This is a such a well-written article. It stood out to me when I read it a couple years ago and I enjoyed the revision.
However, I think it would resonate much more without the comparisons to the HD600. A better HD600 is a modded HD600/650, or an HD600 with a better amp. Focal presents pretty differently.
For me, my HD600s are solid, inoffensive all-arounders, and outstanding vocal specialists. So, to say that another headphone is better in every way except vocals, is a little like a restaurant being better in every way except the food.
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Haha to be honest, I haven’t had to fix one of these headphones myself so I don’t actually know. I’m going off what a couple people who’ve worked with returned Focals have said to me.
I agree. I do the Elex is one of the closest headphones that come to a spiritual successor the HD600 but you’re right, they innately have different sounds. Sometimes I find some with these reviews, it’s hard to make the comparisons that people want because two products, though they may graph similarly, present so differently that its like apples and oranges.
I chose to write it as a comparative review however because the people who might be looking to buy Elex are generally those looking to upgrade from the HD600 or have only heard of the HD600. As for the food analogy, I’d say it’s more like eating fried rice made with jasmine vs sushi rice. Jasmine rice is ideal but sushi rice is still pretty darn good and hardly takes away from the quality of the meal.
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Yep.
The HD600 was my first serious set of headphones. I bought the Elex ~5 years ago as an upgrade, but found vocals to be metallic and the treble to be piercing. Over time I began to wince at the thought of using the Elex, so I sold it. I upgraded to the far less sharp and more airy OG Clear and still have it. If you are not treble sensitive the Elex can deliver clean, ‘deconstructed,’ and punchy sound.
I still have my HD600.
Nice review overall. I can’t get with the rice analogy because base character doesn’t carry over the same way or to the same extent. The HD600 has known limitations (e.g., rolled off bass and treble; limited dynamics; plasticky timbre) while the Elex has others (e.g., piercing treble, exaggerated dynamics, metallic timbre). Pick your poison…neither is “ideal” to me but I continue to willingly use the HD600.
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This is an excellent description of the Elex! That sense of deconstruction was the word I was subconsciously looking for in my review. I came into the headphone hobby as someone who did years of live audio mixing for church bands. So my ear has mostly been tuned towards isolating instruments in music and thinking of their characteristics and how they could be better (or worse). Hence the way my reviews are written. Also, I think it’s all those years of live audio and practice that has made me rather immune to treble. Nothing like having drummers crash away at their kit while you’re standing 3 feet away trying to set up stage monitors.
That was me a few years ago, and the reason I commented is that I found the “upgrade”/sidegrade disappointing. My experience tracks @generic, except for me it was the Clears:
I bought the Clears after 5 years of the drumbeat of “like the HD600s…but BETTER,” which I kept getting in my inbox when Headphones.com got resurrected and then heard repeated by others online through the years. When, for pandemic reasons, I found myself wanting a better headphone experience and bought the Clears blind, I got rid of them shortly after because the vocals were not only deficient compared to the HD600s, but also irritatingly tizzy with overall more coloration.
I’ll take sins of omission over commission. YMMV. What I should’ve done is just change my HD600 pads, and then maybe buy an OTL amp.
Another part of the problem for me was expectations. They just sounded totally different, with opposing strengths and weaknesses. The comparison I would make is that the Focals present like DD versions of Audeze, and eventually I bought the LCDx to scratch the itch I got from what I liked about the Clears.
If the Focals are fried rice, then the HD600s are just plain rice, but artisanal, new year crop, Koshihikari rice. If you wanted fried rice, the former is better in every way, except the rice, which tastes weirdly metallic. Sometimes good rice just wants to be alone.