Focal Clear

Christ. It's a theoretical graph. It also doesn't preclude anyone from clutching to their 650 and Studio if that's what they prefer, the idea circumvents personal preferences on tonality. But I doubt that a 650 on any amp, even one made by God himself, would make the 650 technically (not tonally) better than something like a Utopia. That's coming from someone who wishes someone would make a Uber hd600/650 that has the level of performance of like a Utopia or whatever with the tonality of the 600. Anyway, we're beating this dead horse to death, again. Was just meant to be an example of how scalability and absolute performance are independent levers/dimensions that can interact.

 

The difference is overall technicality, disregarding preferences, that's performance
I preferred the 580 for my listening most of the time, but the veil and it's mid fi issues are still there.

 

You add a line for the Utopia that looks like this:



and then you remember that we can't have graphs, or anything nice, on this site without everyone ruining it.

 

Finally got my Clears today... Way too early for impressions, but I have been toying around with improving the ergonomics. As someone who enjoys the HD 650 pressure-on-the-sides/none-on-top design (+ more clamp), here´s a very simple fix... Just buy two HD 650 paddings for ~20 euros, cut off most of the extra plastic and attach them to the Clears using the straps that are included in the box (holding the cables together). Quite comfortable! I´ll need to give the stock design a chance, but so far at least I prefer this tweak.

Still need to move the paddings around a bit for them to be perfectly aligned and so on, but here it is:

 

Lol @Vorlon I did the exact same thing first day I got mine. I got used to the stock headband in the end, but having the HD650 headband padding really helped at first.

 

@Vorlon
I did a similar thing with my Utopia. In the pic below you can see them. I got a cheap headband cover from amazon (<$10) and put a little foam in each side, but not across the middle. Really helps.

I really like your solution. I purchased an extra HD650 headband and tried a few ways to attach it, but it never worked for me. Your suggestion is brilliant! Thanks.

 

What case is that? Looks like a good fit and more affordable than the Focal carry case...

 

Sentey GS-1401.
VERY expensive. $6.49 from Amazon!
Unfortunately, not sold anymore.

I posted cases that I know or think will fit with the first post of the Utopia on the Head-Fi Utopia thread
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/focal-utopia-a-little-elear-impressions-and-discussion.811273

repeated here for die hard HF haters

• Focal Hardshell case: $149
• Sentey GS-1401: $6.49 (Discontinued, but sometimes available on eBay) - fits
• Slappa Full-Sized HardBody PRO: $30 (should fit, needs verification)
• CASEBUDi XXL Sturdy Hard Shell: $35(should fit, needs verification)
  • quite oversized in all dimensions (@bidn)
  • note: Maybe the XL version would be better? need verification
• Lightning Power - Headphone Pouch (cloth bag): $6.88
• MrSpeakers Hard Case: $49 - Fits

 

Finally revealed at NAMM show. Little impressions on my phone. Coiled cable made it pretty heavy, comfort was identical to the regular clear. Hadn't heard the spl phonitor 2 it was on before but it was brighter than I had remembered from the original clear.

Asked focal and they said it was the same driver used in the original. Available from dealers who sells focal professional products.

 

Seriously thought the red pads were a joke but it's for real, folks. Good thing they revealed the plain Clear first before the Clear Pro instead of the other way around. I get the epic silver look and a balanced cable and save money.

Now when do we get the Utopia Pro?

 

They already exists!

 

If it's actually for pros... Definitely should be this instead:



I really really like Focals Studio Monitors that have beryllium tweeters. (Those are SM9s)

I do find it pretty hilarious that the "cheap" massdrop version of the Elear looks pretty classy while the Pro version looks like beats.

Edit:

@AllanMarcus I'd been wondering what that case was after seeing it at RMAF... Looked like a very good fit for Utopia. Just found one on ebay lol it's on the way! Thanks! Massive margins for the seller it was a whooping 15 bucks... Still worth

 

Great! Enjoy. I still put the headphones in a cloth bag, then I used the case. That seemed to make the best fit.

 

I had the strangest reaction (in my headphone life) to these headphones. I purchased a pair in December, and the first few days I listened to the Clear I felt cool to them; they struck me as a little aloof, tonally too neutral to sound "real," and while not doing anything egregious, I didn't instantly love them. I didn't instantly hate them, either, so I picked them up every few days to try again.

