This is a review and detailed measurements of the Focal Celestee closed-back headphone. It was kindly purchased new by a member and sent to me for testing. It costs US $990.
The Celestee has a luxury feel to it that fits the price:
I am not fond of the spring action though. The headband spring pressure is extremely progressive, putting up a huge fight if you try to expand them after a bit of expansion. On my head they fit but were rather tight. On the positive side this provided excellent sound isolation.
Two 3.5 mm plugs terminate in the headphone cups. They are stiff enough that should not pull out. The supplied cord likewise terminates in 3.5 mm plug. It is quite short, probably 3 to 4 feet. It seems to be designed for portable use as I definitely want it longer for desktop use.
Note: The measurements you are about to see are preformed using standardized GRAS 45CA headphone measurement fixture. Headphone measurements require more interpretation than speaker tests and have more of a requirement for subjective testing as a result. In addition, comparison of measurements between different people performing it using different configurations requires fair bit of skill. So don't look for matching results. Focus on high level picture. Listening tests are performed using RME ADI-2 DAC and its headphone output.
Mounting the headphone on my test fixture was somewhat challenging. I try to match the levels but it was very hard in low frequencies. As you see in a bit, that had nothing to do with the mounting.
Focal Celestee Measurements
As usual, we start with our stereo frequency response measurements:
I was pleased with the tight matching of the low frequency response to our target curve (dashed blue). What I did not like was the droop in the green channel below 80 Hz. I tried to compensate by moving the headphone around but no matter what I did, that large discrepancy remained. Looking at a few other measurements in the field, they also show a mild version of this "kink." It is very surprising to see such mismatching from a company like Focal with its extensive driver manufacturing capabilities.
Response is more or less good until we get past 3 kHz where we have a 2 kHz valley. There is a large peak around 13 kHz but that is likely not audible by itself.
Relative frequency response shows the dip more clearly:
Distortion was very low:
Same in absolute level:
Note that bass distortion looks worse than it is since we have good response there (so the previous graph is more representative). Really, it is all very good news on distortion front.
Impedance is somewhat variable:
Given its low value, it is current hungry although that term barely applies given the high efficiency of Celestee:
Group delay shows well behaved response more or less:
Ideal curve would exponentially roll off but we have a dip around 60 Hz. That is where the kink is in the one channel so maybe it is related.
Focal Celestee Headphone Listening Tests
Without any equalization, the sound was non-offensive and boring. The highs are muted and soundstage is mostly whacked in the middle of your head. It takes a track with a lot of channel separation to push anything close to your ears as far as separation. Some EQ helped things a lot:
The addition of 5 dB to compensate for the large dip there helped a lot to open the sound and give it some much needed "zing." Pulling the other two peaks down helped with a bit of upper bass boominiess.
Something was strange though. None of my sub-bass heavy soundtracks played such using Celestee. It was not until I was getting ready to write this review that this must have been due to major shortfall in the one channel. I don't have the ability to just EQ one channel but using that, maybe you can fix that.
With EQ, the sound was fine but still nothing to get excited about. Comparing to Dan Clark RT AEON Closed, the latter was more somewhat more open sounding (both without EQ). With EQ, the AKG K371 blew the Celestee out of the water with deep thundering sub-bass and excellent separation of instrumentation and sense of detail. I was going to give the Celestee one grade higher until this comparison. I also found the K371 more comfortable to wear due to its much lighter weight.
Conclusions
This was a tough review to write and originally was supposed to come out yesterday. But I waited a bit and had my son test it as well. I thought based on measurements that the sound would be more pleasing than it was. Neither, he, nor I thought much of the tonality without EQ. With EQ, you can rescue it but it is still nothing to rave behind. At least I couldn't. Most of the time the problems with headphones are more obvious than here. So this conclusion is not without some reservations.
