Focal Clear Review (headphone)

[pwjazz]

I believe it's more to do with venting than anything else. Most open back dynamics have some sort of front vent whether that be porous pads, porous baffle, or vent holes in the baffle. Open planars on the other hand usually achieve a perfect seal with no vents to be found, since the driver is basically the baffle. There are a lot of closed dynamic headphones which also provide a greater seal and don't feature the characteristic rise in distortion in the bass frequencies. The problem with not venting open headphones is that the lower mids and bass go completely out of control, at least with the couple drivers I've played around with.

Add more rear damping

 

[frogmeat69]

Ok, tried the song by Burak Malçok on my Clears, using my D90/A90 stack. On low gain with a balanced cable these headphones get VERY loud with the volume at about 3 o'clock, the Youtube video makes the right driver pop on one really low note, but with the same song on Tidal, I get no pops with it with the volume about as loud as I can handle. Not sure if this means anything, just letting y'all know.
What I do know is, if it takes me to turn it up to where it's painful to listen to get it to malfunction, I shouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[Maki]

Add more rear damping

That's one option, but the more you add, the closer to semi-open/closed you get.

 

[617]

That kind of driver matching makes me sad. 2dB off below 5K would drive me nuts for sure. How is that acceptable in any headphone above $100?


The planar's transparent part is a solid membrane you can see through, but is not permeable for air. The dynamic's transparent part is a mesh that air can pass through.

Assymetry in the tension of the headband and fluffiness of the earpads could be moving the driver closer or further to the microphone. Even a few mm will make a difference at close distances. You should be able to get within 2db though. 2db is not really audible...but I'd like to see 1db.

 

[Rock Rabbit]

I was referring to the baffle, not the driver.

Both kind of hp must use some acoustic resistance material in front (and back) of the driver (is not a filter!). Only simplified schematics usually don't show it.
Baffle is a rigid (no movement) surface where a driver is mounted, HPs don't use any baffle (isolated front and back wave).

 

[Artaois]

Yes, 100%. That's why with focal you really need to have a reputable dealer that you think will be around for a little while lol. Buying it off amazon is going to void your warranty unless you got lucky and the third party seller is an authorized dealer.

I went through this a lot, I am very familiar with the focal warranty process lol. It's not too bad though, I just send it to my dealer and they take care of the rest. The only problem is they think you are being nit picky sometimes but when multiple reports were coming back and I had video evidence, cant really argue with that. I made the videos private when they fixed the issue.

My Elear were made in mid 2018 and I haven't got them to pop and then my Elex are a very new batch with no bottoming out. Gonna have to remember your name in case I get a driver failure though. Lol

 

[Rottmannash]

What Amir meant is how they determine the specification. Your question is more of why manufacturers choose a high or low impedance.
Manufacturers like Beyer make the 'same' model in various impedances.

When one wants to make a headphone suited for phones etc they go for low impedances. When they want to design models for desktop amps they go for higher impedances.
Higher impedances can be made of thinner wire but they can't take much current. Current is what creates the magnetic field. When you have less current you need more windings. The thing is with thinner wires and more windings you can make a lighter voicecoil but need more voltage.
So not possible to drive with mobile devices.

Its a design decision.



No need to measure or check anything.
As long as the combo plays loud enough for you none of the above matters.
The Clear is quite sensitive so no extraordinary gain or power is needed.

That's a great explanation. Thanks.

 

[maverickronin]

Both kind of hp must use some acoustic resistance material in front (and back) of the driver (is not a filter!). Only simplified schematics usually don't show it.
Baffle is a rigid (no movement) surface where a driver is mounted, HPs don't use any baffle (isolated front and back wave).

 

[Rock Rabbit]

What Amir meant is how they determine the specification. Your question is more of why manufacturers choose a high or low impedance.
Manufacturers like Beyer make the 'same' model in various impedances.

When one wants to make a headphone suited for phones etc they go for low impedances. When they want to design models for desktop amps they go for higher impedances.
Higher impedances can be made of thinner wire but they can't take much current. Current is what creates the magnetic field. When you have less current you need more windings. The thing is with thinner wires and more windings you can make a lighter voicecoil but need more voltage.
So not possible to drive with mobile devices.

