@nooac from your comment “I’d be interested in a short(if possible) comparison of all three headphones. First, second and third if possible. Which one is your favorite if you have one and why.” from the MrSpeakers Voce thread. I figured I’d post here as my thoughts pertain to the Utopia.
HiFiMAN HE-1000, Sennheiser HD800, Focaul Utopia. In order of increasing preference. I started off with the HD800 after a long line of headphones before it. At one point I owned the LCD-X and HD800 at the same time and thought they were very good compliments to each other. The LCD-X with great lows and mids, but a very small soundstage. The HD800 with enormous detail and huge soundstage. The LCD-X went shortly after I first heard the HE-1000. I can’t remember exactly why to be honest. It may have done everything the LCD-X did but with a bit bigger soundstage. So for a while I owned the HE-1000 and HD800 and bounced back and forth between the two.
Eventually, a deal came up for a pair of Focal Utopia. I purchased them having never heard them. Maybe all of the reviews of them being the ‘best headphones in the world’ piqued my interest. I figured they’d be worth a shot. So now I had three high end headphones. Splitting time between the three didn’t seem reasonable. Nor did the fact that I had a bunch of money tied up in headphones that I wasn’t going to put to good use. I settled on the Utopia. They’re still my main headphones and the only headphones I own for my headphone rig (I do have a pair of Aeon Closed v1 that I use at work). My selection process for the three came down to compromises, a story of Goldilocks.
*All of this is from memory, so maybe not the most accurate anymore as I sold the HE-1000 and HD800 over a year ago…
HE-1000: comfortable, but probably the least so of the three for my preferences. They had a good bottom end but I don’t remember them being as punchy as I would have liked - kick drum didn’t hit as hard as I would have liked. They had a good soundstage but weren’t as resolving/detailed as the HD800, so the image felt a bit smeared with bigger pieces.
HD800: comfortable and very light. The ear pad material could be a bit better, but not bad. These are very detailed and airy. I didn’t do any of the mods to ‘tame’ the treble. They could be a bit fatiguing after a while, but the wide soundstage was wonderful for orchestral music. They did reach down pretty low in the bass, but the quantity just wasn’t there for me - kick drum hit, but lacked oomph.
Utopia: maybe not as comfortable to me as the HD800, but comfortable enough. The ear pads are nice. Maybe if these had a more ear-like shape to the cups they would be better. Very resolving with good extension on both ends. They don’t have quite the bottom end that I would prefer. I wouldn’t consider myself a bass head in any sense, but (as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now) I do like bass to be natural. So if there’s a kick drum, I want it to hit. I want to feel the kick of the drum in GoGo Penguin’s Window or rumble at the finale of Stravinksy’s Firebird Suite. They don’t have the wide soundstage of the HD800, but are not too narrow. They do, however, have good separation and imaging. They do acoustic music and vocals really well, perhaps because of the more intimate soundstage. Artists like Sarah Jarosz and Alela Diane or even Nat King Cole sound perfectly natural and centered while the music surrounds them.
Hmm that was a bit rambly. Anyway, there’s no such thing as the perfect pair of headphones… or speakers… or running shoes. Or at least that I’ve ever found. So we must do with the best that we can afford, that we can audition, that checks off as many boxes as possible. The Utopia aren’t perfect, but they’re a good compromise between the things that I like. Perhaps I will have to try out a few more pairs of headphones to see if anything can unseat them as my only pair.
Feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions.
