First order of business: pictures. Everybody loves pictures. Here they are.The Source AV is a great place to check out high-end headphones and amps. If you live in SoCal, and are in the market for expensive headphones and/or headamps, this is the place to go. HD800, HD800S, HE1000, LCD-X, LCD-2, Ether, Ether C, Cavalli Audio, Woo Audio, Moon Audio, McIntosh, and many others. It was a pleasure talking to the owner Jason Lord. Wayne was super cool setting up the stuff for us. They pretty much left us alone and gave us absolutely zero pressure to buy. Because of this, I decided to purchase the Elear from them. I could have gotten the Elear for less from one of those outfits in NY to avoid paying tribute to the CA political machine, I mean state sales tax, but I chose not to. Please support your local brick-and-mortar stores like Source AV or Minidisc (in Sydney Australia) if you enjoy this privilege. Don't always be a dick and buy something for the lowest price.Now let's get on with it. Both the Elear and Utopia are deserving of high-fi or summit-fi (as it is called on HF) status. If anyone here chooses to buy one of these headphones us an upgrade to a mid-fi headphone, we won't be mocking him/her for side-grading and remaining in mid-fi purgatory. Both headphones are sufficiently resolving that amps and source did make a difference. I was worried at first, as the Utopia was especially un-resolving from a very expensive tube amp fed by a Sony digital player. In the end, OJ and I decided to use the McIntosh MHA100, which was clearly the best sounding amp there, at least to our ears. We used a Denon CDP and the highest-end A&K player (the one with the AKM4490) as sources.Before I say anything about the sound, the Elear and Utopia are fantastically built. There is certainly an element of the audio jewelry thing going on. This is quite a nice thing, particularly for the Elear, because it is quite affordable at $1000. The cups are a bit heavy, but nothing straining like the Audezes, and the comfort is fantastic. It's good to see a company care about things like this. Focal is French, so we can be assured that they wouldn't have the gaul to put a high-end gear together with boogers and spit, and charge thousands of dollars for it, like what many Ch-Fi companies do.The Elear and Utopia are not totally comparable to each other because their frequency response is different. The Elear has a strong mid-bass presence and believe it or not, a little bit more air and openness than the Utopia. The bass emphasis only slightly intrudes into the mids. The Utopia mids are clearer than the Elear mids (and also HD800 mids). It's hard to say if this is because there is less distortion, or because of how the frequency response is different. The Utopia's bass sounds neutral. It's not lean. It's not warm. Bass quality wasn't particularly spectacular, but it wasn't bad either. I'd say about on par with HD800 or perhaps a teeny teeny bit not as articulate. Elear bass was punchier than HD800.The Elear might have a bit of mid/upper treble emphasis, whereas this region on the Utopia is more subdued (and also more refined / smoother). The Utopia had a bit of a upper mid / lower treble hardness and glare very similar to that of the HD800/S. The extent of this was definitely less than the HD800 and maybe even a smidgen less than the HD800S or HD800SDP/SBAF modded. It's there and it bothered me a little bit. I don't think @OJneg was as sensitive to it as me.To say that the Elear has a similar tonal response to the stock unmodded HD650 wouldn't be totally off. The small differences from the HD650 would be that Elear does sound more scooped in the mids, has a bit more emphasis in the tape hiss region / mid treble, and is maybe one or two db louder in the mid-bass. (These are all subjective calls). There didn't seem to be any treble irregularities in the lower treble (glare, stridency, nasties, etc.) at all. If there is one thing I'd do with the Elear, it would be to lower the broad mid-bass bump two db. (Since everything is relative, this would also bring out the mids). The Utopia can be thought of as less V shaped sounding HD800s. I far prefer the tonal balance of these headphones to the HD800.The Utopia stages like the HD600/650 but with more depth. I know many people will bitch at this. I actually like it and it appears to stage like speakers. The Elear stages a bit wider with the less depth. It's possible this is because the Elear's top octave is less subdued. Neither of these headphones have the expansiveness of the stock HD800, but they do image more precisely. I think the SBAF modded HD800 images the "best", at least for me, and the Elear is quite close to that or perhaps even meets it. The Utopia definitely stages more narrowly.Past frequency response, where the Utopia really separates itself from the Elear is with transient response, focus, precision, separation, and refinement (smoothness.) The Elear is a little bit less focused. However, I should point out that that both headphones seem to have faster transient response to the HD800, at least to my ears (I've never felt the HD800 driver was particularly fast sounding.) Do not expect STAX SR-009 / T2DIY speed though. And in any event, the dynamic drivers have a different coloration. The most similar presentation I'd say is something along the lines of the Accuton diamond tweeters.As far as resolution, retrieval of low level information (not to be confused with "detail" or macrodetail), I'd say these equal the HD800. The HD800 may have an artificial advantage because the treble is lifted, and this helps us perceive the ambient cues, trailing tails of strings, "plankton". Again, the resolution thing is so good on either of these headphones that the quality of amps and sources will be very evident! Where the Utopia separates itself from the Elear in technicalities (past frequency response) is the faster transient response and better overall clarity. Microdyamics and nuance seem a tiny bit better on HD800.Overall, I actually slightly preferred the Elear. No doubt, the Utopia was the "better" headphone, but there was something about the Utopia that seemed more restrained, more damped, more stately, afraid of embarrassing itself. The Elear sounded like it just lets go. I wonder if the Elear is a bit more efficient, has a more pliable surround, or something like that.Finally, these are initial impressions.