Focal Clear Review (headphone)

[roskodan]

However, Focal made it clear that it was a design choice they made to minimize mechanical damping. I'm pretty confident the Focal US 5 years warranty is plenty of time to find out if the unit is "out of specs" and get a replacement, or a refund within the return period.

There is also the question of reviewing manufacturer provided products that may have been cherry picked and also that of "user" provided products that may have been sent in for "testing" because defective and out of warranty or second hand and therefore unable to make a claim with the manufacturer.

 

[Joachim]

I have the Focal clears, and i have never experienced the mechanical clipping some people are experiencing.
I EQ them to comply with the Harman curve and routinely play loud bassmusic that is mixed and mastered to ridiculous levels of loudness.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I have the Focal clears, and i have never experienced the mechanical clipping some people are experiencing.
I EQ them to comply with the Harman curve and routinely play loud bassmusic that is mixed and mastered to ridiculous levels of loudness.

I did the same with my AirPods Max and it is great. It doesn't matter what you use if you enjoy it.

 

[misureaudio]

Hi,

If anyone is interested.
based on the data from the first page, I did not go through the entire thread to check if the raw data was available...

Score no EQ: 73.3
Score with Amirm EQ: 77.5
Score with attached EQ: 100.2

Focal APO EQ Score 96000Hz
January122021-155015

Preamp: 0.0 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 214.5 Hz Gain -6 dB Q 0.37
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1283 Hz Gain -7.3 dB Q 1.18
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 3217 Hz Gain -4 dB Q 3
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 6000 Hz Gain -3.6 dB Q 8
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 11475 Hz Gain -7.2 dB Q 8

View attachment 105531

Just transferred to my mEqualizer.

Extremely successful. Just another, and much better, Clear Pro. No more honky mids and near perfect violin high notes. Excellent piano's last octaves, with no dingling anymore. Bass is finally full and perfectly articulated. Spatial effects are audibly enhanced. Great job.

 

[Bernd]

Just transferred to my mEqualizer.

Extremely successful. Just another, and much better, Clear Pro. No more honky mids and near perfect violin high notes. Excellent piano's last octaves, with no dingling anymore. Bass is finally full and perfectly articulated. Spatial effects are audibly enhanced. Great job.

Hi. This is really great! Implemented on my RME ADI 2 DAC FS. I concur with 'misureaudio's' comments: for my ears these settings are almost loke an upgrade to my Clears with a much refined and more spatial listining pleasure. Thank you Maiky76 and thanks Misureaudio.

 

[Qba3d]

I think it is a sole of Audiophile story in 39 pages. I am not experienced enough to go in to battle with anyone here on whats right, but I did play with some of DAC's for headphones, some of the more expensive some less, but what sometimes shocked me, was when I did try some dac's with super clean precise sound after a deep breath of awe on how clean it did sounded, I often felt left wit no emotions listening to the music, as opposed to some shittier stuff giving me , personally, subjectively, a more emotional experience. Same goes for speakers or amps ( Its really cool to watch some reviews of Class D Purifi amps from NAD, like M33 or C298, ones that sound perfect, and yet many reviewers say that they feel left unimpressed with music that comes out of them, while others do love older tube amps and love them ). On the other hand, I do feel we search for stuff we are slightly used to. I for example love my Sony XBA-Z5's with Kimber and simple Sony NW-ZX507, and when had a chance to buy super cheap used IER-Z1R I felt like its a less musical set of IEM's to my ears and no review would prove me otherwise. They felt recessed in mids to me, and lifeless as an experience even though the technical sound quality coming out was way way better than Z5's. Back on Clears, when I bought them I felt I burned a lot of money. I listened them on Arche for some time, and felt the metallic 1khz zing that totally hurt my ears. Also the infinite lack of sub-bass ( After IER / XBA it was super painful ) was like a music killer ( I don't listen to EDM, I do Music scores, acoustic, Rock, electronica). After some time I learned that presentation and for some genres it does sound amazing, but still I would describe it as slightly n shaped, nasal sounding with oddly aggressive metallic zing. But I learned to like it a lot, and my Wife loves them without any EQ. She prefers them that way by a huge margin. I think the measurements are usefull in understanding what we hear. Reading the review by Amirm I was... well it was unpleasant, but at the same time it did explain a bit things I did hear, and well it did match what I felt. My Focals don't clip ever on a possible to sustain loudness level. Everything above creates a flat wall of sound I could not bear but I also don't push Bass to extreme. I did listen to them on an OLD Denon amp, it does have slightly muddy powerful sound and bass there was MASSIVE, I mean MASSIVELY powerful with Clears and never made them clip, but again it could be my sound level.
I think it boils down to a price of that headphones. To be honest the way they are made makes them worth it to my eyes, but I did hear IEM's for similar price that overshadow them ( to my ears) in some sound aspects, mostly sub-base, lower mid-tones resolution, higher treble evenness and overall stage. Again its a problem of Audiophile way of reviewing stuff, very often overrating products, stating that say Focal Clear set a new standard and are a reference set of headphones everyone should reference their sound to, while these are lovely, warm intimate headphones with their own presentation, that can be easily loved for what they are, but are not a Reference sounding Kill all headphones some state they are. By doing so in my opinion they hurt these beauties. Clear MG fix some of that Clear OG problems.

