Focal Elear and Utopia

I bought HD800S because I was not pleased with the soundstage, tuning and resolution of the Elears. Also too heavy, uncomfortable but that's me. Just have not gotten around to selling them yet other priorities.

 

I got my Elear used from a known online reviewer and it must have been factory tuned for him as he reviewed it well and I've not heard the same problems other have. That or I'm just deaf as a doorknob, take your pick. Regardless, I'm enjoying my pair.

 

Yeah I think I was looking at them from the perspective of a $1k headphone. After the apparent price drop 500-550 seems to be a reasonable used price and not something that needs to be jumped on right away while I try to find out if these are what I really want or not. Though It should also be relatively safe to assume that I should be able to get that back out of them if I did decide I don't like them and wanted to move on. So maybe I'll still give them a try.

One man's trash is another man's treasure right..we all have different tastes. So yeah Im sure nearly every headphone has people that hate them and ones that love them.

 

I just use sonarworks' EQ profiles with the Elear, as well as having a pad swap on them. You could definitely describe their mids as lacking, but they EQ very well, and I'm enjoying them thoroughly at this point. Dat bass.

If EQ isn't your thing/you're not able to use an EQ, Elex seems to have better behaved tuning out of the box. If you can get an Elear for really cheap though, check out Hands' work on modding them.

All else equal, if you can get them for the same price, Elex is probably a safer bet.

 

https://dekoniaudio.com/so-you-want-some-focal-measurements-with-the-dekoni-audio-ear-pads/

Dekoni uploaded their measurements of Elear + their pads (vs stock).
Looks interesting.. but had better preparing lots of grain of salt, because their measurement rigs might behave somewhat differently (as in the case of hd800/600 pads)

 

Unfortunately their graphs are not doing them any favors. Non of the pads correct for the 4kHz dip that is missing with their stock pad measurements. Their pads also seem to add even more upper treble energy around 9kHz, which I felt Elear already had too much treble in this area. Hmmmmm, not sure about these pads.

 

Agreed, and that's making me puzzled. They are disclosing results that may harm their sales?
I hoped any one of dekoni's new pads behave like clear or elex pads.. (to "synthesize" eclair at more reasonable costs lol) but they seem not. Or maybe. We perhaps need more experiments.

 

Anyone know if they've had the elear pads at the audio shows? I'll bring my elears to Canjam LA to try them out.

 

AFAIK they have brought their major products to Canjam so far (hd800, hd600, ..) .. Focal ones are just released. So I believe they will bring focal pads to the next coming canjam.

 

Anyone actually interested in trying the Dekoni pads for the Utopia and see how it compares? Would be a nice alternative to buying the stock ones as the price on that is pretty darn hefty.

 

Just curious. Why do you need new pads? Did yours wear out or get damaged?

 

No, just curious to how it compares to the originals.

 

https://puu.sh/AvhTe/92f7eee56b.png

A sad time for me. I hope my loss might be other's gain in the future here. Drawing some heavy inspiration from a user by the name of TKaudio over on HF, I'm gonna try to chronicle my adventures in:

1) Disassembling the headband
2) Figuring out where tf it broke
3) Fixing it
4) Putting it back together in a halfway visually passing manner

Might take the opportunity to brush up on the nicks in the black paint on the sides of these things, too. Apparently the headband on the Elear is non-replaceable.

I should note that I didn't even drop my headphones in this case; the headband pulled apart as I was putting them on. My current guess is a screw popped out of the thread at one of the joints.


Edit:

Step 1 and 2

The screws on the ends of the headband have to be removed. This is conveniently done with the same size screwdriver that you can get for glasses.



That's where the conveniences end.



The entire leather/suede (maybe?) portion of the headband is not designed to be removed. Meaning you have to remove the stitches to get it off to see what's going on underneath. Good luck stitching it up again after - I'm not envying the rebuild portion of this.



And here we can see the damage to the headband itself. Looks like a poorly reinforced fault point, where the rivots (if there were any at all? Can't locate any, so it might have even been loose assembly) should be connecting that just stresses over time and then breaks. You can see how the snap aligns itself with this natural weak point that has, again, no notable reinforcement for some reason.



Opposite side.

Know what would have prevented this? 1/8 inch thick plating, an inch or so longer in both directions. I can't get a good picture of it due to lighting, but I can see that the unbroken side of the headphone is constructed like this as well. Plastic just glued to metal.

Meh, still workable, if inconvenient. Rebuild portion to come after I go to the store and pick up some cement putty.

 

Sorry to see that, @FallingObjects , good luck with the fix.

My Utopia's stock cable recently died, I was shocked to see that Focal wants $1100 USD for a replacement. Sure hope the warranty holds up.

 

Hell, just buy a used pair of Utopias and then you can get a free pair of headphones with your new cable!

Seriously that's way too much for a stock cable. Wtf is Focal doing.

 

Wow. Even in the incomprehensible pricing of "high end" that is beyond belief. Is Focal trying to gin up a bad reputation for themselves?

 

I could not be less interested in owning anything by Focal. I think I'll stick to cans produced in SoCal for the forseeable future.

 

If this becomes a patten (and true) Focal can kiss my ass, and kiss my purchase of anything they make goodbye.

 

$1100 stock cable?! That makes the $400 Moon-Audio cable look like a steal.

 

If anyone goes to any audio show and has an opportunity to talk to a Focal person, please ask what makes the cable so special that it deserves such a high price.