After a few more listening evenings, they started to "click" and I thought they were OK.

Now, a few weeks later, they are my most used 'phone. I really enjoy the tonal balance, their refinement and ease, and the natural way they present detail and nuance in a performance. I did add a portable tube amp (ALO) to my DAP (KANN) which plays really well with the Focal's, but I think most of the "change" outside of the first few days was brain burn-in.

I like these so much, I am toying around with the idea of finding a really great permanent rig for these. I lean towards tubes, but I'd like a few more months with them to see what I think.

The only real change I'd make in these, at this point, is a suspension headband, which I prefer. My head is probably a little pointy, because almost all headphones with a traditional headband give me a hotspot after listening for hours. That said, I find the Clear's acceptably comfortable, so I'm going to leave them alone.

Very happy I bought these!

 

I think it's hilarious that the nearfield speaker equivalent of the Clears (Focal Shape 50, 65) costs less than the Clear
Even more hilarious, is that the Clear is a "good value" compared to many other high end headphones out there...that's the effect of shills and Ad-fi

 

So my Clears finally arrived on Monday this week. This is my third evening listening to them now, but they have been burning in (music at low/medium volume) ever since. Now I don´t personally believe in headphone transducers (electronics with caps and so on are a different thing) needing hundreds of hours of burn in, but some is absolutely required especially for speaker like drivers like the ones on these. They sounded quite muffled out of the box, but started opening up in just a few hours already. This wasn´t just brain burn in as I didn´t listen to them in between as I had to go to a local store to buy another HD 650 headband padding. Anyways just to be sure I intend to continue this process for ~150-200 hours, but I don´t really expect to notice any major changes anymore. Small ones maybe.

My sound preference is usually a more towards the brighter side, which you can probably guess considering the only other headphone I have here right now are the HD 800 S and my source being a Chord Hugo 2 via optical. I tend to have a pretty good tolerance for treble spikes, but there´s no way I would use the HD 700 or a lot of Beyerdynamic cans on a daily basis... Now I´m not going to write much on sound quality yet as it´s still very early days and the "new toy syndrome" is still going on very strong, but there are some other aspects I already feel confident posting about.

That being said I don´t really feel any urge to listen to my HD 800 S right now and that if I A/B test them they sound tonally "off" in comparison. Thin and bright while the Clears sound "right". It could also be that I´m very used to aluminium sound as most of the speakers that I´ve owned have had either aluminium or coated aluminium drivers. My current ones (Atohm GT1) are actually coated aluminium so pretty close to the Clears. Maybe that´s why these instantly felt like home. The funny thing about this is however that I know if I use the HD 800 S exclusively I´ll eventually get used to it and it won´t bother me that much. It is very apparent when testing these two side by side though.

All in all I´d say these are exactly what the Elears should have been, but looking back it would have been too much for a company new to high end headphones to achieve with their first try. In a perfect world these would also have been priced at 1000 dollars/euros (+ Utopia at 2000-2500). This would have had a huge impact on the industry as it would have forced Sennheiser and others to come up with better similarly priced offerings. It´s pretty funny that these can be considered "good value" when you look at the crazy prices TOTL flagship headphones tend to sell for these days though. Who would have predicted this back in 2009?

I´ll write a more in depth sound quality impressions post later after a week or two though. So what do I want to write about at this point then?

Build. The day before I received these I actually just sent my Adorama deal HIFIMAN HE-560´s back. The idea that the HE-560´s officially cost more than 2/3 of the Clears over here feels like a really bad joke. They are simply in a completely different league, but this isn´t exactly news to anyone. The Clears have a quite unique look which is usually very good for efficient marketing. They´ll stand out from the competition really well.

It is however important to emphasize that the Clears are not a very modular design. Time will tell if this proves to an issue or not. Sure you can change the pads, but the headband doesn´t seem user replaceable to me. The HD 800 (and 600) series in comparison are of course as we all know completely modular. Almost all parts are user replaceable and Sennheiser´s spare parts prices aren´t that usually that high either. What happens if/when the padded Clear headband gets too dirty/old and needs to be replaced? Who knows. Maybe Focal will start selling a headband replacement service via their dealers or something similar. We also don´t know how long the earpads will last in good shape in daily use. The price for new ones seems to be around 200 dollars/euros so they are very expensive too. If they need to be replaced every year or even worse 6 months it´s not going to be good news. The most important build quality matter is however...