I wanted to share my EQ I use with way cheaper DAC, IFI ZEN DAC V2, no bass boost ( it makes them sound flatter and boomy) with Power Match ( like it really) :


Preamp: -4.4 dB
Filter: ON PK Fc 1283 Hz Gain -2 dB Q 2
Filter: ON LSC 20 dB Fc 90 Hz Gain 4.2 dB
Filter: ON PK Fc 4500 Hz Gain 1.6 dB Q 2.7
Filter: ON PK Fc 2100 Hz Gain 1.2 dB Q 3
Filter: ON PK Fc 9800 Hz Gain 1.2 dB Q 7
Filter: ON PK Fc 6000 Hz Gain -1.2 dB Q 10
Filter: ON PK Fc 3100 Hz Gain -0.5 dB Q 4


Great read on this tread, and somehow I find myself sympathising with all written angles here.

 

[yusake]

Small autobiographical story about this headphones=^.^=

When I was looking for a Hi-fi headphone, in a much lower budget, I found none that didn't suit me.
The so-called references sounded bad for me.
Exemple : the DT770 – 990 are horribles to me, so sharp in the treble (and the hollow voices for the DT770)...
The fidelio X2HR initially pleased me a lot but certain resonances on the sibilances the made unlistenable.
The Meze 99 sounded so muddy because it was focused on the bass
AKG K702 : good but so bass light (and audiophiles says that they are neutral…)
Several gaming headsets did not bring me satisfaction.
Alas, I did not test the Sennheiser HD600-650, probably because they were out of budget.

After several weeks of testing, with a warning from Amazon for too many returns, I finally flashed in a store for the Clear.
I did not know the price, I suspected it must be expensive but I did not know that such prices were practiced ....
It was the first to offer a natural sound, a clear sound (sorry) without being too piercing and a real seat in the bass for an open-back headphone. When I saw the price I gave up X)

But the seed had been planted and I finally found a used one a few months later.

I have long believed that its frequency response was a benchmark.

I had a lot of fun listening to it, whether for music, video games or movies.
Besides, few Hi-Fi oriented headphones sound good in movies, usually much too bright. The dialogues often sound very bad, with a lot of unpleasant sibilances. The Clear manages them quite well but there are still some.

I was faced with the bass cliping problem but never in normal use. This happened using 7.1 virtualization solutions, namely SXFI and Dolby Atmos. Regarding the latter, the clipping occurred during the demo with the storm. For the SXFI it is the LFE channel of certain films which generated it. I would therefore say that it is necessary to avoid boosting the bass too much with tracks having a large dynamic. But it depends on the models, some are more sensitive than others. With my copy, this never happened on music or movies without virtualization (despite a bass boost).

By browsing the net, I learned a little more about the current references, such as the study of Harman, Sonarworks, autoEQ and of course this forum.
So I started comparing and that's the beginning of the misfortune

I find, without a certain irony, that the Clear is a typically gear from the French tradition, full of nuances and contradictions :
- Sturdy, sleek, and neatly built, it suffers from annoying creaks when moved (especially on the widest setting). Also, the gray pads darken over time to a lousy effect.
- It has a good base in the bass but it still lacks it.
- Its distortion rate is excellent but it can clip in the bass.
- The sound is warm and clear at the same time. However, details are lacking.
- The helmet is very, very open but its soundstage is relatively narrow.
- The highs are soft but there are still resonances around 10K which make some tracks tiring (only when the sibilances present peaks in this region).
- The headphones are heavy but nonetheless one of the nicest I've ever tried (along with the Bose QC35).

