Yeah, it doesn’t seem ideally organized, and perhaps operationally stretched in addition to that. I reached out – thanks for those email address suggestions.
In my usual budget-straddling acquisition manner, I found a fella willing to sell me an HC-9 and IC-2 together for $40 shipped. Now I can wait to hear back from Hart on adding a extra length – unless, of course, an extended IC-7 pops up on the used market. 
I love my Clear OG headphones, except that I wish they had more bass extension (but I don’t want pounding, overemphasized bass, just more extension). Can anyone recommend some headphones (nost costing $6000) that are like the OGs but with more bass extension?
Have you tried simply adding a bass shelf or an EQ filter using Peace EQ to provide the desired bass extension? It’s a free “fix.”
You could also try some pad changes to your Clear with one of the Dekoni pad options. @resolve goes into them in depth on headphones.com. I have the perforated leather ones on mine which are very nice and give a small amount of bass boost, and tame some of the treble peaks a bit. Plus they are very comfy and don’t show dirt like the factory pads. The solid leather pads would definitely boost low end, but I’ve never used them personally. You should read this though https://www.headphones.com/community/reviews-learning-and-news/dekoni-pad-rolling-adventures-with-the-focal-clear
I tried the Dekoni pads that @resolve mentioned. I liked that there was MORE bass, but after two days it seemed to me that the bass was muddy and overbearing, so I returned the Dekoni pads.
Would the headphone with more bass extension replace the Clears or complement them?
If the former, I’m struggling to think of an open-back dynamic driver headphone that is like the Clear but with more sub-bass (sub-bass roll-off is a property of dynamic drivers in open back headphones). If you aren’t opposed to closed backs, then the Focal Celeste, Radiance and Stellia all have more sub-bass extension than the Clear.
If the latter, a planar magnetic headphone would seem to be the way to go, as they tend to have much more linear bass extension than dynamic drivers, but may not have the other properties of the Clear that you like. Although I haven’t heard them, the Hifiman HE6se V2 (often on sale at Adorama for $699) have good bass extension, and are dynamic and impactful by planar magnetic standards.
Thanks for your response. I’ll I’ll keep an eye out for the HE6se V2 if you can assure me that it doesn’t have that distortion. Will a THX Drop 789 amp be powerful enough for these?
No problem. Probably worth reading the HE6se thread here. Lots of sound impressions, frequency response graphs, and feedback on amp pairings there.
A post was merged into an existing topic: General purchase advice: Ask your questions/for advice here!
Small update. Got the Hagerman Tuba now. Started with the stock re-issue Mullard EL84, then replaced with some NOS EL84. Big difference for the better. Stock tubes with Focal Clear was meh. Tuba + NOS Tubes + Focal Clear is really really good.
When time allows I’ll put in the hours needed and compare to ZDT Jr, Liquid Carbon and Liquid Platinum with some repladement 6922 and NOS 12AU7.
I like the Tuba a lot (with a tube swap), but it wasn’t my favorite pairing with the Focals.
But I feel that way about the Focals and most tube amps.
And the million dollar question. What is your favourite pairing with the Focal Clear? 
I run this sometimes for bold, precise, punchy, and clean but not overbearing:
Bifrost 2 → RebelAmp → OG Clear. The Clear leans bright, so I sometimes boost the bass with a Loki.
For a non-technical and heavy-harmonic timbre (but the stage is narrow):
Bifrost 2 → Lyr 3 → OG Clear
At the more reasonable end of the price scale I think the RNHP has good synergy with the Clear FWIW.
Though I’m not as gung-ho about it after the price increase.
I generally don’t like it paired with “lower priced” tube amps because they tend to cause some loss of Bass control and to me they upset the way the Focal’s tend to stage. Even amps at the level of the DNA Stratus are not ideal pairings for the Clear in my book.
But a lot of this is personal preference, I know people who LOVE the clears on tubes, they like the softer, bigger Bass presentation, it’s just not for me.
Higher priced amps with good synergy, ECP DSHA-3F - the F stands for Focal, I assume the T4 (though I haven’t personally heard it), generally I’d stick to Hybrid and SS designs for it with a few exceptions.
