He prefers new HP’s. Or at least that’s what I though he mentioned at some point. New the Focal were at $4k or so.
Pretty sure in the first post he points out a used pair and also just bought used arya. IMO at this range it’s hard to recommend buying new
Yep, my bad. Missed that whole eBay part of the conversation
I really like the Utopias. They are definitely on my one-day wishlist, but I have a few things in front of them right now. I think I would like to figure out my high-end amp solution before I picked them up
they are on my only if I win the lottery wishlist
I tested them for a while before I eventually got to buy the Stellias off a friend. I prefer the stellias personally but they sounded good too.
(Also was considering the focal arche dac, but ended up choosing my chord for the sound. One audio reviewer online said it best, none of its presets did their headphones justice and the internal dac was really outdated for the arche’s overall cost)
Agree with this for sure
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It sounded very… dry to me, I don’t know how to describe it. A lot of the audiophile people on other forums talk about this idea of digital being “veiled” or filtered. The Focal Arche was the only time I felt like I understood what they meant by veiled.
Yeah, I’m not sure what they were going for. Also Micromega (the one that made the amp for focal I think) typically has a dryer signature and also I don’t really think they have made a dedicated headphone amp before
I feel like they wanted to keep all their development in France.
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That is exactly it lol
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That sounds like a great idea! Surprised to hear it sounds like the Utopia. And with pad changes i could hear different signatures since the ZMF headphones take to pads so well. Also would probably sound better on a tube amp than the Utopia’s. 
Before the Arche they used to use Questyle at shows and did specials with Questyle DAPs bundled with one of their headphone models. Surely, Questyle would have been the logical partner for a Focal-branded headphone amp. Possible, though, that Questyle wasn’t open to implementing the presets. Also, if the Arche presets don’t make sense, could be they were tailored according to market research / consumer testing.
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Questyle pairs very well with focal so it would have made sense. I think it’s their marketing and pride that stops them lol
It’s not that they dont make sense. Its that whatever output tuning they’re using to bring out the strengths of their headphones just makes them sound dry and slightly… undefined in their detail and bass (I am bad at audiophile language lol) when coupled with the dryness of the Dac, it sounds kinda lame. I could tell what they were trying to do. I just think they failed at it.
I’ve found the higher end focals are specific to not only the dac and amp but the kind of power you put through them. For example, when on low gain, my Stellias sound detailed but kinda underwhelming on low end. But if you put my hugo tt 2 on high gain and turn down the volume by 9 to match volume output the dynamics of the headphone become extremely full on all almost parts of the audio spectrum without losing their… smoothness, idfk. (probably why Zeos responded to the stellias on the m15’s overear mode)
The audio reviewer I mentioned before also said that the arche’s generic headphone high gain setting worked better than the specific headphone presets.
(Edit; I’m not sure what kind of amplification the TT2 does --have a feeling it’s A or A/B cause it gets warm-- but its one of those ultra clean, low distortion, ultra powerful type topologies, but the aspect of how power/gain effects the overall sound of headphones makes it very good for testing these more sensitive types of cans it seems)
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Oh side note, I have never heard the Utopias on my specific set up, just the dacs and daps at Bay Bloor Radio where I auditioned them. Knowing how power affects the utopias I am very interested to find out how they sound on my TT2
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ugh, i find all this talk about amps and dacs discouraging. I just dont want to spend money on amps and dacs lol
Yeah, its a weird thing, isnt it?
its not a requirement you can stick with your current gear its just reccomended though if your gonna go up to that tier of heapdhone
Yeah i just bought the RNHP amp. hoping i wont have to worry about an amp for a good long time
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