This is more or less a followup of [this][1] question. There, it was established that (it is well known that) the homotopy category of topological spaces is not concrete, in other words, there is no faithful functor $\bf{HoTop}$ $\to$ $\bf{Set}$ . In [this][2] blog post, Akhil Mathew explains that this lack of "concreteness" is due, more or less, to the objects of HoTop having a *proper class* of subobjects (or of quotients). But... what if one "does not believe" in proper classes? If I'm not mistaken, every "set vs proper class" phenomenon can be seen, in a suitable foundation that assumes the existence of Grothendieck universes, as a "small universe vs large universe" phenomenon. The non-concreteness of HoTop, translated in this language, would mean that there is no faithful functor $\bf{Ho(U}$-$\bf{Top)}$ $\to$ $\bf{U}$-$\bf{Set}$ where $\bf{U}$ is a Grothendieck universe and $\bf{U}$-$\bf{Set}$ (resp. $\bf{U}$-$\bf{Top}$) is the category of $\bf{U}$-small sets (resp. $\bf{U}$-small topological spaces). Now, what can happen if $\bf{U}\in\bf{V}$ for $\bf{V}$ a larger Grothendieck universe? My question is > Are there faithful functors $\bf{Ho(U}$-$\bf{Top)}$ $\to$ > $\bf{V}$-$\bf{Set}$ ? The same question, of course, can be asked for any other non-concrete category. [1]: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/21667/are-there-any-homotopical-spaces [2]: https://amathew.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/homotopy-is-not-concrete/