The Standard-Bearer for Open-Back Headphones: Focal Utopia 2022 Features Beryllium M-Shaped Dome Loudspeaker and Updated Voice Coil
Reference-grade resolution, amazing comfort, and elegant design come together in the industry-standard Focal Utopia 2022 open-back headphones. Featuring a wide-range loudspeaker made of a 1.6-inch, pure Beryllium M-shape dome built within the headphones, Utopia 2022 touts several upgrades — including a copper-aluminum voice coil and honeycomb grilles — over the original model for enhanced reliability and sound.
Notably, Utopia 2022 is able to play without any crossover or passive filtering. As a result, it claims an astonishing 5Hz-50kHz frequency response. You'll hear reference-level naturalism, balance, dynamics, detail, and transparency. Utopia 2022 seemingly disappears while the music appears with exacting precision and true-to-scale imaging. Manufactured in France, these headphones have generated accolades throughout the world.
The open-back ear cups provide for sonic decompression and help create an immersive soundstage. Utopia 2022's purity extends to the carbon-fiber yoke designed to fit all head sizes and shapes. Free of the conventional rotation found on most yokes, it seamlessly integrates into the headband for the ultimate in listening comfort. Designed to evenly distribute weight across the headband, these 'phones allow for long listening sessions. Pittards leather, used on the nearly 1-inch-thick memory-foam cushions, reinforces the character of the elegant lines and overall performance.
A durable, two-pin, fully shielded Lemo connector is positioned on the underside of each ear cup. The headphones arrive in a black, faux leather box with a lightweight carrying case and two high-fidelity cables. The 10-foot cable is ideal for use in the home with a high-end amplifier, thanks to its balanced, four-pin XLR connector. The five-foot cable is designed to be portable.
If you're ready to experience the state-of-the-art in headphones and want a true wide-range loudspeaker on your ears, you're ready to go to Utopia.
Please note: Intended for low-noise environments and serious listening, Utopia 2022 is designed for use with an external DAC and headphone amplifier. The headphones will not plug directly into a smartphone.
"While I hesitate to call any component 'the best,' the Focal Utopia certainly ranks overall as the finest dynamic headphone I've experienced to date. It is among the most comfortable, sonically neutral, and well-built headphones I've ever reviewed."
—Steven Stone, The Absolute Sound
"I needn't belabor the fact that the Focal Utopia has the best top end of any headphone I've ever heard."
—Mark Fleischmann, Sound & Vision, Top Pick Award
"The Focal Utopias are not only the most accurate headphones I've ever used, they're the most articulate speaker drivers I have ever heard."
—Herb Reichert, Stereophile
"Focal has aimed for the moon when it comes to performance, directing its flagship offering straight at the very best the headphone establishment can manage. It has succeeded."
—What Hi-Fi?, five-star review
“If you find the Focal Utopia 2022 as comfortable as I do, it may qualify as your lifetime reference-quality headphone. The Utopia 2022 is simply an outstanding component from a company with a long history of creating high-value, high-performance transducers.”
—Steven Stone, Hi-Fi+
"It can handle large-scale macrodynamic outbursts, small-scale moments of microdynamic expression so subtle and fleeting that most headphones gloze them over, and everything in between. But the thing that is absolutely riveting [is] the manner in which this headphone exposes dynamic contrasts within individual pieces of music."
—Chris Martens, Hi-Fi+
"The quality makes recordings closer to the sound of live music, which is a big part of what makes the Utopia such a remarkable headphone. The best Sennheiser, HiFiMAN, Grado, Beyerdynamic, and Audeze headphones can't match the Focal Utopia on that score."
—CNET
"The Elear and Utopia are simply extraordinary. The sense of dynamism, tonal balance, and smooth clarity of both are, to put it mildly, disorientingly disruptive to my sense of where headphones are at today and in what way and by how much these are better."
—Inner Fidelity
"Focal's new flagship is easily the best dynamic headphone ever made to date and carries all the weight, panache, and accolades that entails."
—Audio Head
Impedance: 80 Ohms
Sensitivity: 104dB SPL / 1mW @ 1kHz
THD: <0.2 % @ 1kHz / 100dB SPL
Frequency response: 5Hz – 50kHz
Speaker driver: 19/16" (40mm) pure beryllium 'M'-shaped dome
Weight: 1.08 lbs.
Cables provided:
1 x 5ft cable (1.5m) with 1 x 1/8" (3.5mm) asymmetric TRS Jack connector and 2 x Lemo connectors
1 x 10ft cable (3m) with 1 x symmetrical 4-point XLR connector and 2 Lemo connectors
1 x Jack adapter, 1/8" (3.5mm) point socket – 1/4" (6.35mm) point plug
Carrying case included: 9.8" x 9.4" x 4.7"