Focal Utopia (2022) 40mm Pure Beryllium Driver Open-Back Over-Ear Headphone

With its exclusive drivers, sleek design and noble materials, Utopia is an exceptional headphone. Its uncompromising design, combined with its comfort and Focal technologies, offers high-fidelity listening of unrivalled purity, at the pinnacle of performance that hi-fi headphones can provide. Its recycled forged carbon yoke gives it a modern, refined style, while ensuring greater lightness.

The midrange demonstrates full body and neutrality, with natural timbre, and a sense of separation and layering that doesn’t lose the forest for the trees. You can at once hear each individual sonic thread while appreciating the whole. The treble is a masterpiece, crisp, fast, and providing excellent extension and air, while avoiding sibilance or peakiness.

Utopia 2022 presents a large soundstage that provides a sense of width, depth, and height. There’s an encompassing, three-dimensional feeling to the stereo image, that creates an immersive listening experience. The imaging is precise and holographic, giving you a sense of real physicality to the instruments and voices – and really goes beyond just hearing the voice or instrument, to being able to perceive the musician or singer.

Like most Focal headphones, Utopia 2022 works well with just about any device you care to connect it to, from your phone dongle to a high powered headphone amp. We tested it in the office with everything from the aforementioned dongles, to the Burson Conductor 3 GT, the Weiss DAC502, and the Astell&Kern SP2000T. Since the power requirements are low, the focus should be on getting the best possible DAC to pair with it, rather than massive amounts of power.

“Herald of the Change” from the Dune soundtrack is the perfect demonstration of Utopia 2022. The soft ambient textures that start the piece have a sense of vast distance while the slowly rising orchestra feels like an unstoppable force moving towards you across the open expanse. Utopia 2022 lets you get lost in each small part, as there’s such depth to the detail provided, while also lending a massive feeling to the wall of sound that closes in on you.

Utopia 2022 isn’t limited to orchestral pieces of epic scope, and can also make for a more “fun” listening experience – giving you a seat in the studio for a detailed, energetic performance. Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow” is a great example of a somewhat messy feeling, high-energy rock song where Utopia 2022 can capture the detail in the guitars, the emotion of the vocals, and impact in the drums, weaving together all the energy into an in-your-face listening experience. The crispness of the cymbals is particularly notable through the entire Ten album, as well as the fact that Utopia 2022 presents Eddie Vedder’s voice so clearly that you can actually understand what he’s saying.

King Crimson’s “Starless” is a prog rock song with a bit of everything: a relaxing start with smooth saxophone solos and soft vocals that gives way into intense polyrhythms, atonal guitar solos, and a bit of sheer insanity. Utopia 2022 masterfully presents the rich textures of the synthesizers – and sometimes the deliberately harsh visceral stabs – the various shades of guitar and bass, along with the incredible drum performance. Utopia 2022 can facilitate deep analysis of a complex piece of progressive music and let you rock out to at the same time.

“Army of Me” by Bjork opens with a driving beat and deep synthesized bassline. There’s a nice touch of physical impact to the drums and a low rumble to the synth. Utopia 2022’s imaging places the rhythm section on the back of a stage surrounding the listener, while Bjork’s voice is right in front of your face, eerily separated from the rest of the music. Utopia 2022 provides the physical sensation of up close vocals without falling into sibilance, delivering the pained sound of the singer’s voice without causing pain to the listener.

Comparison: Utopia (Original), Meze Elite

Okay, so Utopia 2022 is great – amazing, incredible, or whatever other superlatives you want to throw at it. How does it compare to the original Utopia or some of the competition to come out since? To answer that we brought out an original Utopia and a house favorite Meze Elite for a comparison.

In terms of the build, honestly… just… wow. All three of these things look and feel amazing, and seem like they’d last forever as long as you don’t throw them off your roof or something. There’s sure to be some conflicting preference between the headband styles or the solid vs fenestrated leather pads, but overall, you won’t be disappointed with the build or craftsmanship on any of these headphones.

The Bottom Line

While the updates to Utopia seem subtle at first, when you add them all up, the sum ends up being pretty large. Between the physical improvements to the durability of the drivers, to the improved bass and refined treble, for most people, Utopia 2022 represents a clear step forward, and earns its spot as Focal’s flagship headphone.