In the end, we have a headphone that is very very pleasant to use, but we shouldn't make it sacred even if we paid a high price for it.

Having digested that, I looked into EQ solutions to try to improve it and finally managed to find the EQ that sublimed it and got 90% out of it for my use.

For clarity, this will be the subject of a separate post.

Thanks for reading (or not!)

 

[yusake]

The Focal Clear is, I find, a really difficult headphones to equalize correctly, because of highs dips.

The most obvious flaws are:
- a lack of bass
- somewhat nasal voices
- treble that lacks detail
- certain unpleasant sibilances

We can then say to ourselves that it is enough to boost the bass, reduce the presence zone to around 1.2KHz and harmonize the treble.
Yes but no because if we don't find the right balance, we ruin everything.

Besides, Amirm summed it up well: we boost the bass, we reduce the area around 1.2KHz (1100Hz for him), the 11KHz peak but the rest is a hassle.

I tried the EQ proposed by Oratory1990 : horrible. It sounds so harsh!

Oratory1990 does not EQ above 10KHz because it varies too much between users, positions and even its equipment is not reliable in this area. This may be the explanation.
But he says he tests his EQs by listening instead of offering automatic equalization like AutoEQ. Did he do that or his copy sounds completely different from mine? I wonder.

I tested those proposed in this forum without finding any satisfactory to my ears. All of them sound too sharp.

Finally, the EQ proposed by Sonarworks is close to perfection to my ears : all the defects mentioned at the beginning of the post have been corrected. We even gain in spatialization.

Small aside: I do not know what the target curve of Sonarworks nor their equipment or measurement procedure, but all the headphones I tested with their EQ sound very, very good:
- Focal Clear
- Bose QC35II
- Creative Aurvana SE (with CAL! profile)
- HyperX Cloud Alpha
- Sennheider HD560S (without EQ I find it much too bright and no foundation in the bass, which is not reflected in the ASR measurements but in those of sonarworks)
- AKG K371 (lifeless and very unpleasant resonances in the treble)

The Clear test can be read here: https://www.sonarworks.com/soundid-...d-clear-professional-studio-headphone-review/
The frequency response is quite consistent with that of Amirm

I specify that the goal here is not to "steal" the work of Sonarworks. Indeed, my EQ is only an approximation of theirs and took me a long time to get it right.

Honestly, if you like their rendering and you mainly use your PC or smartphone as a source, don't hesitate to use their software (or merging + anubis as an expensive all in one solution).

You can test out this EQ via their free SoundID app for smartphones or their PC software trial.

For the treble part, we increase the zone a little before 2KHz up to 5KHz, but, obviously, it's not a simple peak and you have to try to go down before going back up past 4KHz.
We reduce the 6KHz and especially the peak around 10KHz.
I think it's this peak which gives the metallic side to the headphones and renders all the EQs obsolete if it is not treated (because we tend to boost the treble, which amplifies the phenomenon).
The boost in the high treble is a bonus.

Despite my Sonarworks license, I wanted to transpose it into APO, already because Windows 11 is not yet compatible with sonarworks reference but I especially wanted to use it in my living room via RME ADI-2 DAC FS.

The EQ I share is an approximation of the EQ offered by Sonarworks due to the inherent limitations of the device and my own level of incompetence.
That said, I think I managed to reproduce something very convincing.

Here are the settings:

Preamp: -5.4dB
Filter: ON PK Fc 1000 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 9
Filter: ON PK Fc 1400 Hz Gain -3 dB Q 2.8
Filter: ON PK Fc 2483.3 Hz Gain 6 dB Q 1.6325
Filter: ON PK Fc 5800 Hz Gain -6 dB Q 3.6
Filter: ON PK Fc 10500 Hz Gain -6.5 dB Q 2.1
Filter: ON LSC Fc 42 Hz Gain 5 dB Q 1
Filter: ON HSC Fc 3700 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 1.5

Attached is the preview of the EQ.

Do not hesitate to modify it, especially for the bass level and according to your own headphone/ear pair (peak around 10Khz)

If you manage to improve it, do not hesitate to share it.

 

[Joachim]

Preamp: -5.4dB
Filter: ON PK Fc 1000 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 9
Filter: ON PK Fc 1400 Hz Gain -3 dB Q 2.8
Filter: ON PK Fc 2483.3 Hz Gain 6 dB Q 1.6325
Filter: ON PK Fc 5800 Hz Gain -6 dB Q 3.6
Filter: ON PK Fc 10500 Hz Gain -6.5 dB Q 2.1
Filter: ON LSC Fc 42 Hz Gain 5 dB Q 1
Filter: ON HSC Fc 3700 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 1.5

Attached is the preview of the EQ.

