Focal Clear

Ouch indeed. The inside of that headband is plastic, isn't it? If so, it shouldn't be bent at all.

 

Senn HD6xx headbands are plastic (of some kind). And you can bend dafuq out of them.

 

I am new to the Clears and have found the head-crush chills out after a couple weeks of use. They were initially killer. Maybe I just got used to them, but I can wear them for very long stretches now and I have a big nordic noggin.

 

New to Clear (like just took it out of box new ) - been avoiding Focal since I am not a fan of their speakers. I am hearing good sound with GSX OG and Emm Labs. Some problem with bass and upper mid/lower treble that I am hoping will resolve after a bit of burnin.

 

I found the lower treble and timbre can be a bit amp dependent. I had the same with the lcd-X.

 

When i EQ’d my Clears it got better and more noticeable than burnin. I suggest trying that before waiting for improvements. Maybe you just don’t like them fully and that’s cool. It took me a couple of years of listening less and less to headphones to realize that.

 

Too early to say at this point - I have less than 5hrs on them at this point. It will be casual listening for the next few weeks before I do any comparison. They remind me of Dynaudio Confidence based on some very initial listen. These will do just fine while I wait for my Audeze to get fixed again - sigh

 

What are your EQ settings? Thanks!

 

The ones from the headphones.com review are a good baseline.

 

I use AutoEQ which has measurements from Oratory1990. The 2-4kHz peak is a probably what needs to be tamed the most - in my EQ there's some boosting at either side and in the bass.

My Clears will be available for sale (Sydney, AU) soon because I like the LTS V1 more.

 

New to Focal Clear OGs. Find the amount of air they seem to push substantially more than other open-back phones I have. They feel like they're generating pressure in a very different way than HD-6xx or planars I've lived with for a long time (HE-5xx, new to LCD-3x). Not describing the others as lean, just the sensation of it being more like a closed-back in terms of the weight & impact of the mid-bass. This is more pronounced out of Folkvangr but also true out of Mjolnir 2. I don't think I'm describing warmth - it's more a sensation of being in a room that's actually loaded with sound pressure, which I frankly don't get with any other open-backs. Does this elicit any thoughts? I've gone through and read all 41 pages of this thread trying to get my head around it ha ha ha.

 

After waiting three years I finally got the Clear's. What a great headphone. Of course I am a Focal fan-boy. I have loved my Elex's for about two and a half years. Recently got the Radiance and they have become my favourite closed back.

Right out of the box they sound great. I am on about my 10th or 11th straight day with them. I find the treble great, the mids a real treat and the bass more than adequate for an open back.

I have gone through lots of new rock (Blue Stones, Two Feet, Crosses, RHCP'S, etc.), a few days of Classic rock, some blues (Marcus King, Larkin Poe, Bywater Call, etc.) And tons of new (old) jazz: Donald Byrd, Keith Jarrett, Cannonball Adderley and Pepper Adams.
They sound great to me with every piece in every genre. I have not compared them much to the Elex's, but when I do they just seem to have a little more presence, depending on the song, the horns, the drums or the vocals just seem to stand out more. Of course due to the specs I have to keep adjusting the volume for each one.

I suppose the sound isn't for everyone, but if you do like Focal, $839.00 is an awesome price. And a three warranty in North America to give you peace of mind. These will be long term keepers for me and will replace my Elex's. To me, a great all round headphone.

 

Mine doesn't "rattle" per se, but playing Sea Wall much louder than I normally would, I get some slight buzzing that, if one hadn't heard the track before, might not be discernable as distortion. The bass shaker test track played very loudly produces a buzzing that sounds like overtones of the very low frequencies. I guess these artifacts are the result of exceeding driver excursion limits. I never hear anything non-musical during normal listening.

 

It's an old conversation but I do wonder what levels people are listening at to elicit that shaking. Didn't notice any on two samples of Clear and one Utopia, but two of those demos were in store settings where ambient noise might mask cruddy bass quality and the more recent one was in a comfortably silent condominium where I didn't need to crank the volume too much.

Should put some Deltron 3030 on next time I get ears on one to verify.

 

I have never heard the rattling issue on the Focal Elear, even when playing the infamous torture track from Blade Runner 2049. I regularly listen at volumes that are slightly lower than the average listener, but even when I turn up the volume to a level that feels deafening to me, I can't hear any rattling. I'm not saying that the rattling isn't possible, but I think that people must be listening at exceptionally loud levels, which itself is an issue to be concerned about.

I also suspect that the rattling might be caused by the driver's resonant frequency interacting with the output impedance of the amplifier. If people use an amplifier with a higher output impedance, this might exacerbate the issue. And it's also worth remembering that the Focal Clear has a lower impedance (55 ohms) than the Elear and Utopia (80 ohms), so the rattling might be more of an issue on the Clear than the Elear and Utopia.

 

Yeah, I think @MellowVelo has it. The ~50 Hz peak in the Clear's impedance profile is ~6x it's 'background' value and is narrower than the ~4x relative impedance peaks of the Utopia & Elear. This suggests the resonance of the Clear's driver/enclosure system is higher, meaning less power is needed to over-drive it in the bass vs at higher frequencies compared to the other Focals. This would be exacerbated by an amp with high output impedance (illustration).

None of which means, though, that people shouldn't buy these for listening to music. Popular 'phones with SBAF, at a good price.

 

I always thought it was part of the design.
The Xmax was too high in the spider less design

 

I also suspect that DC offset in some amps may exacerbate the problem. If the driver is inherently sitting a little off-centre, it is more likely to clip at lower volumes.

In any case, I did some of my own testing with this, while testing an amp (output impedance 0.1 R, <1 mV DC offset). Played a 50 Hz sine wave, increased volume until I could hear the rattle, backed off a touch, then listened some music at the same volume through the whole chain. It was beyond deafening. I can't even fathom listening at sound levels high enough to clip.

 

I think we’re talking about the same thing. Because the drivers are relatively undamped compared to many other headphones, you are able to push the drivers to the point of maximum excursion when playing low-frequency signals at higher volumes. So yes, it’s part of the design. It’s a tradeoff that the designers accepted in order to make exceptionally dynamic headphones.

The driver excursion, then, is exacerbated by the way that the output impedance of the amplifier interacts with the headphone’s resonant frequency. If you use an amplifier with a higher output impedance, it is easier to reach maximum excursion. And because of the location of the resonant frequency, it is easier to do this with the Clear than with the Elear and Utopia.

Like @Beefy said, this generally occurs at deafening levels.