Focal Celestee Review (Headphone)

[mkawa]

2.5db over that wide a bandwidth wouldn't be all that bad for ankers but is inexcusable for 1kUSD headphones. computer matching should have caught this, but even then, for the price versus cost to manufacture, they should really be hand-matched. even if it's +/-1 from a reference curve and this is an extreme outlier, they need to look at what seems likely to be a new QC protocol.

 

[phoenixsong]

Dip between 3 to 5 k is a pretty big deal. If not for that i think this would habe got the crown even with the bas mismatch.

The bass mismatch and higher price are probably the main reasons for its downfall, considering the AKG K371 also has a dip in that same region of the frequency response

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Dan Clark Audio Aeon RT. $500 planar with good, tight bass and clean, dynamic sound.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

The +/- 5dB jagged response in the treble is what's concerning to me. It's what killed the Elegias for my music library.

It's an artifact of the measurement system, not the frequency response of the driver.

 

[PeteL]

Dan Clark Audio Aeon RT. $500 planar with good, tight bass and clean, dynamic sound.

No doubt it’s the better deal, but this guy you can plug it straight in your ipad when chilling on a couch, For some it may matter, I have a good amp but the number of time I use headphones straight out of laptops or portable devices, is really not to neglect, for me, it actually surpass my desktop use by a good margin, even. with big house type over the ears. That’s the biggest drawback of most planars, the need for big amplification.

 

[Tks]

OK, I guess I didn’t get your point. I fail to see what you are refering too, going trough the thread, I don’t read much praise and love for focal, it’s a unrecommended headphone, rightfully so with obvious Quality control issue, no green lighting here, all have been said is an other sample may be different, It is not a good thing. I get that you don’t like focal. I’m ok with this, mine sound good, I’m ok with the price I paid mine but I haven’t measured them, don’t know if they have issues but it doesn’t excuse the fact that these have. If anything, for what it’s worth, it’s a much more robust built than my Fostex th-x00, which broke and got replaced. Now I still see some bias in your rant, It became clearer with this honest and maybe justified second explanation. bias like “ when something goes well from asian manufacturers, we have accusation of golden samples” There may have been some isolated ones, I don’t remember everybodies post, but It’s definitely not the “pulse“ I get from this community, Actually I see Asian brands quite celebrated generally. By far the most compagny that have been bombarded with this nonsense is Schiit and they are not Asians, I seem to not get the same feel, but sure, there are irrational hate right left and center, I just don’t see it as generally targeted a single way

Not sure where my bias is showing if any, considering I could dog on virtually any company these days if you like, it's just I become much more critical, the higher the cost of something is (in the same way I would be more harsh on a politician, than I would be a student in political science class). I use Sennheiser headphones (even though the HD800 series driver itself should land someone in jail), and an RME DAC as my main home listening setup, so I doubt I got much Asian bias, though one company I love for their material design is Matrix Audio, the milling work done on the cases of their DACs is insanely good, and I guess I use an asian smartphone as my DAP.

As for Schiit, they actually are a demonstration of your conclusion (hate and praise not being particularly targetted on this forum), they went from being fl0ps that relatively deserved the bashing they got for the products they were putting out - to being currently one of the more beloved companies on this forum, and the larger audio community after they took criticisms to heart, and rectified their performance issues - demonstrating that they could AND were willing to do so.

Dont take my critiques of Focal as an affront on your choice of headphone. If it sounds good to you, and if it's comfortable on your head, and you feel you would buy it again for what it is - no amount of my bashing of their design choices, or company behaviors, or past transgressions should impede on your enjoyment for what you have. The fact that they are able to make something good that people enjoy, is the reason why they should be criticized for any small problems. If they weren't criticized, then they wouldn't be worth venerating on some degree for their work. If this was some no-name company with an awful track record, I wouldn't waste my breath.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

No doubt it’s the better deal, but this guy you can plug it straight in your ipad when chilling on a couch, For some it may matter, I have a good amp but the number of time I use headphones straight out of laptops or portable devices, is really not to neglect, for me, it actually surpass my desktop use by a good margin, even. with big house type over the ears. That’s the biggest drawback of most planars, the need for big amplification.