Weight/drivers. These are not light or small headphones. Just look at this comparison with my trusty HD 800 S:



At 330 vs. 450 grams the Clears are much heavier. They are among the heaviest dynamic driver headphones ever made. But what actually causes this? I used to think it´s because they use a lot of aluminium, but when you look at the parts closer you can see that those parts are actually quite thin and besides it´s a very lightweight metal anyway. The headband looks heavy, but if you pick the Clears up and move them around you´ll quickly notice where most of weight is coming from: the earcups. So let´s look inside:



As you can see it´s a very open design. The outside grills are quite thin and all of the driver protection mechanisms seem lightweight too. Here´s a closeup of the driver:



There´s a double protection system: first against force via the sturdy metal grill and then against debris/hairs with the very fine mesh. This seems like a very good design. There´s no reason the driver should be exposed more than this and there´s now no way you can accidentally break the fragile drivers (except by playing them too loud). Time will tell if the fine mesh is fine enough to stop debris/hairs, but I´m pretty sure Focal R&D has tested it extensively. Some trivia: If I remember correctly the original Beyerdynamic T1 went through a mesh change in early production due to the mesh not being fine enough to stop this kind of stuff from entering the driver enclosure.

The unique M-shape cone is also very distinctive looking. This isn´t what a typical dynamic headphone driver looks like. You won't see any off the shelf OEM parts anywhere on this headphone. It seems like the driver has more in common with speaker driver designs instead, but this isn´t anything new either as I´m sure more or less everyone reading this post have already seen the official Focal pictures of their driver concept.

My next point isn´t exactly news to a lot of readers either, but I still think it´s worth noting that the use of metal in larger headphone drivers is actually quite rare. Most full size headphone drivers are plastic. If you ask me the main innovation of this driver is quite clear though: it likely moves more air than any other reference quality driver made so far (and does this without producing much distortion). The fact the bass extends as far as it does before starting a slow (!) roll off is simply remarkable and a major innovation. It´s pretty obvious to me that one of Focal´s main design goals here was to create a driver that can push enough air to enable deep bass response in an open design. This is extremely difficult to do as we can see from basically almost any open dynamic driver headphone measurements. If it didn´t move this much air Focal would likely have to roll off the treble somewhat in order to hit such a balanced tonality. The second major innovation is of course the actual extremely balanced tuning. If one is new to headphones this doesn't sound like such a big deal, but enthusiasts will know how rare this is (and especially in TOTL offerings for some odd reason).

As an off topic comment it´s going to be interesting to see what Sennheiser does with the HD 820. If they manage to extend the bass as much or more than here and tone down the treble somewhat the Clears may soon have a new challenger. At 2400 euros it has to do a lot more than just match the Clears in tonality though. If you ask me it has to be a significant step up from the Clears and I doubt that will happen.

Let´s get go back a bit though... While it would probably have been possible to reduce weight somewhat by using high quality plastics more, I´m inclined to believe most of the weight comes from the actual driver assembly (especially the magnets). That´s the only explanation that makes sense to me and if you look at the driver breakdown pictures the magnet assembly does seem huge (+ the damping plate looks like it´s steel and not aluminum). In other words the weight is probably just the price you have to pay for enabling this level of bass performance. Would these be better headphones if they were 100+ grams lighter though? Absolutely. Maybe we´ll see that happen someday.

Ergonomics. You may have noticed my previous post in this thread with the picture of the HD 650 headband paddings attached to the Clear headband. I took them off after the first day and have now been using these with the stock headband design for a couple of evenings. To be honest I´m still not sure which one I prefer yet, but I´ve started to enjoy the stock design more and more. The Clears just like the Utopia places most of the weight directly on top of your head. This isn´t as bad as it sounds though as the headband is pretty stiff and thus distributes the weight pretty evenly on top of your head. However even with the HD 650 headband paddings these headphones will never "just disappear" on your head. Why would they? They weight 450 grams. That´s a weight that can be (and has been) made quite comfortable to wear, but comparing comfort between the Clears and the HD 800 series for example is not a fair fight at all. The sound quality is worth the slight discomfort though and I can see myself getting used to these as my main headphone. If you ask me they are still a lot more comfortable than anything Audeze I've ever tried.