But again personal preference.
Spent an evening A/Bing with my Elex. The Clear has slightly better resolution and weightier bass punch (before EQ) at the cost of slight but audible sharper peaks in 10-20Khz and slightly more metallic timbre, while Elex sounds a bit more natural in tone (esp. for female vocals, before EQ). The differences between them are very subtle (+/- 5%), and the sharpness may improve with time (it’s a new pair vs my Elex used).
Here’s the EQ I made for the Clear, modified to be less intense-in-changes (especially in the treble region as measurements tend to have weirdness there) based on the parametric AutoEq profile of oratory1990’s measurements:
Channel: all
Preamp: -5 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 17 Hz Gain 4.29 dB Q 0.42
Filter 2: ON LS Fc 98 Hz Gain 0.83 dB
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 192 Hz Gain -1.47 dB Q 0.72
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1264 Hz Gain -4 dB Q 1.45
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1316 Hz Gain 1.1 dB Q 0.22
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2245 Hz Gain 1.8 dB Q 2.95
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 3637 Hz Gain -2.3 dB Q 1.04
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 4461 Hz Gain 4.38 dB Q 3.52
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 8497 Hz Gain 3.5 dB Q 1.78
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 11506 Hz Gain 0.38 dB Q 0.68
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 19581 Hz Gain -7.2 dB Q 0.44
[Primary daily drivers:
Over-the-Ear Open-Back: Sennheiser HD800.
IEM: 64 Audio U12T.]
These are a NON-RETURNABLE FINAL SALE!
I recommend to AVOID PURCHASING THESE, unless one auditions them thoroughly first, sampling all of one’s preferred music genres and listening preferences, making sure, experientially, that this potentially deal-breaking issue, described below, indeed remains only a theoretical potential and, for oneself, never becomes an actualized experience.
There is much I could share about how good these headphones are in so many ways but none of the good that I could share here has not been shared by many already - my experience is in line with how these are raved about (though s more spacious soundstage would have been better).
Why the brutal rating? - This is the only thing I really want to share here - that, at least for me, the CLIPPING issue these have is an unbearable experience. It is such that it seemed obvious to me that these were simply defective… But, googling this quickly made me aware that this was not the case - this is a known condition that is not even considered to be as serious of a problem, being claimed by Focal that it is “intentionally so, by design, whenever the volume / bass is too high”.
My hearing is not impaired - it is absolutely normal, my lossless music library is just fine too, and in 95% of my listening time I would experience no clipping just because I would, naturally, not listen loud or want to boost the bass. But, sometimes, consciously so, I want to be able to listen loud enough to music which is more energetic and bass heavy (think Pixies, for example, or even tracks like some Billie Eilish’s songs, not that intense, which are recorded with a relatively high bass response to begin with) and just get wild for a little while (I do not want my hearing to become impaired either) - with these it is not always enabled… And I am not talking about some crazy powerful amp - plugging these into my little portable battery operated iFi Hip Dac, dialing it up all the way, yet still in the lower power mode, without even switching to the higher gain mode (the ‘PowerMatch’ button), it begins to kick in a little already; pressing the Bass Boost (‘XBass’ button) to somehow bypass the need to raise the volume of the whole, yet to increase it in the lower range for a stronger bass impact at an overall lower volume, and it is a full-on non-stop clipping which feels like an UNBEARABLE AUDIOPHILE’S HELL. Of all the headphones that I have had or listened to, I have never experienced anything as frustrating as this… Sure, many were flawed in one way or another, but this is on a whole different level.
Initially, I was struggling to just believe that this is actually how it is formally excused - a $1K headphones justified to be so - ‘by design’ - it felt to me completely unacceptable… I contacted Focal and received a long and detailed reply:
“There is no ‘Design Flaw’ but rather Design Choices, made by music maniacs who wanted to improve on the poor state of the current offerings in headphones.
You would never accept to have high end home speakers that would compress the dynamics of your music and yet you appear to accept that from headphones ?
What you are experiencing is quite normal for Focal headphones.
The Clears were developed to attain something that very few if any other brands try to do with headphones : getting the widest possible dynamic range, in respect with the emotion of music.
