Yes in OP’s case the Clears were tested and would not start clipping until they were over 100db which aligns with the disclaimer on our website on the Clear page.
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(Originally a reply to AudioTool’s but also to those following it)
Thank you for your wish to help!
Yes, ‘compression’ is not the best way to describe headphones, though I guessed he just wanted to emphasize others’ more limited dynamic range vs. Focal’s.
The amp was not the source of the clipping.
I wish it were an issue with my setup but, as I wrote in the review, it is as simple as can be:
(Smartphone / Laptop ->) LOCAL FLAC (-> Poweramp / USB Player PRO App) → IFI HIP DAC → FOCAL CLEAR.
I did purchase it through Headphones.com and I did send them for testing (they had no proper measurement rig for the testing (being understaffed) at the time, so the readings were discolored to be not super consistent, and the testing was done through a comparison with a second pair of Clear).
The conclusion that was reached was that the unit was normal.
(“Both units got to clip under similar volume levels…
Both were subjected to the same iFi Hip Dac, test tracks and volumes and both were mirroring each other.
With xBass and PowerMatch, they clip at the same place, but the xBass on the iFi Hip Dac is a pretty noticeable bass EQ that is pushing the Clear headphones past their physical limit…
The volume and xBass especially is physically pushing the Clear past their physical limit…
The xBass was super consistent at getting the units to clip. Adding several db of a bass shelf without pre-amp compensation is probably by far the easiest way to push the drivers past its limits.
It seems like what you want to use with the Hip Dac settings will be incompatible with the Clears”.)
Hey Taron,
Thank you for replying… to Rhodey’s reply to my post.
I had sent you a much more softly written email, similar to this one in content, but I received no reply - nothing; now I try the forum.
It is good that there is explicit reference by Headphones.com to the clipping / cracking issue, as you pointed out, but where it was chosen to be placed - FAQ - makes it primarily an after sale explanation for those buyers who experience it already and actively scramble to understand what’s going on… THIS IS NOT A DISCLAIMER… An honest disclaimer is addressed to potential buyers who go through all the text of the product’s description, before placing the order, just like all other features and specifications of the model, and where also Headphones.com’s bold recommendation of it as the #1 Headphone under $1K is made sure to be seen (it is not accidental that a disclaimer is always placed at the opening of the text, not on the footnotes or FAQ for that matter).
Just as Headphones.com is amazing for enabling its employed professional reviewers to freely criticize headphones that are being sold on the very same platform - a choice that is, in a business world as ours, probably a rare one, making it even more appreciated, and makes me truly love your website and the way you do things, I, personally, believe that there is room for improvement in this case, as explained above… Yes, maybe a few less will choose to buy it, but those who will would be honestly informed, know what to expect, and most importantly be expected to be responsible for their choice, with Headphones.com otherwise great practices remaining untainted.
Which brings me to another problem of a somewhat similar nature… My submitted review of the Clear on the product’s purchasing page, and here in the forum, were initially not approved, with the valid explanation that it would be misleading in case the unit I received was defective… I submitted both anew after it was tested - thankfully, this time, it was approved here in the forum, but the product’s actual review on the product’s page was not, and it is needed there much more than here, if potential buyers are cared for - it is there that sales take place and reviews might be read before deciding to purchase (another review complaining about clipping at 90dB was approved but it gave more ‘stars’ than I did. I wonder how many other similar reviews have been censored to keep that perfect 5 star product review and to prevent the potential clipping issue standing in the way of sales). This obviously feels like anything but right and together with the ‘disclaimer’ placement, feels just bad.
No human and no business is or can be perfect… Mistakes are inevitable… Greatness is in being humbly open to their reflection and in the ongoing wish to improve… Both can be acknowledged and corrected - that is exactly what would make “We love audiophiles and audiophiles love us” a living felt experience, as I have truly innocently felt (and prevent it from becoming an empty marketing slogan).
It is still not too late (ever), and now is a good time…
I love what Headphones.com is all about and I want this feeling to stay (but I also care for fellow audiophiles and there shouldn’t be a contradiction between the two).
