A headphone that looks like a million bucks, yours for the paltry sum of $4000. All-in-all this is a stealth-black sexy build, with terrific materials, and just the right balance of understatement and bling. Outer capsule housing holds connections for the two black Lemo connectors on the headphone's cable, which is terminated at the player end with a high-quality Neutrik 1/4" phone plug. Black metal mesh and matte black plastic outer capsule covers are accentuated by a black anodized driver rear cover ring emblazoned with "Utopia - Beryllium - Fabrique en France." A brushed aluminum grill covers the central rear driver hole. Curvaceous carbon fiber yolks with black-on-black Focal logo attach to the gloss black plastic capsule housing on one end, and slide into the headband through black anodized aluminum headband end fittings. Sumptuous black lamb-skin leather covers ample memory foam ear and headband pads. Oh my, this is a sexy headphone! In my world, killer audio gear is black, and the Utopia is unapologetically, confidently, bad-ass black. Okay Utopia, $4k huh, I'm lookin' at you, this better be good. Second, that's right, Focal's step-down from flagship headphone is already competing head-to-head with the field.and in this present review we'll take a look at their top-of-the-line Utopia ($3999) to see if we're breaking into new territory. On these two points, Focal has nailed it.on a couple of levels! First, and maybe most importantly, the recently reviewed Focal Elear at $999 competes very strongly with all other $1000+ headphones and, to my ears, bests them in terms of over-all balance. A headphone in this category should never feel or appear cheap in any way. In every way from leather pads to carbon fiber parts to high-quality connectors, materials of a $1000+ headphone should be of very high quality.and when the price exceeds $2000 the bar gets even higher. Sure, they're usually excellent in some ways, but for me a flagship headphone should have a strong balance of performance across the board in addition to areas of outstanding sonic character.Īs much as it grates on headphone enthusiasts with normal-sized wallets, flagship headphones are also luxury items and it's perfectly understandable that they're price accordingly.as long as the luxury is really there. They should sound damned good, but historically they all to often have fatal flaws that degrade perceived performance to the point that they really aren't all that much better than some headphones of a much lower price. Über-expensive headphones are the bane of my existence.
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