Focal Elear and Utopia Impressions at Source AV

Is there any other open-backed dynamic headphones which utilize the surround around diaphragm as suspension like Utopia and Elear?
(NightHawk is semi-open.)

 

IIRC the B&W P7. Also depends on how you define "surround"

 

Love them or hate them, they're always in the conversation and constantly used as a benchmark. The HD6x0 are truly unique gems of the headphone universe.

 

Thanks for reply. P7 has the surround but is closed-back.

 

Some people say, the bass, especially of the HD650 is "slow". How do you think about it.?
I have the newest model with the silver driver and I like the bass very much.

 

If you like the bass, then that's all that matters really. Planar and electrostat will be faster technically to respond and decay. I like both myself.

 

The bass is only slow if you plug it into some cheap otl tube amp like the Crack or Valhalla (only bass is slow here though). The HD 6XX agile enough out of cheap and good shit like the Liquid Carbon (a little syrupy though but), Magni 2U and Audio-GD and very quick of nimble class-a, no feedback amps that can deliver VOLTAGE SWING VERY QUICKLY like the Asgard 2 and Black Widow.

Source: Me listening to death metal. Non-sample replaced/triggered double kicks are natural blurry due to how bass drums actually sound while the Morrisound stuff is done well too. Suffocation sounds slamming.

 

Well, stock HD650 at least doesn't have bass but distortion. After 30 min with HD800 as soon as i wore the HD650 (only second time ever that too after 6 years) I was literally WTF. It'll be a miracle if any mod gets the 650 bass to tolerabley clean levels, it's that distorted. In terms of speed it's comparable to say LCD2.

Planar distortion may not be immediately obvious but that is mostly due to restricted boom/explosiveness in bass on certain planars. And clean is not always better, HE6 is definitely cleaner than the 650 however midrange onwards it sounds worse.

 

All roads lead to Rome. All threads lead to HD650?

 

The HD 800's background is blacker due to less bass distortion but the HD 600/650 is still detailed enough to pick out analog tape noise floors, different sounding analog tape brands, and most importantly much accurately reproduces strings and guitars. The HD 600 is less black than the HD 650 but more forward and likely to audibly distort the levels of the mix (those bumps actually do something!) like the stock HD 800 almost always does. The HD 650 tends to have a more consistent linear distortion of mixes than those two which is why I like it more.

Headphone enthusiasts don't like to talk about linear distortion but Audeze, Beyer, and the stock HD 800 all have so terribly wrong frequency responses that make listening to them sound like listening to a completely different mix than the recording, not just "this is a test mix where we bumped the cymbals and kicks up 1-2 db to make it punchier!" thing. The HD 600 has little 3 db or so bumps and uppermid/lowtreble emphasis that can f**k with cymbals, snares, lead guitars, violins, and women while the HD 650 can recess the snare and emphasize string fundamentals with but the only real middle finger is some recession or null above 10khz that can dampen cymbals on warmer recordings a bit but it's not bad enough to make stuff unlistenable. Like yeah you can audio microscope recordings all day with the HD 800 like some guy with a mixing console and NS10s but the recordings already been mixed to sound the way it sounds on speakers. Speakers are the reference, future, and better than the Focals fed by the Chord Dave.

 

Timbre is important but so is everything else. 650 does well in this regard where it doesnt sound excessively wet or dry. This is what i think many people consider to be function of driver quality. Interestingly with HD800 I could listen more of the driver and not the enclosure compared to the 650.
800 definitely has a worse tone but its technically far superior.
Speakers are not the reference ears are, we'll always have good and bad recordings whether it be speakers or headphones.

 

Most professionally-done recordings are decent. Even clipped and sample replaced pop music and Burzum. The mixing can be mud and the mastering way too hot but the actual recording is usually okay even for quickly recorded demos and debut albums.

What I mean is fidelity isn't a numbers game. Speakers are the reference transducer type as they were used to mix and master almost all recordings. I get where you're coming from but the HD 600/650 are already so good technically that I'm listening to analog tape noise that's clearer on them than most good speakers so what can I really say? Yeah you could make them blacker, less warm, and add more very high frequency extension but the tone and timbre of them are are closer to the studio setups used to make the recordings than the HD 800 is. If you judge fidelity by that criteria, STAX are the audio version of a View-Master.

 

Well, especially in a thread about the Elear which has been heralded as an HD650++ so it's quite relevant.

Am looking forward to the Elear, but think I'll have to cancel my preorder and wait till sometime next year. Pretty sure I'm keeping the HEK. Great with 48KHz concert audio.

 

@Tyll Hertsens Utopia measurements pl0x

 

Found a cool pic of the Elear driver

 

Wow, those look really well made it actually looks better than HD800 drivers.

 

I'd really ike to try these. Anyone have luck with a Canadian source for the Elear? Or are they still in the pre-order stage?

best,

o

 

#TyllHYPE

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/disruption-headphone-world#comment-509118#DFVvVzk5Cxk3mzyJ.97