My review on the product’s page was just approved now, not before it was released together with a reply by Headphones.com, adding that:
"two key things missing from your review which may be misleading to people reading your review:
- Your Clears were tested by our staff and they were found to only clip at listening levels of 100db or above. Here is a great article on the dangers of listening at those levels… [a lengthy explanation regarding the dangers of listening at loud volumes]
- You highlight that the Clears are not returnable however in your case, even though the Clears were not defective, we offered to take them back with a restocking fee applied."
To that I wish to share:
- Incorrect in two ways - see the original post above, for the guesstimate that was involved in the testing process, in the absence of proper measurement gear, so the conclusion regarding the loudness level cannot be as decisive as the 100dB claimed in the reply (and if it is correct and this unit is not defective - my hearing would have been impaired by now… This is not the volume that I am listening to all these years and with the Clear which clip extensively at my regular listening volume); it clips at much lower loudness levels when the iFi Hip Dac’s XBass is engaged and that was acknowledged to be the case when it was tested.
- Correct - I was offered a return with a restocking fee of 25%!, “because they were not returnable”, which I refused to (turned 15% much later)… If what I was sharing in the review and in the post above were met in a right way, it would have been understood why… But, it seems to be getting clearer, by now, that there is apparently no wish/ability to pause and contemplate what has been suggested in order to find out whether it might be the right way or not, at all - no reference (agreement or disagreement) to that whatsoever; only the attempt to self-justify, through that addition to the review, which itself was published only now after I needed to bring it up here.
The fact that I was offered the option of a return is irrelevant - it is the exception to the rule - it changes nothing regarding the fact that it is clearly presented as a non-returnable final sale; if it does, change it to returnable with a 25% fee (and an honest clipping disclaimer).
I am not some internet troll (read the review I wrote about you on Trustpilot and on Google)… Whatever change I suggested to maybe improve is out of a good intention, Headphones.com’s in the long run included, independently of whether such a change is bottom line determined right or wrong, agreed to or not… You need not agree, but if you love audiophiles, be open to feedback and bother to respond.
It is still not too late… to suspend the reactive defense, to pause and to just contemplate the way this Headphones.com’s exclusive Clear is presented (and the rest that followed) - to feel… - How does it feel to point to the last FAQ and claim that “there is a disclaimer”? - Does it feel wholesome?.. How does it feel to address things only after they are made public? - Does it feel good?.. No time is as good as now.
I’m not going to weigh in on the rest of this, because it probably belongs in a private discussion, but this part benefits from some technical information.
I recently did some measurements on the Clear Mg that indicates the clipping threshold is somewhere between 105dB and 110dB (normalized at 1khz), with calibrated industry standard measurement equipment. The regular Clear behaves in much the same way, as the driver structure is essentially the same (just different material). This probably merits an additional video, but the regular Clear also shows normal behavior under 100dB.
‘Clipping’ is essentially just the driver excursion limit. You can see the effects of that as high order harmonic distortion (purple = 7th for example). Here’s a visualization of that:
To put it bluntly, these are highly dangerous listening levels. Prolonged exposure will cause serious hearing damage over a relatively short period of listening time (a few hours). Anyone listening at 110dB will also likely find that to be quite painful, although if the volume is gradually increased over time, this might not be felt as strongly. So be very careful with how long you listen and by how much you increase the volume.
Here’s the same headphone at much more normal listening levels (even slightly on the loud side). This level would only cause hearing damage if the listener were exposed to it over a long period of time, and should be considered still within the safe range. Notice, no high order harmonics showing up, and no clipping.
Now, the problem you’ve uncovered is that when you’re using the xBass function on certain iFi devices (at a certain volume level), that bass boost means you’re also reaching the driver excursion limit. It’s as if it’s being played at the 105 to 110dB (at 1khz) level, just only in the bass, which is where the excursion limit is going to show up. It’s bound to not be as painful, because it’s just the bass, so it might not be as noticeable for an overall volume increase as it would be if that same level was being played back over the rest of the frequency range.