Its a design decision.



No need to measure or check anything.
As long as the combo plays loud enough for you none of the above matters.
The Clear is quite sensitive so no extraordinary gain or power is needed.

Higher impedance lighter voice coil...then a higher impedance (all other things equal) implies better sensitivity (?)
But the DT-770 250 has less sensitivity than the 80 ohm version (?!)

 

[Maki]

Both kind of hp must use some acoustic resistance material in front (and back) of the driver (is not a filter!). Only simplified schematics usually don't show it.
Baffle is a rigid (no movement) surface where a driver is mounted, HPs don't use any baffle (isolated front and back wave).

Headphones do have baffles, unless the driver is suspended in free air. Which would sound quite poor unless special care was taken on the engineering.

 

[MC_RME]

Super helpful examples!

My Clears handle these fine. The second track has some distortion around :15, but not at :42 where the bass kicks in. It was there with my Audio Technica mx50 too so I am guessing that is the recording there. Edit: it is there with LCD-X too, so almost certainly recorded that way.

These are cool tracks. They make me want some Rythmiks more than more HPs.

Thanks for the kind words. Just to make sure we talk about the same thing: second clip is 'Rumorz'. At 0:15 is a pause (?). The first bass tone is at 0:38, the second (highest and most audible one) at 0:43, followed by the lowest one (around 16 Hz) at 0:44. That lowest one is inaudible on many headphones (and most speakers) unless you give it some bass boost below 65 Hz (shelf filter). And then might cause intermodulation distortion, as the diaphragm has to perform extreme moves that modulate the upper frequencies, played by the same driver. If you further crank up the bass to make it more audible the diaphragm also might start to crash against mechanical stops or similar, producing nasty sounds.

As a bass fan I test all my headphones on this subject, low frequencies, physical impact and audible (not measured, as that is hard to do) intermodulation distortion. Phones that easily pass this test are most planars (all that I tested, but can't guarantee anyone does), the king of bass (JVC HA-SZ2000, a very special double driver headphone), the Fostex TH series, the Sony MDR-Z7 M2 (less physical impact due to super-plush earpads), and some more. I tried the Clear on a headphone event years ago. While testing only with a battery driven portable amp it failed my test, so I wasn't interested anymore.

 

[pwjazz]

That's one option, but the more you add, the closer to semi-open/closed you get.

Yes, but when done close to the driver you don't have to contend with cup resonances like on a true closed back.

 

[Helicopter]

Thanks for the kind words. Just to make sure we talk about the same thing: second clip is 'Rumorz'. At 0:15 is a pause (?). The first bass tone is at 0:38, the second (highest and most audible one) at 0:43, followed by the lowest one (around 16 Hz) at 0:44. That lowest one is inaudible on many headphones (and most speakers) unless you give it some bass boost below 65 Hz (shelf filter). And then might cause intermodulation distortion, as the diaphragm has to perform extreme moves that modulate the upper frequencies, played by the same driver. If you further crank up the bass to make it more audible the diaphragm also might start to crash against mechanical stops or similar, producing nasty sounds.

As a bass fan I test all my headphones on this subject, low frequencies, physical impact and audible (not measured, as that is hard to do) intermodulation distortion. Phones that easily pass this test are most planars (all that I tested, but can't guarantee anyone does), the king of bass (JVC HA-SZ2000, a very special double driver headphone), the Fostex TH series, the Sony MDR-Z7 M2 (less physical impact due to super-plush earpads), and some more. I tried the Clear on a headphone event years ago. While testing only with a battery driven portable amp it failed my test, so I wasn't interested anymore.

I meant after that pause and before the deep bass.

I ran it full volume on my Samsung S9 without EQ, with Clear and Audio Technica and then loud enough I worried about hearing damage on my Schiit Hel with Amir's PEQ plus a 17Hz HPF for the Clear, Amir's PEQ for LCD-X, and a couple other HPs. I tried the tracks Amir posted too with the Clears.

I am definitely not getting the drivers bottoming out. Could be the weakness of the S9, could be the low output impedance of the Hel, could be my Clears are different, could be the max volume that feels somewhat safe to me, could be my HPF.

I will try removing the HPF tomorrow and see what it does.