One last thing... Any speculation that the headband creaking/clicking issues have finally been completely fixed are simply not true. Mine makes these click/creaking sounds when you move the earcups in certain directions. One side seems to do it more than the other, but luckily this never happens when actually listening to music/moving your head around to the rhythm. I sometimes hear a click when I take them off though. Why does this happen? Well, if you look at aluminium as a headphone material it´s not exactly very flexible. Just like aluminium bicycles are a pretty rough ride compared to carbon fibre or steel. The headband is partly so thick because it houses an elaborate suspension mechanism:



This is the key to a lot of the good (for the weight) ergonomics Focal has achieved here. Although these cans are mostly aluminium, if you haven´t tried these before you´ll be surprised at how much the cups move/swivel. The headband also flexes in several directions. To me it sounds/looks like there are a lot of springs involved in this mechanism and this is probably what´s causing these click/creaking sounds. I´ll be keeping a close eye on this though. It would be nice to get an official comment from Focal on this: what exactly constitutes normal behavior in this regard? My guess is that most if not all Clears click/creak somewhat, just like many if not most Elears and Utopias. If it isn´t normal I´ll consider trying to get Focal to replace the headband under warranty someday later. Not now though as there´s a one month waiting list for these here in Finland and I´m enjoying the sound way too much to let these go.

PS: Accessories are otherwise fantastic, but the portable cable has a few issues. It´s simply too short and the necessary flexibility for portable use/its thickness does it no favors either. A lighter more fragile cable would have been a much better match, especially since these terminate in a 3.5mm jack (= easy to connect and disconnect).

If you compare this with the HD 800´s exotic connectors that are a.) quite expensive and b.) become looser every time you disconnect them and if you do it too often they can eventually in some cased start making small noises when you move your head around. In other words it´s generally not a good idea to switch HD 800 cables around a lot and there´s likely no similar issue with the Clears. I would thus expect these to become a pretty popular target for (hopefully non-overpriced) third party cable manufacturers.

 

Big Breaking Bad fan here. Laura Fraser remarked that her character Lydia Rodarte-Quayle wore authentic red soled Louboutin heels in the episode where she climbs down the ladder into a desert meth lab made from a buried school bus. Red ear pads on head phones just look weird. But the French go their own way watch red ear pads take off now.

 

Allan Marcus is no Marcus Allen.

 

The pads get grimy if you wear an all the time, or have long oily hair, etc. Basically one of the very few faults of this headphone is non-user friendly headband pad change. Given that I've been using this headphone around 4 hours a day MINIMUM, even right after a shower, means the headband has gotten a little discolored. My washing method removes all of that successfully, at what risks exactly? Not sure, corrosion to the system inside the headband would be one danger if water is allowed inside. So you must be careful when doing this.

I have found that using a product from Costco called "Pink Solution," works well for cleaning. It comes as a grey looking paste but I think you can get it in other forms.

I scoop a quarter-sized portion of the stuff on a rag with some water. Then apply it on the fabric of the headband and sorta rub it in, you have to work it the way the material needs to be worked. Take 5 minutes to do it nicely. Then I run some water and rinse patiently and slowly making sure not to get water inside the headband where the yokes enter. I don't even really touch the metal parts on the edges (which secure the wrapped fabric and leather in place) not only because I am paranoid of water damage, but because the edges of the headband are the last to get discoloured. I keep rinsing it this way for a while then apply the solution again.

Second wash gets it looking like brand new. I put it on a modular stand I made with wood blocks in order to dry it above the vent in my room. I've done this procedure twice now and no problems yet... doesn't take long to dry, couple hours with some airflow.

I do the same with the ear pads. But if they got really gross I would put them in the washing machine on medium temperature. Haven't had to do that yet, myself but I don't see why not. Again, I'd use low temperature setting as the plastic ring may melt and deform.

 

Not sure how comfortable this headband protector would be (did someone post a pic of a Clear wearing one of these?). The HD6xx headband pads would probably be more comfy, but these are way cheaper, would protect against hair grease and be easier to wash.



https://www.amazon.com/Timibis-Headphone-Replacement-Sennheiser-Audio-Technica/dp/B01EHCE4VM/