As is, given the high cost, I can't recommend the Focal Celestee. If you spend this kind of money, you want the headphone to put a smile on your face. The Celestee simply does not do that to me. I really don't know what their target for tonality was with this headphone.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The Celestee has a luxury feel to it that fits the price:
I am not fond of the spring action though. The headband spring pressure is extremely progressive, putting up a huge fight if you try to expand them after a bit of expansion. On my head they fit but were rather tight. On the positive side this provided excellent sound isolation.
Two 3.5 mm plugs terminate in the headphone cups. They are stiff enough that should not pull out. The supplied cord likewise terminates in 3.5 mm plug. It is quite short, probably 3 to 4 feet. It seems to be designed for portable use as I definitely want it longer for desktop use.
Note: The measurements you are about to see are preformed using standardized GRAS 45CA headphone measurement fixture. Headphone measurements require more interpretation than speaker tests and have more of a requirement for subjective testing as a result. In addition, comparison of measurements between different people performing it using different configurations requires fair bit of skill. So don't look for matching results. Focus on high level picture. Listening tests are performed using RME ADI-2 DAC and its headphone output.
Mounting the headphone on my test fixture was somewhat challenging. I try to match the levels but it was very hard in low frequencies. As you see in a bit, that had nothing to do with the mounting.
Focal Celestee Measurements
As usual, we start with our stereo frequency response measurements:
I was pleased with the tight matching of the low frequency response to our target curve (dashed blue). What I did not like was the droop in the green channel below 80 Hz. I tried to compensate by moving the headphone around but no matter what I did, that large discrepancy remained. Looking at a few other measurements in the field, they also show a mild version of this "kink." It is very surprising to see such mismatching from a company like Focal with its extensive driver manufacturing capabilities.
Response is more or less good until we get past 3 kHz where we have a 2 kHz valley. There is a large peak around 13 kHz but that is likely not audible by itself.
Relative frequency response shows the dip more clearly:
Distortion was very low:
Same in absolute level:
Note that bass distortion looks worse than it is since we have good response there (so the previous graph is more representative). Really, it is all very good news on distortion front.
Impedance is somewhat variable:
Given its low value, it is current hungry although that term barely applies given the high efficiency of Celestee:
Group delay shows well behaved response more or less:
Ideal curve would exponentially roll off but we have a dip around 60 Hz. That is where the kink is in the one channel so maybe it is related.
Focal Celestee Headphone Listening Tests
Without any equalization, the sound was non-offensive and boring. The highs are muted and soundstage is mostly whacked in the middle of your head. It takes a track with a lot of channel separation to push anything close to your ears as far as separation. Some EQ helped things a lot:
The addition of 5 dB to compensate for the large dip there helped a lot to open the sound and give it some much needed "zing." Pulling the other two peaks down helped with a bit of upper bass boominiess.
Something was strange though. None of my sub-bass heavy soundtracks played such using Celestee. It was not until I was getting ready to write this review that this must have been due to major shortfall in the one channel. I don't have the ability to just EQ one channel but using that, maybe you can fix that.
With EQ, the sound was fine but still nothing to get excited about. Comparing to Dan Clark RT AEON Closed, the latter was more somewhat more open sounding (both without EQ). With EQ, the AKG K371 blew the Celestee out of the water with deep thundering sub-bass and excellent separation of instrumentation and sense of detail. I was going to give the Celestee one grade higher until this comparison. I also found the K371 more comfortable to wear due to its much lighter weight.
Conclusions
This was a tough review to write and originally was supposed to come out yesterday. But I waited a bit and had my son test it as well. I thought based on measurements that the sound would be more pleasing than it was. Neither, he, nor I thought much of the tonality without EQ. With EQ, you can rescue it but it is still nothing to rave behind. At least I couldn't. Most of the time the problems with headphones are more obvious than here. So this conclusion is not without some reservations.
As is, given the high cost, I can't recommend the Focal Celestee. If you spend this kind of money, you want the headphone to put a smile on your face. The Celestee simply does not do that to me. I really don't know what their target for tonality was with this headphone.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
