Focal Clear

Looking at it again, I'm going to revise my earlier conclusion a bit...

The similar peak impedances of the Clear and Utopia/Elear, 300~330 Ohms at ~50 Hz (Innerfidelity measurements) suggest the mechanical resonances are about the same. Where the Clear differs is more in the electrical characteristics, having a pure copper voice coil that gives a lower 'baseline' impedance (away from the frequency of the resonant peak) of 55 Ohms vs 80 for the Utopia/Elear (Focal specs). Focal says they did this with the Clear to enable easier driving from portable sources, which are generally voltage limited.

The outcome is the same, the Clear being easier to over-drive in the bass - but the reason is more because there's a lower power requirement to reach whatever volume over the rest of the range than because the driver/enclosure system is more resonant.

@StageOne , sorry to hijack your FS with all this - but hey, we're keeping it in the headlines for you!

 

When I had my Elex it used to bottom out on the right phone around 83dB while listening to Hip Hop and ~75dB when listening to film soundtracks. The left phone needed maybe 5dB more to bottom out. I debated this on HF (or maybe on Drop) and seems that there are unit variation on how sensitive the drivers to bottom out. (most people at that era used THX amps including me)

I also heard that the Drop Elexs bottom out earlier than the other Focals.

 

It can certainly happen at lower volumes. As with many things, the issue is multifactorial: the undamped drivers, the output impedance of the amplifier, the resonant frequency and nominal impedance of the headphone, the level of bass frequencies in musical content, overall volume level, unit-to-unit variation, etc.

I think it’s impossible to isolate one factor, but we’re all on the same track.

But seriously, these are great headphones, and most people don’t have any issues with them.

 

Definitely agree with this, The sound the clears make is more tactile/ compared to many other headphones I have tried. I would describe it as having a strong leading edge/attack. If I were to take a guess at what causes this I would think it has something to do with the impulse response of the driver. In the links below you can see the impulse response for the Clears, HD 650, and He6.

The He6 also has a way of making sounds feel more tactile/ textured as well, almost like there is something physical hitting your ear drums, just like the clears manage to do. Both of them have a very short impulse response that does not peak anywhere near as high as the HD 650. They also have sharper peaks and lined in the 30hz and 300hz square wave measurements compared to the much smoother transitioning HD 650. The HD 650 is known for having a gentle and smooth presentation, so my guess is that those graphs somewhat help show that part of the HD 650.

So basically my theory after looking at those charts as well as the Abyss 1266 (from what I've read those are quite dynamic sounding headphones, and I've similarly seen and agree with descriptions of the clears and He6 as being very dynamic) is that lower peaking impulse response and sharper looking square wave graphs = more tactile/textured/dynamic sounding drivers

This is a small data set and I could be extrapolating more than you should out of the charts so I could be totally wrong though


https://www.stereophile.com/images/FocalClearsnA1BRQE000007.pdf
https://www.stereophile.com/images/ifmeasure/SennheiserHD650.pdf
https://www.stereophile.com/images/ifmeasure/HiFiMANHE6.pdf
https://www.stereophile.com/images/ifmeasure/JPSLabsAbyssAB1266.pdf

 

I'm necro'ing this thread to reply to @rlow's profile post today about choosing between the Clear and HD 800 S. I owned the Clear and the HD 800 SDR at the same time and for a couple of years. I also heard both with my old SW51+. (The SDR are pretty close to the S; the SDR has better, tighter, less bloomy bass according to some, inc. me).

The SW51+ wasn’t great with either of them, tbh. It made the staging far too small and closed in for the HD 800 SDR, kind of undermining a key quality of the headphones. It didn’t really do the HD 800 SDR any favors; the warmer, bloomier ZDT Jr amp filled out the sound better. The SW51+ made the Clear too soft and rounded for my tastes, again undermining key qualities of those headphones. The Clear demand to be exciting, lively, punchy, with good, authoritative bass and lots of slam and macrodynamic strength. From the SW51+, they were limp softpoo.

