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I have had the Elear, the Clear, (both have been sold) and the Elegia (still own these). The Elegias are the only ones that did not exhibit the clipping problem for me and I'm wondering if Focal silently addressed the issue since the Elegia is a newer model. To confirm, my experiences with clipping were at tolerable and safe levels, albeit only when there were very heavy bass tracks/moments in a song. I have never encountered any other headphone that clipped like these did. I'm also wondering how much variation there is within a model range; perhaps some Clears are more problematic than others. In any case, I'm happy with my Elegias other than the terrible stock cable.
I am using 20 dollar meze 99 cables, work great.Oh, by the way, I replaced the stock cables for something much more practical and without spending a fortune. The stock were very inconvenient as everyone knows.
Beautiful music...but extremely clipped in every note at 29 Hz (but not detectable by my ear). Oversampling at 176.4 detects many oversHere is one my speaker killer tracks that sends the Focal Clear into a ditch: Pascal Gaigne - Un espejo en el cielo (From "Kamandú, un espejo en el cielo")
It does this with no EQ and with youtube clip:
Deep bass starts at 2:45 (none before that time) and it easily causes crackles at volume level of -18 dB on RME ADI-2 DAC headphone out (1/4 inch - high gain).
You are talking about youtube or the original track? I test using the original track, not youtube although in this instance youtube shows this problem.Beautiful music...but extremely clipped in every note at 29 Hz (but not detectable by my ear). Oversampling at 176.4 detects many overs
YouTube...for nowYou are talking about youtube or the original track? I test using the original track, not youtube although in this instance youtube shows this problem.
If it is this track:
https://soundcloud.com/tkrism%2Fjellyfish
It creates nasty sequence of driver bottoming out! This is with RME ADI-2 Pro DAC headphone out in high gain and set to -17 dB. Happens around 3:48 or so. While I was getting single pulses of driver, with this track it repeats to the tune of 2 to 4 per second. I had to immediately stop it! And this is with NO EQ. RME spectrum analyzer shows a peak at 25 Hz well above the rest of the spectrum!
Same track at even higher elevated playback has no effect on Sennheiser HD650. Or HEDD headphone I have under test right now.
For those of you who have Clear headphones, give the above a try and report back.
I test using the original track, not youtube
To be absolutely clear: I got the youtube track to clip the Clears as well. I was just commenting on the recording issues member found that may not apply to the original.My whole experiment in reproducing your listening level assumed you were using the YouTube track. Guess we can throw out that result!
There's gotta be something wrong with his Clears. They do have QC issues if you just look at the Elex board on Mass. Otherwise all this review will do is make people miss out on a great headphone. I do think that the Elex at the very recent price of $550 is a farrrrrr better deal though.
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Hi @amirm , what exactly is the measurement group delay in terms of "the physical structure"(what's happening) of the measurement, and also what it represents? My intuition tells me it's showing interference & cancellations, non minimum phase areas that can't be EQ'd, but I wanted to know about the actual measurement, because I don't really know anything about it. Also, are you looking for a certain threshold in the measurement to indicate unEQ'able parts, how do you interpret it? EDIT: after reading the comments I can see you've answered this to some extent, but I'm still after knowing more about it, and what exactly it is.
I think there's a typo/mistake in your review when you say you lower the peak at 11.3kHz, but in your EQ you show you're actually boosting that area rather than cutting?
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My most significant impression of this headphone based on this review - I'm surprised to hear about static & crackling sound after the bass EQ, which also occurs in stock format at louder volumes....that's quite an obvious deficiency, quite a drawback for an expensive ($1490) headphone, going against it's "Focal Clear" namesake, gotta say I was suspicious of the high price and obvious use of the word "Clear" as part of the main name of the headphone, it does scream "[uninformed] audiophile buy me"! EDIT: after reading the comments to this review, then this static/clipping could be a QC Issue, still it's not the confidence you want, nor the hassle.
Same here. I have listened to ear bleeding levels and have never encountered distortion of the type described here. Several members on the Drop site did report this type of break-up but they were replaced with new drivers and no issue since. The consensus is this was an issue with early batches that has been corrected.I'm scratching my head a bit- I've never once got my Elex to clip, at super loud volumes. Not refuting the results, just curious. As someone pointed out before, is the unit defective?
Yes, what was once considered a physical mistake, with software it is now a "feature" actually a "mis-feature" until it's documented in the manual, but with physical devices like headphones - it's still a design or production mistake.I had this headphone for a few months and had this problem several times while listening to music at my normal louder listening levels. Honestly didn't bother me that much after searching and finding other people saying the same thing, but it did alarm me the first time it happened.
I honestly don't think it's a bad sample issue, as I also experienced it, as have many others. Also, Focal has come out and said that it's an intentional design choice to make the speakers distort this way when playing low bass content at high levels. Focal wouldn't say that if it were simply a bad sample or QC issue.
Hey a new spin on an old adage, "It'll be fixed in the next release!!", now "It must have been a bad batch!!" - since 2017 (at least)Same here. I have listened to ear bleeding levels and have never encountered distortion of the type described here. Several members on the Drop site did report this type of break-up but they were replaced with new drivers and no issue since. The consensus is this was an issue with early batches that has been corrected.
Ah- this track did produce this popping noise but only on the R. And not terribly loud volume either. I guess the music I tend to listen to has very little information at this frequency.Beautiful music...but extremely clipped in every note at 29 Hz (but not detectable by my ear). Oversampling at 176.4 detects many overs