and the music (*Insert “Utopia has narrow soundstage” complaint here. Yes, I said NOTHING between you and the music, not even space). It’s revelatory.
The best part of my personal experience with this is just how much I’ve come to love Utopia without it overshadowing or competing with Verite. Utopia is transparent and detailed and gets out of the way so it’s just me and the music; Verite is warm and inviting and says “hey, just relax, listen to this”. They are very different, and both equally glorious in their own way (*Note: Verite has excellent technical ability, but its detail retrieval is still a notch or two below Utopia). I feel very privileged to have come so far so fast in my audio journey and ended up in a place where one year in I can confidently say I’ve found my way to headphone endgame. Arya will probably be replaced by a Susvara or lcd-5 at some point, but I don’t think I’ll ever part with Verite or Utopia.
Finally, for anyone looking at Utopia wondering what it’s all about and trying to make sense of the often conflicting reports you find about it I would leave you with this: Utopia has no personality of its own, it is whatever you feed it. Utopia is a tool; a tool to discover nuance and detail in your music that you didn’t even know you hadn’t heard before. If you love your music and simply want MORE of it, that’s exactly what Utopia gives you.
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What you said. Other than your comment about bad music, which doesn’t distinguish between bad music and poorly recorded music. Big difference.
But I came to the same destination as you did in about the same time period. Whenever I reach for my Verite Closed or HD800S, I have to convince myself there’s some reason I shouldn’t just grab the Utopias. Love the others, love the different flavors, but can find no fault with Utopia.
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