Focal Clear

I thank you all of you for the interesting conversation.
Unfortunately the zmf auteur are out from reach here in Greece.
And you can't spend that amount of money without an audition.
So we have to stick with the mainstream brands which can be auditioned through official retailers or major internet shops with return rights.

 

Sonorus, could you (or anyone else) point to a particular classical recording where you are hearing this high SPL leading edge harshness? Maybe something digital and recent so that it might be on Tidal?

I have been trying to reproduce it through my iFi micro>Saga>Jot>Clear and sometimes I think I might hear it...sometimes. During complex, dense, and loud passages I hear a breakdown/flatness but I hear through all HP's and I lean to this being an artifact of microphones/transducers in general (that and my ears ).

 

No tidal etc for me just CD!
For example
https://www.amazon.com/Handel-Acis-Galatea-Dunedin-Players/dp/B001HWU3ZC
The duet at the end of the first act.
When you raise the volume the soprano becomes piercing and the tenor shouty.
No such problems with HD800 and HD58x.

 

Since my [headphone] affliction* seems to be taking a stronger hold, of late, I wound up picking up both the Massdrop Elex and the Focal Clear. That gives me full-time access to all of the interesting**, current, Focal headphones:



The obvious temptation here being an all-up, comparative, review. With the ability to swap pads willy-nilly. I might even find sufficient motivation to write that up. Would be a nice change from DAC reviews.

Too many headphones ... too little time ...

--
*There maybe others.
**I could add the "Clear Pro" out of pure morbid, red/black, curiosity, I suppose.

 

Sweeet Jesus....a 4-way comparison would be mighty fine, Torq.

 

Yep, I can only realistically afford the bottom three. The Clears are heavily on my radar. This would be awesome!

 

hello,

**I could add the "Clear Pro" out of pure morbid, red/black, curiosity, I suppose.

"but i can't, can't, cantaloupe
but you muskmelon,
oh please, honeydew!"

cheers!

 

The Clear vs. Elex part of that showdown would be of great interest and hopefully let me confirmation bias my way to justifying my choice to buy the former over the latter.

Regarding the Pro, although initial reports said it was identical except for colour and cable, I thought I read somewhere that it's tuned more in line with a studio monitor signature. Might have seen it on HF, so who knows.

 

How about some stab at blinding since all 4 should feel the same on your head...but then the pads...and the creaks that your aware of one makes over the other...etc. etc.

 

They're tonally very similar. There are more differences than that, however ... which I'll attribute to them having different drivers.

It'd be interesting to try, but the pad (and other) materials and the rather different clamping pressures are probably enough of a give away to make it, at best, "blind-ish"

I can take cables out of the equation, though, as I built a consistent set of modular cables for this sort of thing.

 

All four have the same-ish load presentation to an amplifier (i.e. significantly similar impedance curve, etc.) if I am not mistaken. I know the Clear is different from the others in having a bit lower ohm (Elex also?), so besides switching out the HP's a helper would have to make pre established adjustment to volume. Some Dekoni pads on all 4 to even the score perhaps? Don't know how to solve the headclamping force issue. Are you a dentist? Perhaps there is some way to numb your skull besides whisky?

I am thinking that in theory-ish this blinding might be doable-ish

 

Hearing both the Clear and Elex last weekend at a small meet, the Elex was definitely brighter than the Clear. Heard through the EC Aficianado fed by either the Yggdrasil B or the Crane Song Solaris.

 

This is more than enough to convince me that I made the right decision as the Clear stock was already too bright for me. Strange since it didn't sound that bright when I heard them [*before]. Plus, I'm hearing a mid-bass suck on certain tracks. I don't measure so I'll have to play around with EQ to try and isolate the freq range. Makes me wonder if my pair is an outlier, though I think they've measured fairly consistently. Will get my full write up done over the weekend.

 

So my Clears arrived last weekend, at a great price thanks to the Super Deal SBAF Exclusive.

Initial Impressions
Chain: Eitr>Modi Multibit>MCTH
(edit: stock EH tube)

WAY brighter than I remember hearing them at Marv's mini-meet. My impressions at the time were:

Now that I have them at home: Sibilance (Don Henley on HFO Hotel California particularly bad), snares and high hats (e.g. Get Lucky) are super fatiguing. Bass extension is great when there's sub-bass content in the music, but mid-bass quantity and punch are lacking. I've probably become too used to the mid-bass hump of the HD650Ms. There's reasonable detail in the bass but I find myself straining to hear it. I did a LF sine sweep w/ voice over and the suck seems to be between 60-80Hz.

I also tried a 20Hz-20kHz sweep and I can definitely hear these claws.

On the positive side, imaging is very tight if not deep or wide. You can hear the exact locations of the ensemble on Amber Ruth Don't You sitting around you, and Amber's mouth directly in front of you. Just that they sound a lot closer to the dummy head than during actual recording session. Lots of details popping out that I don't normally notice on my familiar test tracks. Macro/microdynamics and detail/clarity are very good. Guitar picking on HFO HC is clearer than I've heard it before, and each individual 1/32nd or 1/64th note (or whatever) strum on Rodrigo y Gabriela Tamacun is clear and crisp. Multitracked vocals can be easily distinguished, when they used to just have that "wall of voice" effect.