 

[ShiZo]

My Elear were made in mid 2018 and I haven't got them to pop and then my Elex are a very new batch with no bottoming out. Gonna have to remember your name in case I get a driver failure though. Lol

Yeah, in the older batches you could get lucky. I bought 2 off amazon and they were messed up. I returned them then bought one from headphones.com. It was defective in that way so I returned it. The replacement I got after that was perfect SQ wise. But the emblem was a little loose (didn't rattle, so completely cosmetic) so I sent it in for repair. I shit you not it got lost in transit somehow so they sent me a replacement and it rattled too lol. So I had to go through the whole process again. I think I kinda sped them up in fixing the issue because after they said it was fixed with the new batch, the next one had no issues.

So if I was going to buy one, I'd do it through them. Plus they worked with me with a lot of replacements until I got a perfect pair. There was a bit of exasperation on both sides, but it got done. I think there was a couple times I went months before a replacement to get to me only to see it had the same problem (not really headphones.com fault tbh, they just send it in and get one in return from their distributor). Sometimes it would be better or worse which was strange. That's why I wish I could send my pair into @amirm because I think it would measure better in some aspects. But alas I love it too much to part with it for another long journey.

 

[MC_RME]

I meant after that pause and before the deep bass.

I ran it full volume on my Samsung S9 without EQ, with Clear and Audio Technica and then loud enough I worried about hearing damage on my Schiit Hel with Amir's PEQ plus a 17Hz HPF for the Clear, Amir's PEQ for LCD-X, and a couple other HPs. I tried the tracks Amir posted too with the Clears.

I am definitely not getting the drivers bottoming out. Could be the weakness of the S9, could be the low output impedance of the Hel, could be my Clears are different, could be the max volume that feels somewhat safe to me, could be my HPF.

I will try removing the HPF tomorrow and see what it does.

There is one thing to keep in mind: The bass tones are a 'bass line' with identical levels for all tones played. If you look at an analyzer (like in the ADI-2s) a bass tone at 80 Hz will have the same level as one at 16 Hz. But even with the most perfect headphone the 80 Hz will be loud, the 16 Hz very low volume. The deeper you go the lower volume you get - that is a function of our hearing (and one reason why I dislike the measurements of 'bass linear' headphones, as they do not represent what you hear down there).

If you equalize the bass so that the highest bass tone in this clip has the same volume as the rest, you do NOT need to crank up the overall volume at all, you can listen at normal or lower levels and hear everything that the musicians/producers have put into the record. And you hear it as they intended it! They did not play the bassline while not hearing it in the studio...

It's more like taking 'HiFi' to the extreme (low, in this case).

BTW, hearing these three tracks over small desktop speakers (iLoud Micro, which usually have a lot of fat sounding bass) all the deep bass tones are not reproduced at all - just missing. One would need to run an analyzer in parallel to see what one can't hear.

 

[amirm]

I ran it full volume on my Samsung S9 without EQ, with Clear and Audio Technica and then loud enough I worried about hearing damage on my Schiit Hel with Amir's PEQ plus a 17Hz HPF for the Clear, Amir's PEQ for LCD-X, and a couple other HPs. I tried the tracks Amir posted too with the Clears.

Smasung S9? That won't do it. You need to use a proper desktop amp.

 

[amirm]

If you equalize the bass so that the highest bass tone in this clip has the same volume as the rest, you do NOT need to crank up the overall volume at all, you can listen at normal or lower levels and hear everything that the musicians/producers have put into the record. And you hear it as they intended it! They did not play the bassline while not hearing it in the studio...

It is amazing how many people don't appreciate this point and keep complaining that I must be listening at ear deafening levels. I guess one has to be able to experience it to really understand it.

 

[Helicopter]

Smasung S9? That won't do it. You need to use a proper desktop amp.

The Schiit Hel should be able to do it.

 

[hmscott]

I thought S9 meant the Hidizs S9

 

[nhatlam96]

What is it you are trying to get to? What is concerning you?

My concern was, that a higher voltaged dac could make the sound louder.
For example, this setup here:
DAC (2V) > Amp > Headphone.
What happens when I increase the DAC voltage to 4V? Will the sound get louder?
Also does it increase the output voltage of the amplifier?