This is also one of the key reasons why you have to be careful when EQing headphones, and there’s more information on that in this video here:
TL;DR - objective data verifies that these headphones clip at a particular threshold that’s far louder than humans should listen for prolonged periods of time (over 100dB at 1khz). However, when using any kind of adjustment to increase the bass, like using EQ, an analog function like xBass, or a high output impedance source, the volume threshold for clipping is bound to be much lower (at 1khz).
EDIT:
I found an old Focal Clear measurement at 95dB that I took before moving to the new studio, and sure enough it shows no clipping, but I’ll get another one in shortly and update this to find the exact threshold for it.
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To frame the risks involved, permanent hearing damage can occur within minutes at these levels.
| Noise Source | Decibel Level (dB) | How long can you listen without protection? |
|---|---|---|
| Jet take off | 130 | 0 minutes |
| Ambulance siren | 109 | Less than 2 minutes |
| Personal music player at maximum volume | 106 | 3.75 minutes |
| Pop/Rock concert | 103 | 7.5 minutes |
| Riding a motorcycle | 97 | 30 minutes |
| Using an electric drill | 94 | 1 hour |
[Source] Decibels and Damage - HEARsmart
Also see the CDC and NIH for similar information and risk summary tables.
If this has been a regular listening practice, then hearing loss likely occurred long, long ago. I’ve also read that hearing damage increased with the rise of headphones and IEMs. One source said many people aged in their 20s today hear much like people aged in their 70s did in the past.
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Under normal operating conditions, the Clear doesn’t clip until reaching listening thresholds that will damage human hearing; the disclaimer on the headphones.com website is sufficient enough in explaining this. If the user is then introducing EQ or an EQ function that boosts a frequency, that individual is then responsible for driving the headphone outside it’s normal operating specs; it’s not a fault in the headphone design or operation, but rather how it’s being used.
But I digress…
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My Elex have clipped as described twice, both times due to an increase in volume when innattentively changing between sources with totally different output settings without reducing my amp volume level or muting. Thankfully neither time were they on my head, but I could still hear it from 4-5 feet away while scrambling for the knob. Not a volume at which I would ever intentionally listen. And no resulting damage, except to my pride.
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The issue the previous user experienced is likely related to the use of the iFi HipDAC xBass function. To demonstrate this, let me show you what that function does. I’ve currently got an Elear that I’m testing for the clipping threshold, which is right at around 106dB (at 1khz) for this unit. Below 106dB it doesn’t clip at all, but as soon as I reach that it clips.
The test methodology for this was to use low frequency tones below 10hz, increase the volume until it clipped, and then run the sweep. Why 10hz and below? While that’s below human hearing, the driver excursion is going to be more significant the lower you go. This means that while you won’t hear those tones, the excursion limit will be reached at those tones first - and you’ll still hear the clipping once that threshold is reached.
Now the trick here is that the xBass function dramatically changes that threshold, since it boosts the bass, as mentioned earlier. Here’s the visualization that shows the clipping threshold for both the xBass on and off, so you get a sense of the relative volume differences.
So what might seem like normal listening levels for most of the FR (admittedly 93dB is still quite loud), it reaches the same threshold with the xBass function turned on as if it were being played at 106dB (at 1khz).
Now what’s very interesting about this is that the clipping goes away entirely as soon as you use tones above 23hz, which means the volume threshold within the audible band is higher. In order to incur the excursion limit at 23hz, I had to increase the volume to 109.4dB at 1khz. Of course, you can’t really control that in practice, but it’s still interesting to note.
I’ll test the Clear as well tomorrow, but for the Elear, the bottom line is that nobody should ever be listening so loud that they get clipping when no EQ or bass boost function is applied. With EQ or a bass boost function, however, (or a high output impedance source), you may run into issues depending on how significant the boost is in the ultra low frequencies. The xBass function on the HipDAC is just over 10dB of bass boost at the strongest end, which is an unadvisable adjustment to have on these headphones when played at loud volumes.