Mods
First try was some fairly low-density wavey-nippley packing foam I found at work and cut down to 1/4" thick. It helped tame the brightness a bit, but not enough for my tastes. 1/4" of this foam looks the same as HD6xx front foam doubled up when held up to the light.


Velcro to hold foam in place a la @Hands.




Next I found a brick of some higher density foam and sliced it 5mm thick with a Henckels 7" Santoku. This was about right for the highs, which are still brighter and airier than HD650M, but that's what I wanted from the Clears. The claws are still there on the sine sweep, but not as sharp.



@Hands mentioned in the Elear measurements thread that increasing the damping on the mesh around the driver would increase the bass. So I used the low-density foam to "block out" the lower three segments of mesh. This boosted the bass across the board by about 2dB, judging by ear.


I then tried covering 2 more segments at the top. The result was a bit more bass, but it sounded dull and murky. Mids and highs were also adversely affected, with a loss of clarity and a "hands cupped over ears" sound. (Photo shows only the foam covering the mesh, but I was listening with the higher density disc over the driver in place.)


Removing the bottom foam wedge and leaving 2 segments covered at the top sounded about the same as 3 blocked at the bottom. So I cut the bottom wedge to cover only 2 segments, and this turns out to be the happy medium. So far I don't hear any negative effects on mids or highs, and bass is almost where I'd like it. There's just a hint of that murkiness, but I'm going to try it like this for a while and actually just listen to some music.


I've just received 2 sets of HD6xx front foam with which to try some different variations on the above, as well as a HD5xx/6xx foam headband pad. The slightly bumpy knitted Amazon headband protector isn't as comfortable as the naked stock headband so I'll try the Senn pad strapped on with the velcro cable "ties" next.

Brainwavz Hooka works well.


To be continued ...

[Edit: images resized so they aren't stoopid big]

 

The knock-off Senn headband pad I got is one of these.



Out of the bag, the two central blocks are taking all the pressure and it's really uncomfortable. The cups have to be fully extended and my head isn't that big, so adding additional padding probably won't work for large noggins. I compressed the two central blocks for a couple of days using paper binder clips and a ruler. The weight became more evenly distributed, but it still wasn't that comfortable. The best for me is the naked stock headband, followed by being wrapped in the knitted diaper. Maybe 2 actual HD650 pads (the ones with a single notch at the top) side by side would be OK. But shallow curve of the headband would probably still put a lot of pressure on the top of the head. Someone mentioned thinking about trying this, but I don't remember seeing any follow-up report.

Warning: another stream of modding-ness description

As for the mods, I noticed the soundstage seemed a bit shallower after I added the "bass" foam. So I ran the tracks from Chesky's Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc where he walks around the dummy head banging various things. I could pinpoint him better behind the head than in front of it. So my guess was damping the mesh around the driver in a non-uniform manner adversely affects stage and imaging.

So I cut one layer of HD6xx foam to cover the entire inner circle of the baffle (driver + mesh) and pressed it onto the velcro so it conformed to the contours and stayed in place. Bass levels were about the same as 2 segments covered top and bottom, but they were still too bright with only 1 layer of foam. I couldn't think of a way to easily add a second layer over just the driver, so I put the 5mm circle I previously cut back in, and the cresent-shaped leftovers from the HD6xx foam were pretty much the correct shape to cover all of the mesh. Bass is slightly increased compared to using 1 layer of HD6xx foam, but brightness is tamed to my liking and the imaging and stage on the binaural tracks sound normal again.

I guess some might find these procedural descriptions long and boring, but I hope that they might help others who want to try them and give them more info to go on.

Next step is to wait for a pair of demo units to become available locally so I can determine if mine are really brighter and bass lighter, or my ears hear differently in SoCal than at home.

 

I'm on the loaner tour of these, and without going back through 22 pages of impressions / reviews - I cant believe these things bottom out at higher volumes, and even at moderate listening levels. Anyone else hear this and this its a major deal breaker?

 

All the Focals do. That’s how they’re designed. And for the record they shouldn’t bottom out at moderate levels unless the track is all sub 30Hz bass at volume. You’re doing more damage to your ears if you’re listening to them at bottoming out levels than you are to your headphones - unless you have a faulty pair (of headphones).

 

It's nice that Focal has our safety in mind. Its too bad more headphone manufacturers
don't protect our hearing by having their headphones fail catastrophically if you listen
above moderate volume.

I had the same experience as Josh with the Clear loaner bottoming out. Its quite disconcerting
when it starts clanging against the casing on high dynamic range content.

 

Sennheiser does with the HD700, it falls apart at any volume. Very safe headphone.

 

Sounds like the Clear loaner is a dud. Takes one helluva volume (and silly bass) to conk out my Elears, and by most accounts the Clears are better than the Elears in this regard. Would I prefer they didn’t design it this way? Sure. Is there a better alternative for the price? Not that I’ve heard.