Do not hesitate to modify it, especially for the bass level and according to your own headphone/ear pair (peak around 10Khz)

If you manage to improve it, do not hesitate to share it.

I tried your settings, and to my ears the 2483hz peak filter pokes out in a very unnatural way. As soon as i pulled that filter back a few decibels it sounded pretty sweet!

I have a RME Fireface UFX soundcard which only has three bands of EQ on its output channels, so i have experimented a bit with that limitation and found these settings to be the best compromise for me:

Peak 27 Hz Gain +5 dB Q 0.7
Peak 6000 Hz Gain - 4.5 dB Q 5 (I see most people prefer this to be set at 5800 Hz, but for me 6000 Hz sounds better)
High Shelf 1800 Hz Gain 1.5 dB Q 0.7

 

[yusake]

I tried your settings, and to my ears the 2483hz peak filter pokes out in a very unnatural way. As soon as i pulled that filter back a few decibels it sounded pretty sweet!

I have a RME Fireface UFX soundcard which only has three bands of EQ on its output channels, so i have experimented a bit with that limitation and found these settings to be the best compromise for me:

Peak 27 Hz Gain +5 dB Q 0.7
Peak 6000 Hz Gain - 4.5 dB Q 5 (I see most people prefer this to be set at 5800 Hz, but for me 6000 Hz sounds better)
High Shelf 1800 Hz Gain 1.5 dB Q 0.7

Yeah there are differences between specimens, individual positioning, ears, and pad wear.
Add to that the approximation of equalization, there is full latitude to modify the proposed EQ.

The dips is around 4.5dB with sonarworks reference but only 3.5dB on their blog : Focal Clear test - Sonarworks blog
So verifications is needed (I think sonarworks reference is based on an average of more models than their blog)

I advise you to work on APO before transferring the EQ to the RME because there are interactions between the filters. From memory, the peak at 2500 plays not only on the following frequencies but also before.

Regarding the weird effect you felt, I also felt it the first time I used soundID on my smartphone. I was convinced that my Clear without EQ was the best. But that's because your ears got used to it.
Now it's the other way around, when I remove the EQ, the overdriven guitars sound out of tune, like the sound is muffled. Ditto for the cymbals where you only hear the treble and not the rest.
In general, I find that the big difference of the sonarworks EQ is to boost this area around 2-5KHz compared to other EQs like those of oratory1990. Cf screenshots.
The rest of the treble is slightly hypertrophied for the sonarworks's target while they are atrophied for oratory1990. And again, it's not the harman curve, with the latter it's even worse.

I refine my EQ, my latest version is this one (more pre-amp is needed, I set it to -0,5 to offset and see my correct target curve) :

Preamp: -0.5dB
Filter: ON LSC Fc 50 Hz Gain 4.5 dB Q1
Filter: ON PK Fc 900 Hz Gain 3 dB Q 0.6
Filter: ON PK Fc 1300 Hz Gain -5 dB Q 1.1
Filter: ON PK Fc 2400 Hz Gain 6.5 dB Q 1.4
Filter: ON PK Fc 5800 Hz Gain -6.5 dB Q 2.6
Filter: ON PK Fc 10100 Hz Gain -6.5 dB Q 3.6
Filter: ON HSC Fc 3700 Hz Gain 3 dB Q 1.5

It is important to :
- adjust the bass on your taste
- adjust the dB of 2400 (one method might be to set it as low as possible as long as the electric guitar distortions sound right) and adjust the rest to get the same dips and peaks
- adjust the centre of 10KHz peak by ears (without EQ, use a tone generator to find it).

 

[yusake]

I used webplotdigitizer to get precise data from sonarworks soundID then REW to generate an autoEQ for APO (without RME limitations) if you want to test.
Highs after 15KHz are not equalized.
I can't hear a difference between SoundID and APO.
I'm impressed by their measures and EQ, I'm never disapointed.