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That amount of bass boost would seem inadvisable on any headphone. If the headphone seems to need that much boost, it can’t actually reproduce sound at those frequencies anyway. Just saying…
Thanks for your in depth analysis here, actual use cases with the Clear indicate clipping won’t/shouldn’t be an issue when “used as recommended” 
Any headphone can be driven to clipping through inadvertence if over-driven. You’ll damage or destroy the driver at that point if you continue.
Considering that these SPL levels are typically in dBA (A-weighted), the bass boost is apparently around +10dB, the bass is causing the clipping, and that it only takes a momentary peak above around 110dB for clipping to occur, is it a bit presumptive to conclude that @Saat is damaging their hearing? 
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So just to clarify, it’s not the bass that’s going up to 110dB when it clips. The bass only needs to reach around 95 - 100dB. Without a bass boost, it will be much louder overall when it clips than if that same bass level is reached with a bass boost. Does that make sense?
EDIT: Ah I see what you meant. I don’t think we should presume the listener is damaging their hearing. There are other factors to consider. If it’s only with xBass, while still loud, that would require a longer time frame to be damaging. Additionally, there are other things to consider - like if any of the devices in the chain were defective. Without having the exact units on hand, it’s hard to know.
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Sadly, I’m largely speaking from experience. Yes, headphone drivers have limitations and often cannot generate “loud” sounds at certain frequencies. But hearing damage is graduated and you likely won’t notice mild loss. People’s hearing today is routinely damaged from loud vehicles, loud music, and other environmental hazards (source 1, source 2, source 3). One should therefore work from the fact that many people have and are damaging their hearing through headphones/IEMs.
I used to own the Elex, and if I ever listened to it anywhere near clipping…pain…deafness… I never let my Clear go that high. The Clear’s apparent performance may be totally different for someone who routinely listened to music in the 90+ dB range 10 or 20 years ago. It may or may not cause additional harm.
Rock musicians are vulnerable to major hearing loss. For example, Pete Townsend of The Who blamed Keith Moon blowing up a drum onstage as contributing to his own hearing issues (e.g., hearing aids). So, damage can come from long-term exposure (the table I posted above) or a single explosion lasting a second.
Hearing damage doesn’t have a single cause for any person, but running Focal products near or at clipping…oh boy…
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Other than age, i believe most of my hearing loss is due to motorcycling without earplugs. Ironically, i always wore earplugs on the track, but i was rarely exposed for more than 20 minutes. Touring, where one is exposed to lower spls but for hours and hours at a time, was, i believe, more damaging. The constant wind noise is a killer. It also happens to be pretty close to vocal frequencies, and exhibits itself mostly in an inability to hear details when an undercurrent of noise is present in the same general frequency range. In a loud restaurant, i have a hard time pulling details of the voice of a dinner companion with whom i am sharing a table out of that background murmur. Can’t hear anything over about 13k either, but at my age that is to be expected. I dont have the facility to measure spl with head/earphones, but my speakers rarely peak over 90db, and avg. more like 75-80.
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Yeah hearing damage risk is determined by how loud and for how long. Loud enough and even a short amount of exposure is bad - like explosions. Long enough and even listening to loud music can be damaging. But it is also influenced by the frequency. Our ears are less prone to damage from lower frequencies.
All I’m suggesting is that we may not have enough information to know for sure that Focal Clear only clip when pushed to hearing damaging levels if bass boost is also being applied.
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Yeah the key thing here is the bass boost of 10dB. That’s basically a recipe for hitting the excursion limit at low frequencies. You could theoretically do the same thing with a single filter at 10hz to the same +10 degree. You wouldn’t hear any change in the tuning, but it would still clip. Just at a much lower volume overall.
Now, I’d suggest that an average of what… 96dB is still too loud, but over short periods of time that’s less damaging.
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Hey Andrew,
I fully agree with you that some of what I wrote belongs in a private discussion… - thankfully it was initiated, soon after, and there is no more a need for the like of it, from me, here.
Thank you for your effort to make sure that those more technical aspects and their harmful implications for one’s hearing, were well aware of and understood (and, in my case, they are).
