• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Focal Bathys

edahl

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2021
Messages
398
Likes
329
So there's a new wireless Focal in town. Has anyone seen squigglies?
 
All these reviews out there and no graphs, sigh
 
In this korean review it's implied that loud volume behavior is better than other Focal headphones:

It's all subjective though and no numbers provided. The rest of the review doesn't provide much useful information from what I can tell. My korean is not the best though so I don't understand everything.
 
Yes, Resolve's squiggles - https://forum.headphones.com/t/focal-bathys-wireless-hifi-headphones-with-active-noise-cancellation-official-discussion-thread/18861/34

Here's it comparing to the ML 5909:

694bacaaec44106908337b8b0446e33c780467e6.png

5f98ce4c5d34e87da82e89650db1d508194613cf_2_1035x496.jpeg
 
Hey, thanks for that - just one thing to note, I need to update the measurement of the ML 5909 because I think there may have been a firmware update since I did this one. So once I'm able to spend some more time doing a full ANC comparison I'll be sure to do that. For the version I heard at the time, the treble peak was quite intense and we gave that feedback to Sean as well so I hope they were able to implement some changes with firmware.
 
Hey, thanks for that - just one thing to note, I need to update the measurement of the ML 5909 because I think there may have been a firmware update since I did this one. So once I'm able to spend some more time doing a full ANC comparison I'll be sure to do that. For the version I heard at the time, the treble peak was quite intense and we gave that feedback to Sean as well so I hope they were able to implement some changes with firmware.

Thanks for the graph. I'd love to learn more about the reason for the 800-900Hz dip (apparently a by-product of the ANC implementation if I understand the video well ?). Have you tested the Bathys under pad compression in passive and active mode ?

Re the 5909 - I believe that the last firmware update was months ago, or am I wrong ? Both units I listened to were quite stable on my head in terms of seatings to seatings variation, but under pad compression the trebles peaks shifted not just in magnitude but also in frequency, which could indicate that this feature is heavily reliant on coupling and in the end un-EQable (a caveat is that I am not superbly confident in blocked ear canal entrance measurements past 7-8kHz). I also don't really see how a firmware update can improve the coupling behaviour below and remedy the - IMO - flawed concept of trying to make a pair of ANC over-ears perform similarly in both passive and active modes.
 
Hey, thanks for that - just one thing to note, I need to update the measurement of the ML 5909 because I think there may have been a firmware update since I did this one. So once I'm able to spend some more time doing a full ANC comparison I'll be sure to do that. For the version I heard at the time, the treble peak was quite intense and we gave that feedback to Sean as well so I hope they were able to implement some changes with firmware.

For Focal Bathys can you compare freq resp measurement for: BT mode vs DAC mode vs "off" ?
 
For Focal Bathys can you compare freq resp measurement for: BT mode vs DAC mode vs "off" ?

I might be mistaken but I believe that the feedback circuit can't be switched off in all active modes, so only the wired, passive input could show the passive FR.
 
I might be mistaken but I believe that the feedback circuit can't be switched off in all active modes, so only the wired, passive input could show the passive FR.
I don't understand this.

BT has already been measured.

You flip the switch to "DAC" mode and play test tones and measure what comes out of drivers

You flip switch to "off" and using external DAC + amp you play test tones and measure what comes out of drivers
 
Montabonel told me the engineering team wasn’t able to implement LDAC support before the time came to freeze the electronics, but that Focal hopes to add the feature later.
I wouldn’t hold your breath … If they haven’t got the licensing lined up to decode LDAC at launch it’s unlikely Sony will decide to play nice and let them add it later.
 
I wouldn’t hold your breath … If they haven’t got the licensing lined up to decode LDAC at launch it’s unlikely Sony will decide to play nice and let them add it later.
And never buy a product based on a hoped or promised future update.

I've seen many examples of angry customers when suggest hoped/promised updates never happen.

If someone really needs LDAC, don't buy it till it gets LDAC officially released
 
Not 100% sure of that though. Samsung (being the leading Android Smartphone manufacturer) currently only supports regular APTX as well as LDAC and their own Samsung proprietary codec ... By adding LDAC, Focal could potentially gain additional traction in the Samsung market ... (Here's hoping that someone at Focal reads this ;))
 
am i the only one, at least slightly, bothered by the name?
is it bath approved?
 
Thanks for the graph. I'd love to learn more about the reason for the 800-900Hz dip (apparently a by-product of the ANC implementation if I understand the video well ?). Have you tested the Bathys under pad compression in passive and active mode ?

Re the 5909 - I believe that the last firmware update was months ago, or am I wrong ? Both units I listened to were quite stable on my head in terms of seatings to seatings variation, but under pad compression the trebles peaks shifted not just in magnitude but also in frequency, which could indicate that this feature is heavily reliant on coupling and in the end un-EQable (a caveat is that I am not superbly confident in blocked ear canal entrance measurements past 7-8kHz). I also don't really see how a firmware update can improve the coupling behaviour below and remedy the - IMO - flawed concept of trying to make a pair of ANC over-ears perform similarly in both passive and active modes.

I'm also not 100% on what causes the 900hz dip, but I need to do more testing with the headphone in more modes. At the moment though, it seems all BT ANC modes have the same FR.

For the 5909, I think there's been at least one additional firmware change that affected the FR since I took that measurement - I could be mistaken there but I at least want to double check.
 
Back
Top Bottom