 

[reasons]

Small autobiographical story about this headphones=^.^=

When I was looking for a Hi-fi headphone, in a much lower budget, I found none that didn't suit me.
The so-called references sounded bad for me.
Exemple : the DT770 – 990 are horribles to me, so sharp in the treble (and the hollow voices for the DT770)...
The fidelio X2HR initially pleased me a lot but certain resonances on the sibilances the made unlistenable.
The Meze 99 sounded so muddy because it was focused on the bass
AKG K702 : good but so bass light (and audiophiles says that they are neutral…)
Several gaming headsets did not bring me satisfaction.
Alas, I did not test the Sennheiser HD600-650, probably because they were out of budget.

After several weeks of testing, with a warning from Amazon for too many returns, I finally flashed in a store for the Clear.
I did not know the price, I suspected it must be expensive but I did not know that such prices were practiced ....
It was the first to offer a natural sound, a clear sound (sorry) without being too piercing and a real seat in the bass for an open-back headphone. When I saw the price I gave up X)

But the seed had been planted and I finally found a used one a few months later.

I have long believed that its frequency response was a benchmark.

I had a lot of fun listening to it, whether for music, video games or movies.
Besides, few Hi-Fi oriented headphones sound good in movies, usually much too bright. The dialogues often sound very bad, with a lot of unpleasant sibilances. The Clear manages them quite well but there are still some.

I was faced with the bass cliping problem but never in normal use. This happened using 7.1 virtualization solutions, namely SXFI and Dolby Atmos. Regarding the latter, the clipping occurred during the demo with the storm. For the SXFI it is the LFE channel of certain films which generated it. I would therefore say that it is necessary to avoid boosting the bass too much with tracks having a large dynamic. But it depends on the models, some are more sensitive than others. With my copy, this never happened on music or movies without virtualization (despite a bass boost).

By browsing the net, I learned a little more about the current references, such as the study of Harman, Sonarworks, autoEQ and of course this forum.
So I started comparing and that's the beginning of the misfortune

I find, without a certain irony, that the Clear is a typically gear from the French tradition, full of nuances and contradictions :
- Sturdy, sleek, and neatly built, it suffers from annoying creaks when moved (especially on the widest setting). Also, the gray pads darken over time to a lousy effect.
- It has a good base in the bass but it still lacks it.
- Its distortion rate is excellent but it can clip in the bass.
- The sound is warm and clear at the same time. However, details are lacking.
- The helmet is very, very open but its soundstage is relatively narrow.
- The highs are soft but there are still resonances around 10K which make some tracks tiring (only when the sibilances present peaks in this region).
- The headphones are heavy but nonetheless one of the nicest I've ever tried (along with the Bose QC35).

In the end, we have a headphone that is very very pleasant to use, but we shouldn't make it sacred even if we paid a high price for it.

Having digested that, I looked into EQ solutions to try to improve it and finally managed to find the EQ that sublimed it and got 90% out of it for my use.

For clarity, this will be the subject of a separate post.

Thanks for reading (or not!)

How many returns did you make before getting that warning from Amazon? I have never seen that before, just this week I am returning the Clear OG (excessive clipping), Utopia (love it but 4K for a headphone is crazy) and a FiiO K9 Pro due to a defective optical port.

I hope they don’t shut me out of returns lol. I’ve been a prime member since inception and spend 2-500 a month on Amazon for household item/groceries.

 

[tonybarrett]

How many returns did you make before getting that warning from Amazon? I have never seen that before, just this week I am returning the Clear OG (excessive clipping), Utopia (love it but 4K for a headphone is crazy) and a FiiO K9 Pro due to a defective optical port.

I hope they don’t shut me out of returns lol. I’ve been a prime member since inception and spend 2-500 a month on Amazon for household item/groceries.

I got one from them after sending back a lens valued at around £1,500 pretty close to the 30 day deadline and probably some earlier returns. I ignored and heard nothing in following years.

 

[yusake]

How many returns did you make before getting that warning from Amazon? I have never seen that before, just this week I am returning the Clear OG (excessive clipping), Utopia (love it but 4K for a headphone is crazy) and a FiiO K9 Pro due to a defective optical port.

I hope they don’t shut me out of returns lol. I’ve been a prime member since inception and spend 2-500 a month on Amazon for household item/groceries.

I make 13 return xD But I receive warning after 5 or 6

 

[reasons]

I have the ability to buy a brand new OG Focal Clear Professional with an extra 1 year warranty for $1,125 after tax and shipping. Any benefit to going with this over the normal Clear for $990?

 

[Dro]

The Clear Pro comes with a pair of spare ear pads and different cables.