Most other brands use compression, meaning that there is less difference in volume between the quietest and the loudest passages.
They just make their units play as loud as they can.
Focal opted to go for full dynamics instead, just like a normal loudspeaker, so the quieter passages are quieter on a Focal than they usually are on other brands, but they will ‘explode’ to higher volumes extremely rapidly, following the dynamics of music.
If you listen to a lot of music that uses little or no compression, like Classical for instance, you will note a huge variation in volume.
Having been previously used to other types of headphones, you may tend to push the volume louder at first, in order to hear the quieter passages more easily, but when a solid Bass impact suddenly shows up, it may overload the unit.
… I encourage you to use them in the manner that they were designed for… You will find that they are capable of extraordinary ‘real’ performance.”
I found this explanation to be revealing and helpful - it did change the way I perceive this condition - and yes, for some listeners, under some circumstances (limited volume and bass shelf), this might be a positive design choice by a manufacturer and a satisfactory experience for a listener (the Clear is indeed outstanding in its dynamic range, the sense of speakers-like physicality and the feeling enabled by that).
I believe that Focal’s choice is a legitimate one, but there is ONE MAJOR PROBLEM which remains unchanged - not all listeners fall into this category… And as Focal was proud to claim - theirs is the ‘abnormal’ (statistically speaking) choice - there is no reason to expect even an audiophile with a decades long experience with many headphones, to anticipate ending up hearing these clipping noises - in this regard, it is literally unlike virtually all other non-Focal headphones one might have experienced, and naturally unpredictable.
I still believe that IT IS NOT RIGHT to have it offered for sale, WITHOUT AN EXPLICIT FACTUAL DISCLAIMER, in order to enable a potential customer, in the process of purchasing, the so-called right of an ‘informed consent’ (again, for the good and for the bad, this experience seems to be unique to Focal - I have never had it with any other brand/model before, and it cannot be predicted by customers). Otherwise, we end up in a potentially unpleasant situation, which is a hassle for all involved - Focal as the manufacturer, Headphones.com as the dealer, and obviously some customers, for whom there is also a significant financial loss involved.
This review is motivated by a wish to inform those readers for whom these headphones might not be the right choice, so that they do not need to end up in a situation similar to the one I am in.
I have no doubt you are having some sort of issue with your setup, but I’m skeptical that the cause is a design limitation of your Focal Clear. There are many people, myself included, that listen to music through the Clear quite loud and with boosted bass without clipping.
The Focal rep’s reply doesn’t make much sense to me. “Most other brands use compression”. WAT? SPL increases linearly with amplifier output. Your perception of how loud it is might differ based on the headphone’s frequency response though. Maybe that is what they are referring to.
It could be your amplifier is clipping. Does it happen when you play the same song at a similar volume with the hip-dac set to high gain?
I don’t know if you bought them through headphones.com, but if you did the warranty still applies. I’m sure you can at least send them in for repair or possibly exchange them.
Hope this helps
Never had a issue with any focal clipping. You’d have to really crank it on a heavy, low bass track. Something like 2049 OST.
Same here, never a single instance of clipping, and I’ve driven them to pretty high levels with some slammin’ bass tracks. I have Schiit Lyr 3 and Jot 2, I have to set either to lo gain because the Clears are so efficient. Both amps are quite powerful, with gobs of peak output capability. Nonetheless, you want plenty of dynamic headroom for any headphone to sound its best. (Looking at you, DCA Aeons and Stealth)
I’m also inclined to think that either the amp is clipping, or the person got a defective pair of headphones. 
I concur with the other replies about this particular case being either another setup issue or defective headphones. I could force my old Elex to clip by turning the volume up far beyond listening volume on a bass-heavy track, but never ever have had my Clear clip.
Regarding Focal’s reply, their design does indeed better present or preserve dynamic range. What they mean is that other headphone designs often flatten dynamics so all sounds have about the same volume. I heard major differences with back-to-back comparisons of the Clear/Elex to all my Sennheiser (let alone Dan Clark) headphones. The volume differences between instruments seemed extreme with the Elex, and that’s one reason I upgraded to the Clear. The Utopia also generates large perceived dynamic differences.