Out of the best amps I heard for each of these headphones, respectively, the

HD 800 SDR

• were much more resolving
• had a much more spacious and open and wide headstage
• had better separation and layering
• had more air and space around instruments
• had more treble emphasis, with a hint of the treble peak the SDR more or less effectively tamped down
• had a thinner, lighter, more ethereal sound
• had tighter, more precise bass
• had less richness in the lower mids
  

Clear

• were faster (both have pretty snappy transients, the Clear, from memory, slightly more so)
• were warmer, with a denser tonality
• had a thicker, richer (but less precise) bass
• had much more slam
• had more macrodynamic strength
• had less microdynamic subtleties and gradations
• had richer mids
• had less treble extension and emphasis but still a kind of crystalline hardness with some chains (but not with the SW51+)
• had much more precise imaging
• had a much less spacious headstage, sounding instead small, if not closed in

Amp pairings matter a good deal with both headphones; the Senns benefit from warmth and/or tubes; the Clear benefit from ss or hybrid amps, or the right kind of tube amps (not ones that lead to too much softening of the sound). From the descriptions I’ve read, the MJ3 sounds like it could work well with both. I’ve not heard the Lyr 3 but I’m pretty sure there are good impressions in the Lyr 3 thread and, above, in this thread.

I’d go with the Clear if you want a richer, fuller, slightly warmer, more intimate experience and the HD 800 S if a lighter, more resolving, expansive, and airy headstage appeals to you more. I’d say the Clear is less finicky when it comes to amp pairings.

 

@rlow mentioned having A2 in the chain. Not sure about your upstream, but this might help the Clears with regards to the SW?

You’re right about amp pairing and that might tilt things a bit, as well as the source. The good thing about his YA2 will be the ability to change flavor when the MIB will be available to more closely align with his preferences.

 

I had the Bifrost 2, so still some nice warmth added to the chain. Alas, I replaced it with the YA2 only after having moved on from the Clear so I can't comment on the synergy there.

 

A friend lent me their Focal Clear Professionals for a spell, mainly because they'd not been using them and vastly preferred their SDR+rug liner modded HD800. This is the same Clear Pro that I compared to the Focal Utopia in my impressions from a while back. For context I found the Clears then to be shockingly harsh and lean sounding by comparison.

I plug them into the Piety and find that they sound pretty damned good, less harsh than I remember them being, but bass seems frustratingly lean and limp as before.

Ran some really dirty measurements on the MiniDSP EARS (It's *frustratingly* hot and humid right now and I'm keeping my AC on, noise be damned). Right, that definitely looks off considering this is supposed to be a regular Focal Clear in a red-and-black colourway, but at the same time I notice that friend's been using an aftermarket cable that resembles the really cheap one I got for the Etymotic ER2XR years ago that I loathed the sound of. Okay, let's change that out.

NOTE: there's every possibility I didn't get a perfect seal on the EARS rig for this run. Definitely was a slapdash job.

​

I don't have a lot of different cables lying around, but I DO have an Impact Audio HD6-- cable I got off another friend several years ago that they'd reterminated to 3.5mm. I used this cable with my Klipsch HP-3s previously so know it to be good. It terminates in XLR though, which is a bother, but eh that just means I ought fire the MCTH up again:

Subjective impressions before I run measurements: oh okay that's more bass, but still not what I'm expecting based on subjective impressions from others, measurements on here and elsewhere, and prior store demos of Focal Clears. Still, maybe I'm just being a basshead.

​

Nope, still slightly off. Definitely better, but off still. Also, not gonna bother with sharing other measurements cuz again I had my AC running through all of this. Will take better measurements later on when it's quieter out, and cooler.


Anyone have any clue what might be going on? I don't have permission to rip these open to tinker with things so can't be too invasive, but I'm hoping it's just some damping having disintegrated in this climate. My friend bought these used several years ago now I believe so no recourse likely via official channels.

