Audiophilepure

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/reference-components/1764-recommended-reference-component-focal-utopia-2022-headphones

Brent chose a great pair of headphones for his swan-song review, even if he found the Utopia 2022s “a little soft on top” and sounding not quite “as spectacularly spacious” as some other competitive designs. These were obviously insignificant issues for Brent, because he declared that the Utopia 2022s are “among the world’s best” headphones: “From 12kHz on down (likely the range of hearing of most of the people who could afford these!), you cannot do better.” The praise in his review left us with no doubt that, like the original Utopias, this latest version of Focal’s flagship headphones fully deserved the Reviewers’ Choice award presented when the review was published—and these superb headphones also merit our Recommended Reference Component award this month.

Moondrop Void Review

The Void actually has a pretty easygoing tonality, much like the 58X and 6XX. However, the main problem is the deficiency of its technical capability. PRaT-wise, it is not the fastest dynamic out there, and it has many rivals in this price bracket. There are the time-tested Sennheisers, the Hifiman’s HE400SE, Deva, etc. so the crowd is tough. Back to the sound, the midrange of the Void is clean enough with increased energy in the upper midrange.

The upper midrange has adequate extension and this particular section improves and introduces a bit of air to the overall presentation. The Void reproduces vocals adequately in Oi Va Voi’s “Refuge” track and I mostly enjoyed listening to female vocals with the Void. Unfortunately, it lacks finesse and agility and handles congestion rather ineffectually.

Listening to genres prone to congestion, such as metal, reveals a fundamental issue with Void, namely its lack of proper instrument separation. You feel the lack of transparency and resolution as the number of instruments on stage increases and that is, I believe, the one thing that I did not expect to hear from a Moondrop product. The Kato had a solid technical proficiency, but of course, I think it’s important to remember that the Void is the first full-size headphone Moondrop ever designed. 

 haven’t listened to the original open-back Sundara headphones for any significant length so I can’t make meaningful comparisons between the two sister models. I also don’t have comparatively priced headphones on hand to make comparisons against the Sundara Closed-Back either. I do have a few slightly less expensive and slightly more expensive headphone models to help frame my impressions of the sound quality for you, however.

While a new HD 600 headphone is always big news in the audio world, there’s a lot more competition in the sub-$1000 headphone space since the time the original HD 600 headphone ruled the roost as a flagship product.

Relative newcomers like Hifiman and Meze Audio have recently put out some excellent products in this price range. So does the HD 660S2 have what it takes to mix it up in this competitive segment? Read on, and I’ll give you the scoop!