Theory aside (and that does not imply that I question the truth of any of it - no disagreement there), on a more ‘empirical’, factual and pragmatic level - my case is rather simple - I described everything in the most objective and accurate way I could, from specific sample tracks through file formats to the gear and its settings… - the way I attempted to listen to music through the Clear, that I received, is no different than my regular listening through other headphones in any way, neither in overall loudness level nor in a partial selective loudness level in the lower frequencies range (and, me being still me, with the same personal collection of music, preferences and ‘genres’) - the Clear clips extensively, and no other headphones I have ever used did… And, in the discussion here, in general, there seems to be an accepted to be true underlying assumption, that there is 100% correlation between the occurrence of clipping and excessive and harmful listening settings, under all circumstances, based on which the focus of the discussion shifts to a more abstract and generalized level, from the point of view of which my, and maybe others’s, listening settings is determined to be ‘wrong’ (= harmful as well as justifiably illegitimate when discussing the clipping)… It is crucial to again turn to actual experience no less than theory, while also examining whether the experience is compatible with what is entailed by the theory or not… - I do not listen with a sound loudness meter, I just listen to music… And my listening with the Clear is not any different than my listening with all other headphones that preceded it for decades (I am 50 years old and in the hobby from my early teens) - this damage to hearing, which repeatedly becomes the focus of the discussion whenever the clipping is brought up, is not only a potential future outcome, from the present point of reference of this discussion now (with the clipping implied to be not much else than a legitimate, maybe even a positive indicator for that pending harm) - it would have been my present condition already - my hearing would have been impaired long ago already, following that rationale, with its underlying assumption, me reporting clipping and equating the clipping with harmful (and therefore ‘illegitimate’) listening settings… We do not need the future when we have the past and the present… This whole ‘journey’ with the Clear, with the way the clipping is presented and justified, led me to have also my hearing tested, and it was found to be normal - not damaged in any way.
What is it that is logically entailed by that? - that I should avoid my regular listening settings because my hearing would be damaged (based on the generalized theoretical assumption that that would be the inevitable result of what my Clear’s clipping necessarily implies)? - obviously not.
I hope that this sharing makes the whole discussion complemented also by an experience-based ‘empirical data’ (even if the sample size is 1).
I do not fully understand what is the explanation for why the experience of those who replied to my post is different than mine (and quite a few others, it seems when browsing the web, though it might factually still be the minority) - I do not know - but, what I can know, for certain, is that the attempt to justify the Clear’s performance in my case, based on the generalization above, in the case of this specific Clear, this setup, and these specific ears and hearing of mine, is not applicable.
Thank you!
I think the point of difference is the use of the iFi HipDAC and the xBass function, is it not?
When listening to the Clear normally without xBass, does it clip at your normal listening levels? Because if that’s the case, either there’s something wrong with the unit, or your listening levels are dangerously high. I’m not saying it’s the latter, but one of these two things has to be true, given the data.
What I’m pointing out here is that there’s a very reasonable explanation for why you had the experience you did, and why that doesn’t match that of other users. That being of course the use of the HipDAC’s xBass function.
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It might be, but I cannot tell for sure yet - I do not have it with me at the moment - it was sent for testing and I am yet to receive it back. I had very limited listening time with it beforehand - I cannot be certain that my memory does not fail me, but if it does not - I did attempt listening to it also through my good old NuForce Icon HD, which has no EQ options at all, and I think also through the iFi Hip Dac without XBass, and it was clipping on some specific tracks, based on (my listening) volume alone… I recall that I was trying to understand why those tracks and not other tracks that were even more bass-heavy and/or loud in the recording to begin with, and the only thing that those tracks seemed to have in common (vs. others that did not clip), that I could become aware of, was a more pronounced dynamic range (in the sense of how significant was the experience of the change, within each track, from the most quiet to the loudest) but I would be able to tell better when I get them back.
Personally, though, if my unit had already been tested and it was determined that there was nothing wrong with it, I do not know how to reconcile the suggestion that my listening levels are dangerously high with the fact that I have no hearing loss whatsoever.
I will share more if I have anything meaningful to add once I get them back.
Thanks!