That's a fair point, you want a magni/modi stack or more powerful for the RT. It likes power.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

They strike me as the Apple wanna-be of the headphone world to be perfectly honest. Which would be good if they could deliver on such.

More like the Apple-IS. Sennheiser is dropping out of the headphone game. Whose left?

 

[Helicopter]

If there is a problem at Focal, my guess is it has to do with them launching Radiance, Celestee, Clear Pro MG, and Clear MG in such a tight timeframe. I bet this led to huge boosts in demand, production, shifts, hours, stress on all their resources, etc. I bet the quality will increase after the 2021 holiday shopping season is over. Still, it is always a probability, and if this conjecture is correct, it still doesn't mean you will get a bad one now or a good one later... but, as @solderdude said, this pair is not outside what is normal variation for many companies anyway.

 

[dfuller]

Well, this is disappointing. It's so close to being a shoe-in, but... Well.

 

[Maki]

It's an artifact of the measurement system, not the frequency response of the driver.

It isn't. The jaggedness might be shifted in frequency but it's there.

 

[PeteL]

What about this imbalance? (with much more audible and critical frequencies):View attachment 121109

I was going trough the K371 review, and the intersting thing is that @solderdude showed his own measurments, and the same imbalance was present. wondering if this could be the slight physical difference in the cups due to the cable not being split, but having it’s connector on just one side

 

[2M2B]

Dan Clark Audio Aeon RT. $500 planar with good, tight bass and clean, dynamic sound.

It insane how Planar is killing it in the Mid priced area, It fun watching TOTL audiophile struggle to admit you can a lot of bargains for $350 these days.

 

[Rja4000]

Back to my question @amirm
Were you able to give it a try with different left/right EQ using "Dual EQ" on RME ?

 

[Takanaka]

It insane how Planar is killing it in the Mid priced area, It fun watching TOTL audiophile struggle to admit you can a lot of bargains for $350 these days.

In the high-end region as well, phones like the Ananda, Arya and LCD-X smoke the opposition especially with a touch of EQ with a few dynamic exceptions like the Auteur and the HD800S.

 

[mkawa]

If there is a problem at Focal, my guess is it has to do with them launching Radiance, Celestee, Clear Pro MG, and Clear MG in such a tight timeframe. I bet this led to huge boosts in demand, production, shifts, hours, stress on all their resources, etc. I bet the quality will increase after the 2021 holiday shopping season is over. Still, it is always a probability, and if this conjecture is correct, it still doesn't mean you will get a bad one now or a good one later... but, as @solderdude said, this pair is not outside what is normal variation for many companies anyway.

yah, that is a lot of new models. sounds like a rough product launch season for a small company. there are so many moving parts in a consumer products company that if you look too closely at the output at certain times, you'll see huge bugs everywhere. i was a nikon customer for years and you would never ever buy a new body at launch because there were always bugs at launch.

 

[amirm]

Back to my question @amirm
Were you able to give it a try with different left/right EQ using "Dual EQ" on RME ?

No I did not try. The unit is on its way to its owner.

 

[Zensō]

Back to my question @amirm
Were you able to give it a try with different left/right EQ using "Dual EQ" on RME ?

I’m curious, what would be the point of this? Without having a headphone test rig at home to identify the anomalies of your specific headphone, there is no way to know what needs to be corrected anyway.

 

[Robbo99999]

I’m curious, what would be the point of this? Without having a headphone test rig at home to identify the anomalies of your specific headphone, there is no way to know what needs to be corrected anyway.

That's true, I wouldn't buy a headphone knowing it could have channel imbalance that bad....so it's a kinda practical moot point knowing whether or not equalising the channels would have improved Amir's listening experience. Would have been interesting from a technical exercise point of view though.

 

[Rja4000]

That's true, I wouldn't buy a headphone knowing it could have channel imbalance that bad....so it's a kinda practical moot point knowing whether or not equalising the channels would have improved Amir's listening experience. Would have been interesting from a technical exercise point of view though.

Exactly.
We have a case where measurements are OK but experience is not.
So that would have helped to understand why and to emphasize what's important here.