 

My setup for a long while was the Massdrop RDAC + MCTH (stock tube) and Clear and the bass was really good, punchy, and extending decently down into the sub-bass (and with a lot of slam). I'm not sure how what I heard would compare with the graphs you posted, but I'd say from the looks of it, the Clear Pro you've got is doing something wrong in the bass region. Sorry, I've no idea why that might be!

 

Aye. My running theory is that the damping on these (ARE these damped any though?) is somehow bollixed which is pushing the driver's resonance point much higher up than the usual impedance v freq measurements show.

I'm getting good overall performance on the current rig (Modi MB2>MCTH>Clear Pros) other than bass below about 150Hz sounding limp and farty. Rather unfortunate. These make the HD600s sound like my old Klipsches, haha.

I tried EQing a bit more low bass in (I know, I know!), just about 3dB's worth, and that ended up a heavily distorted mess.

 

I'd be surprised if it was damping. The channels are very even, and if it was damping falling apart I wouldn't expect it to have done it exactly the same way on each. Also, that pattern looks more like a driver problem (reminds me of your Solaris, what do you do to these things? ).

Is your friend a basshead? Perhaps the famous over-excursion has ripped the hinges on both drivers...

 

IT WAS LIKE THIS WHEN IT ARRIVED!!!

Haha, also it sounded oddly lean to me when I demoed the same pair back in November 2022. This is actually unsurprising to me to see, though I do feel bad for the guy since he was planning on selling these. Don't think I'd feel comfortable letting that happen if something actually is very wrong with the headphones; I informed him earlier today of the FR weirdness.

Also, redid measurements while things were slightly quieter out, no change to FR but here's distortion. Yeah that looks... not right:

 

Maybe its not a real Focal - some knockoff. You (and he) are in Philippines right, so its possible is it not??

 

I gotta say that while I understand where you're coming from, the notion that my country is rife with counterfeit goods (NOT wrong, by the way) being so bluntly asserted made me burst out into laughter.

I have no idea where he purchased these, only that they were secondhand to him. It looks and feels like a genuine Focal Clear Professional to me, but again I've only ever spent as much time with them as possible in store and meet demo settings, never had a Focal of my own because 1. price and 2. fear of something going kaput (I've mentioned before but I have a local acquaintance who had FIVE pairs of Elears die on him within relatively short spans of time).

Currently disinclined to believe that these are counterfeit, but I could be proven wrong. My phone is currently preoccupied updating the firmware on my FiiO dongle but I'm happy to share a bunch of photos of the headphones if that's not going to be too much noise for this thread? For helping identification.

 

Not going to embed cuz that's a lot of space to take up and I feel bad spamming this thread as-is, but here are some very quick phone photos of the Focal Clear Pros in question. I've just had these at home for a few hours now and this is my first time seeing inside the cups. Gonna go get some masking tape to clean the headphone up now.

Shudder.

https://imgur.com/a/AF0lrnx

 

Having hairs or debris on drivers can do weird things. Audibly weird things. I don't know about measurements. If you pull the pads off there should be a visible serial number and then you can confirm that way with focal maybe ?

 

Looks legit to me

 

I agree, looks real enough to me, but then what do I know.

I have an OG Clear that I now keep around just to loan to friends and family. Probably not worth the international shipping cost, but if it is let me know I will loan them to you. The original pads are long gone, they now have a pair of Dekoni's that tilts them a tasteful (IMO) direction to warmish - they would probably measure that way...

 

The offer is much appreciated, but I can't justify the cost of shipping here and back via reliable means (i.e. DEFINITELY not my local post). I can probably lug the EARS around along with a laptop to get some store demo squiggles of the demo Clears at my local hobby shop.

I just gave the headphones a very thorough once-over with a roll of masking tape (the photos in the album didn't have all of the gunk in it. I'm not mysophobic but I was making faces and sounds while cleaning-- I am going to take another bath), and the pads went under the tap and were treated to several diluted dishwashing liquid baths. Currently have the pads air drying. I peeped the serial number earlier on, will give that a go.