Focal Elegia Review and Measurements

... Okay so I know that area of treble generally doesn't bug you but how sharp is it relative to the HP-3? Spikes at ~8.5kHz and ~13kHz— Jesus that could mess me up without a bass boost to blunt the edge, haha.

Love the 3-4k dip, guessing that helps with depth considering these are closed? Bass decay is phenomenal, how does that even sound compared to Elear (not heard Clears yet), not too constrained or overdampened? Wondering if quality compares to Senn HD800 or the Klipsch— if you say it's as clean as TH900 bass my sense of inner peace is going to go ballistic. Might be tempted to convince dad he can get his own headphones that I could borrow now and again

 

Okay, glad I'm sane for thinking TH900 is still de facto dynamic bass king (just with sizzly treble and too-thin lower mids, plus cup reverb).

Quite a bit of distortion is an understatement haha, but this is a properly closed headphone and it'd be unfair to ask for more— so upstream needs to compensate for "soft" presentation from D2? And nah, didn't mean to say I expected it would sound open, just the trench in the presence region might make it seem that way

I'm just excited this doesn't seem to have that 1kHz bump most Focals have. I seem to prefer a recession there if being level with lower mids isn't an option, so this is pretty damn cool. Definitely going to look for a place to demo.

Mid and upper treble looks painful though, cuz distortion seems to go ballistic around there. will have TP on hand just in case.

Many thanks for the squiggles!

 

Great write up, Marv! I'd love to see you get your hands on a Stellia. That bad boy has TOTL technicalities. ;-)

 

This "damped in the bass" was what I noticed when I listened to them the first time. I was using the ZX300. After testing the Elex with a amp and then the ZX300, I realised I might not have given the Elegia a fair assessment. have to try again on a bigger amp. How is the isolation and sensitivity too seal around the ear? Since you have glasses too I assume it is not terribly sensitive?

 

@purr1n

Any comments on how well the Elegia would do off an amp with higher output impedance, such as a ZDS? I’m wondering if a resonance bump would make things a bit wonky?

 

@purr1n I know in the 3F thread, you mentioned that the Elex was an ideal pairing with the 3F, do you think Elegia will scale well with the amp as well?

 

For a closed back headphone, the Elegia is truly a good headphone. My preference is clearly for open headphones (current ratio is about 3:1 i favor of open). My set up has been typically Convert 2 > THX 789 > Elegia. This is overall very neutral, especially compared to my Fostex TH X00 (no surprise there). The bass is impactful and clean. Impressive for a closed back.

The dip in the upper mids helps the treble "sparkle" a bit more. But be very careful with the amp pairing here. I tried it with the OG Jotunheim (fed by the Gungnir Multibit A1) and that's an ear-piercer for me. For example, try listening to Hair of the Dog by Nazareth through the OG Jot and this headphone. Ouch! Resolution is good and this headphone is quite capable of revealing poorly recorded music (case in point is the song mentioned above).

 

There was also a barely used pair posted in For Sales recently for less than $500 if I believe. The Elegia's probably the lowest release price to BOM among all the Focal headphones, and with the dealer discounts and used sales it undergoes like its brethrens, comes really close to costing as much as a TH X00 Ebony while being technically superior in many ways.

 

Damn

 

Obligatory post-loaner writeup. Largely tracks what I wrote before (https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/focal-elegia.6898/page-2#post-241025) with me being able to run them out of my Af and my SW51. Tonally they were brighter than I remembered and I noticed a slight lower mid bump which is kinda visible in the FR plots. I didn't think of listening to male vocals during my time with it so I didn't notice the upper mid recession @SoupRKnowva did. I definitely liked it with more OI, as I found it pretty dry out of the Af, but much warmer and fuller out of the high-Z output of the SW51 to the point of being able to run it most of the workday with no issue.

It's definitely the least bad closed headphone I've heard and isolates exceptionally well i.e. more than your usual studio cans like M50s etc. Also worth noting is it's craaaaaazy sensitive (nearly IEM sensitive), start your volume low on this guy lest you want to blow your ears out... It would be the headphone I'd buy if they forced me to switch to closed cans at the office.