 

[rsoffer]

I'm not sure if anyone cares anymore, but I just purchased a pair of Clears from headphones.com and from my early testing, it appears the clipping issue is gone. Either that, or I got lucky with my pair.

I tried the test tracks Amir used (great tracks btw) as well as a few others reported, such as 2049 from the Bladerunner soundtrack and Limit to your love by James Blake.

I'm driving them with a THX AAA One which has 2.7 watts on tap single ended. I love listening loud, and at super loud volumes I was not able to get them to clip. Whew. Maybe Focal tweaked the drivers??

I'll update here if anything changes.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that I'm not using any EQ.

 

[ShiZo]

I'm not sure if anyone cares anymore, but I just purchased a pair of Clears from headphones.com and from my early testing, it appears the clipping issue is gone. Either that, or I got lucky with my pair.

I tried the test tracks Amir used (great tracks btw) as well as a few others reported, such as 2049 from the Bladerunner soundtrack and Limit to your love by James Blake.

I'm driving them with a THX AAA One which has 2.7 watts on tap single ended. I love listening loud, and at super loud volumes I was not able to get them to clip. Whew. Maybe Focal tweaked the drivers??

I'll update here if anything changes.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that I'm not using any EQ.

I was really pushing for them to investigate the issue back in the day when I was trying to get a pair from them. After many stock, they eventually ended up getting a new batch that supposedly didn't have the issue and my first headphone from that batch had no problems. Not sure if it is a variance issue or there was just bad batches during a certain time. Or maybe we are just really lucky

 

[rsoffer]

I'm not sure if anyone cares anymore, but I just purchased a pair of Clears from headphones.com and from my early testing, it appears the clipping issue is gone. Either that, or I got lucky with my pair.

I tried the test tracks Amir used (great tracks btw) as well as a few others reported, such as 2049 from the Bladerunner soundtrack and Limit to your love by James Blake.

I'm driving them with a THX AAA One which has 2.7 watts on tap single ended. I love listening loud, and at super loud volumes I was not able to get them to clip. Whew. Maybe Focal tweaked the drivers??

I'll update here if anything changes.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that I'm not using any EQ.

I just wanted to update that I was able to reproduce a slight crackling in a track Amir mentioned in his Focal Clear Professional Review:
Terje Isungset - Fading Sun

I'm not sure if it's exactly what everyone else is referring to, as it wasn't as crazy sounding as everyone else describes it. That said, I was verryy slowly raising the volume and looking for it.

I was also listening above volumes that I would consider "very very loud". Though I could see if I EQ more low bass in, this might show up in normal listening.

It sucks that this issue exists, but in practice I doubt it will affect me much. I like to listen really loud, but not quite THAT loud and most music doesn't have sub 30hz explosions all the time. That track ironically showcases how amazing these are. The bass that was there was fantastic, controlled, and extended. The imaging is something else.

Right now I'm really really enjoying them, but as promised I'll update y'all if this becomes an issue that should deter one from getting these.

 

[Robbo99999]

I just wanted to update that I was able to reproduce a slight crackling in a track Amir mentioned in his Focal Clear Professional Review:
Terje Isungset - Fading Sun

I'm not sure if it's exactly what everyone else is referring to, as it wasn't as crazy sounding as everyone else describes it. That said, I was verryy slowly raising the volume and looking for it.

I was also listening above volumes that I would consider "very very loud". Though I could see if I EQ more low bass in, this might show up in normal listening.

It sucks that this issue exists, but in practice I doubt it will affect me much. I like to listen really loud, but not quite THAT loud and most music doesn't have sub 30hz explosions all the time. That track ironically showcases how amazing these are. The bass that was there was fantastic, controlled, and extended. The imaging is something else.

Right now I'm really really enjoying them, but as promised I'll update y'all if this becomes an issue that should deter one from getting these.

Yep, best to try adding bass EQ to test for it, that way you're not blasting your ears out in the rest of the frequency range. And judging by Amir's measurement of this headphone it needs an 8dB boost at 20Hz to equal the Harman Curve, so that is a large boost and is an easy way to test for driver crackling without blasting your ears out. After quickly firing up REW I've worked out you can put the following filter in to boost the bass up to Harman levels from 100Hz down to 20Hz, try putting this filter in: Peak Filter, 20Hz, Gain +8dB, Q0.6 (of course you'll want to put in a negative preamp of -8dB to prevent digital clipping to cover your EQ boost). Then listen to your tracks & see if you have driver crackling.