Just got done with my Utopia demo. Wow.
I'll say first, they're the best sounding "out of the box" headphones I've ever heard. BY A LONG SHOT. Like nothing else is even close. What I mean by that is their ability to come straight out, without needing to tailor a system around them, and sound jaw droppingly good is stunning. They sounded better out of the headphone jack of my iPhone than an HD800 sounds out of a lot of mediocre setups I've heard at meets.
Without crossfeed I even preferred the Utopia's soundstage. It, while not huge, was much more "realistic and cohesive" of a soundstage to my ears. It sounded like a medium sized jazz club. Or, in another manner of thinking, it kind of sounded like you were sitting a little too close to premium quality speakers. There was this sensation of being just inside the sweetspot of a great speaker setup. The HD800, by comparison, sounds kind of like listening to ultra high quality nearfield monitors that are setup too far apart.
dynamic punch was a draw to me. The Utopia was a bit overexcited at times, whereas the HD800 always sounded right to me. Take note that the TorpedoIII is an ultra-dynamic amp once maxed out.
frequency response, unaltered, was no contest. THe utopia had a sense of balance that while not 100% neutral, was much more "natural" than the HD800. It maybe came off a bit U-shaped, but with no peaks whatsoever, just a very gentle U curve similar to most high quality speaker rigs. Bass was delicious, mids were sweet, and treble was present and extended without ever being in your face.
detail was mostly a draw.
Now, when I compared the Utopia to my HD800 optimized in my system, I still prefered the HD800. The soudnstage was a bit more immersive when crossfeed was applied. THe utopia also benefitted from crossfeed, but not to the extent the HD800 did. The plug-in I use for widening soundstage helped the Utopia quite a bit, as I was able to expand the width, and pushes the sides away, to get more of a flat, large stage with the Utopia than it's stock "hemispherical" stage. But the HD800 was still better. After applying sonarworks, the Utopia's advantage in frequency response went away, and they pulled into a dead heat. Further, with the TorpedoIII, the Utopia may have almost been *too* punchy. It sounded better in some ways with the Grace m9XX than it did with the TIII. At one point I put the iDAC6 (which has a very punchy output stage to it) with the TopredoIII and Utopia. I put on the new Metallica album and it basically exploded out of the system. It could be fun, but it gave me difficulty in finding the right volume level. I'd say it was a bit fatiguing in that setup. Not harsh at all, but just so punchy that it almost wore your eardrums out.
HD800 also won on comfort, though I wouldn't call the Utopia uncomfortable by any means.
Putting this all together, I think Utopia is probably "objectively" a better headphone. It's a bit unfair to compare it to a system I've spent about a year optimizing for the HD800. But the HD800 was able to surpass it by a hair when placed in that optimized system. If I put the same effort into optimizing a system for the Utopia? Maybe it nudges back ahead, or maybe it doesn't. But to me the biggest strength of the Utopia is that it doesn't really need to be optimized in the way the HD800 does. It just goes, straight out, and blows you away. I have some doubts on the Utopia "scaling" with really exotic amps. To my ears it sounds like it just needs a clean, low output impedance amp. Nothing particularly fancy. Now maybe when people do more experimenting, some heretefore unimaginable synergy will pop up with some amps. It does benefit from a great DAC. WHile I had the option of borrowing a Yggy for this test, that ended up not really being an option because it would have had to wait 4 days to warm up, lol. Instead I was able to compare it using the DAC on my iPhone, the Dragonfly Red, iDAC6, AudioEngine D1 m9XX and Modi Multibit. It really shined with the Modi Multibit, lovingly reproducing all the microdetail the ModiMultibit could feed it. The small flaws of the DAC on the Dragonfly Red were immediately apparent ( a bit oversharpened edges and a flat soundstage) in comparison to the better DACs. The iDAC6, like mentioned above, was almost too punch for the Utopia unless paired with a less punchy amp. It sounded Sublime with the m9XX while also pointing out the way the m9XX does smooth over a few microdetails (in comparison to a top line R2R DAC, the m9XX is still near the top in terms of Delta Sigma DACs). But the Utopia was thoroughly enjoyable, if not astounding out of EVERYTHING.
Again, I'm not exagerating when I say the Utopia straight out of an iPhone sounds better than a LOT of HD800 setups I've heard.
![DT1990-ChSd-1024x555[1].png](https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/12230656.png)