 

Thanks to @famish99 and @SoupRKnowva for letting me take a swing at them for a couple of days. My quick input (mostly echos @famish99) - it's like 1 generation away from greatness to my ears. Compared to my current closed backs (Emu Teak), they have better behaved treble, much more isolation, and well extended but less overbearing bass. Generally good staging and well damped enough to not have cup reverb/reflection stuff that I noticed. Didn't seem to get any hotter than HD600/Clears on my head (I run my office at 82F typically). The cable is an absolutely perfect length for my use case, but wow that's short.

The dealbreaker for me: weird, weird mids. This is the first piece of gear I liked less the more I listened to it. In isolation, I thought sounded "pretty good" and "unfucked" but the more I listened the more I thought "Wait...something is just off" and it was usually around vocals (and to an extent, strings). I'd go from male vocals to female vocals and question myself, then listen on my HD600s and boom...there was just something the Elegias do which must present very poorly to my smooth brain.

Qualifiers: this was during my daily "trolling the streams for good new shit" and "some possibly shitty test tracks of great familiarity" and all via Modi 3 + LP with Amperex A Frames. I like warmish, dryish, and bass texture and listen to pretty much everything, so take that as you will.

EDIT: "This is the first piece of gear I liked less the more I listened to it." wrong, the second - first is the Objective2 amp.

 

impressions from the loaner.

For some background I was pretty excited about this can. I really enjoyed the Elex, even if I ended up selling them in favor of a SDR modded and EQ'd hd800. without the EQ, id take the Elex every time. I also have been looking for a closed can to replace the DT770 32 ohm Pro I have been using at work.

On first listen at @famish99's place this weekend, I was suitably impressed, nothing obviously wrong, decent air, specially for a closed can. but once I started listening to more different styles of music the depression in the upper mids really started screwing with vocals for me.

So I figured I would wait till it was my turn longer term with them to see how I felt. I got them from @Joshvar, and that day at work I only made it half an hour before I went back to the DT770, the vocals were too weird. I was originally gonna keep them at work for a few days, and then take them home, but they needed assistance as soon as possible.

So that night I played with them at home with the EQ to try to fix the upper mids, I got to a point where I was pretty happy with the result, vocals weren't messed up anymore. But once again, I went through more of my library, and a pretty bad sibilance had been brought out due to the EQing attempt to fix the upper mids. I spent almost an hour trying to fix both, but I couldn't find an EQ incantation that led to fixed mids without the sibilance.

and that about sums them up, if the vocal weirdness stock doesnt bother you as much as it does me, these are fantastic cans, if it does, maybe you might have better luck fixing it than I did. Maybe Focal can really nail these on their next attempt.

PS: I guess reading this you might think I think the DT770 32ohm Pro is better than the Elegia, which I guess in a way I do, their flaws bother me less than the vocals on the Elegia. They were also only like 170 bucks and would withstand a bombstrike ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

At first listen, I was not a fan. Dry, tight bass, harsh upper mids...they were sounding much more "cheaper" sounding than their price tag suggested. At more listing, things improved slightly, but only after going to my warmer Dynalo amp over the Lyr 3.

Build quality is top notch. Sexy as hell. Big cups, nice cord, gread headband. But damn if they're heavier than my LCD-2C's. My neck hurts.

They were not bad on jazz and classical for a closed headphone. They more remind me of THX-00. More mid-centric sound, less lush. I think they were going for mid-clarity, but then made them too aggressive. The deep lows are tight and almost not there. And the vocal is just off. The mids have an overall nasal quality to them. And that spike at 8.5k and 13k is certainly there. Adds air I guess, but dang.

They have more space, details, and layers than M50's, but I'd still rather have a pair of D2000/5000/7000, or some modded T50's, but those are all semi-open.

I'd like more to see a impulse curve and the ye old 30Hz and 300Hz square wave measurements. O bet the impulse curve will tell some strangeness happen.