Focal Utopia vs Focal Clear

The result of this highly-excursive quality is that the Utopia makes for one of the most engaging and lively listening experiences, which also helps i...

By shit quality I mean: if your $1000+ headphone (hell, $50+) headphone can break with normal, intended use, rendering it useless without incurring huge fees to have it repaired, it is shit. I own a Focal Clear and Hifiman Edition X V2.

If there’s anything negative to be said about the Utopia or Elear’s sound reproduction, it’s the classic problem of really good audio equipment exposing really bad recordings. You’ll quickly start to hate low-quality streaming services and look for something of higher fidelity. That being said, I’m not pushing you into the snake-oil world of high-res audio and crazy formats: all of my listening and adoration of these headphones took place with 320kbps MP3s. I tried a few FLAC files, I even listened on a Pono Player and an Astell & Kern player, and whatever difference there might be, I didn’t notice it

you need a bit more headroom than these can deliver to fully sweep you off your feet and fly you away...and that is simply a deal-breaker for me

Why? Why are you heavier? Why go to carbon fiber if you're not going to make it lighter? So maybe they made something else heavier, maybe the build is...

Out of the box, onto la cabeza, hit play: yep, these are the ones. No worrying about whether the bass will drop and the treble grow less congested after break-in, because the Focal Clear sounds very obviously natural from the start. No pondering different amping options, because it sounds great out of anything. No stewing over whether or not it'll grow on me or if I'll send them back

Hardly 6 months down the line and tried using it last week and presto, the right side can has conked out again. Luckily it was still under warranty and had it sent back again to the distributor. Frankly speaking, for such an expensive pair of headphones, I never expected it to break down so easily. So, if you are really thinking of getting one, beware

I don’t have any desire to go further than Focal Clear, but I’m also trying to be strict on how much I’m spending on headphones. I don’t know if EMU Ebony is my end game closed back or not but I don’t have any desire to replace it until it shits the bed (hoping that never happens!)