Happy anniversary Paul.
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Thanks Christopher. Appreciate it.
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Looks like updated accessories with the Utopia - included travel case, extra 4 ft. (1.2m) cable, 10 ft (3m) cable now terminated with 4-pin XLR.
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Those are a welcome addition. They are accessories that I had to buy after my purchase of the Utopias. These headphones are expensive enough that they should have included the case and XLR cable. Perhaps Focal is feeling price competition from other TOTL headphones?
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They announced the update in EU a little ahead of the gun in January which is how we found out about it. They didnât start shipping in North America until last month. The current price is $4400 if you want this option but I would suspect that to drop to $3990 pretty quickly.
@Resolve has a pair right now that heâa doing an unboxing for for anyone interested in a closer look .
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For those looking for an unboxing of the Utopia with the new case and cables. Gone is the 4m python cable but now it is the same cable used with the Stellia, Clears and Elegia. The cables still use the LEMO connector as well.
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Wish they would refresh it to use the 3.5mm as used in the Stellia, Clears, and Elegia.
I would be disappointed if such a well built pair of phones skimped on connectors. The LEMO connectors are top notch and I feel rewarded by their precision and electrical qualities. I am ok with the long, heavy, thick stock cable that came with my used set.
Anything is better than the permanently kinked Clear factory cable set.
Focal almost pulled a fast one with the cables for the new SKU. For some reason they didnât put the 3.5mm in the pamphlet box but in the carrying case. A little worried I got a quarter inch adapter but no 3.5mm cable!
I just wanted to post some measurements here of the Utopia using our new GRAS 43AG-7 and KB5000 (KEMAR Anthropometric Pinna).
What Iâm showing here is the raw measurement along with a few target curves, and I wanted to try getting a sense of what everyone finds most valuable for representing it.
Hereâs the Utopia compared to the Harman over-ear 2018 target (notice the crazy bass shelf).
Here it is compared to the Harman 2013 over-ear target (more appropriate bass to my ear, but still âpreferenceâ). Between these two I find the bass on the 2013 target to be more appropriate, however I prefer the treble extension on the 2018 target. Also notice, more upper mids on the 2013 target between 2-3khz.
And here is Crinâs suggestion of an âenthusiast neutralâ target. Basically this takes the Harman over-ear 2018 target but ignores the bass shelf (and other features below 900hz). The idea behind this was that while all the features of the Harman target above 900hz are still present, they generally match ear-related gain factors (leaving aside the treble roll off for now). There may be some gain factors below 900hz from the head and neck but it may not be necessary to include them for headphones, and so this eliminates the âpreferenceâ based features in lower frequencies like the 200hz dip and the bass shelf around 120hz.
The other nice thing about this is that if we consider a real headphone like the Focal Utopia to be reasonably âneutralâ, this custom target reflects that fairly well. I think this can also still be improved by adjusting the targetâs treble roll-off. I tend to find that the Harman targets generally do this to some degree (the 2018 less so than the 2013 target).
We can also go with the GRAS KEMAR DF target, but Iâm not sure if anyone actually wants their headphones to match that, and so while it might be useful for consistency, Iâm not sure itâs something we should actually shoot for.
In any case, the question of which target curves should be used is somewhat a matter of approach. There are âestablishedâ curves like the ones from Harman, which are based on consumer preference (meaning thereâs some room for disagreement), but you can set a custom target like the one Iâve done above that ignores the âpreference-basedâ features of the Harman target like the bass shelf, while still retaining the ones that generally follow the gain factors of the physical ear. I say generally here because they donât follow them perfectly, but itâs pretty close.
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I think the 2013 Harman is the way to go. The bass is too high on the 2018, but the last one doesnât make sense. A completely flat response from 1k down wouldnât allow for any dynamics in the bass frequencies. Itâs too unrealistic in my opinion.
Iâm glad to see the GRAS is setup. Itâll be great to see more accurate measurements on future reviews. 
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Yeah this is what Iâve been wrestling with. Technically I think it is accurate to what we may assume is âneutralâ, if you consider what that might sound like, but youâre right you do lose bass definition as a result. The question in my mind is, which is more important for representing a âneutral targetâ. Is the bass definition and emphasis part of âneutralâ? or is that just preference. Recognizing that a âneutral targetâ doesnât actually exist, I donât think itâs unreasonable to consider headphones that we might think of as sounding classically neutral to achieve it.
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I think whichever target most accurately represents the natural presentation of instruments is the one to go with. Neutral for me is an accurate and natural presentation of sound with as little coloration as possible.
This follows from the rather arbitrary nature of human perceptual systems (as evolved to be âjust good enoughâ for survival/reproduction) versus the machine tools of the science era.
For analogy, consider a visual comparison with how a flat audio measurement ideal might differ from a naturalistic target (e.g., Harman). The film Timâs Vermeer (2013) is extremely educational on this topic. A video professional (Tim Jenison) noted that the renaissance master Vermeerâs paintings had the look of what a lens sees rather than what the human eye sees. Vermeer had been considered to be a creative and technical master - it turns out the most plausible painting method involved a lens and mirror system. Any random amateur could rapidly learn Vermeerâs technique.
Now, art created by the human eye can be fully pleasing but it doesnât have the precision of perspective drawing (e.g,. vanishing points) and lenses with mirrors.
All of this is going to end up back in the objective/subjective debate and a place with lots of debate but no firm truthsâŚmuseums are full of everything from primitive to photorealistic art and all of it is great.
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Right, and in this case it would probably be closer to the last graph. The bass shelf really is just a preference element. So if you hear things that are elevated or dipped somewhere, they should show up as deviations from the target, and I think most people would notice the bass emphasis from Harman.
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That gets to the question of methodology for identifying the target. People have tried to achieve a curve that perfectly matches the gain factors of the human ear, but there are very good reasons why headphones arenât tuned to those targets as commonly. In my mind, I wouldnât consider that âneutralâ either, but rather, âbrightâ.
So I think this boils down to one of the subjects Mad Economist and I were talking about on our live stream the other day, about what people assume is âneutralâ, regardless of the curves that are actually developed for the human ear.
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I just feel that bass is more present in live listening, both is concert and studio sessions. A flat response isnât accurate to the sounds drums and other low frequency instruments create.
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Yeah thatâs also because of the room and distance from the sound source. I think youâre right though, if you want it to sound like a live environment, it would require way more bass. But in a way I kind of donât think thatâs neutral in the sense of eliminating the various additional elements that might âcolorâ the sound (like the room). The other side of it too is that even in the recording situation thereâs preference. Some people want their bass to be way higher than others, or emphasize different elements in the mix. This is just one of the many problems in the circle of confusion haha.
So I guess it comes down to âwhatâs the best way of representing FRâ, and at the moment I donât have an answer. Because thereâs also the question of interpretation. You may see the linear bass extension on the last graph and perfectly understand that youâd want more bass than âdead flatâ.
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Absolutely. Nailing down a truly âneutralâ FR is a tough endeavor due to all of the aforementioned factors.
Good luck! 
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Could pick one or two popular headphones on this community and use those to compare. Or have a tool created like crinâs and allow people to select their preferred/target.
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