Focal Clear Open-back Headphones - Official Thread

I’ll let you decide what “low-end” means in this context … so these are just a price-ordered list of options that’ll pair well with the Clear, If it must be from headphones.com:

The AudioQuest DragonFly Red is also an option, if you need true portability (the units above all have internal batteries and can be used on the go, but are a bit easier to use in a more “transportable” fashion), but the units above all eclipse it in my opinion.

If you don’t have to buy something from headphones.com (not that I’m suggesting you shouldn’t), then there are some other excellent options:

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Thank you. I’ll probably look at one of those more desktop-oriented combos in the next few months. I’ll probably stick with e17 for portability before I upgrade.

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I wanted to say thank you Torq for the advice. I went with Schiit Modi and Vali and have been very happy. I’m trying to decide if I’ll go balanced with Jotunheim or Liquid CarbonX in the next year.

I’ve been absolutely loving the Clears so much as well that I picked up a pair of Elegia that are waiting for me when I return from a trip.

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You will really like the Elegia, if you like the clears!

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That’s what I’m hoping :slight_smile:

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Did you burn in your Clears?

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Just wanted to say that this group’s advice to get Clears was great. Love these headphones and love the Elegias as well. Just have less opportunity for closed back semi isolating fancy headphones.

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Hi Hansel, I just let the run overnight for a few days. So I sort of did but I’m not totally into burning everything in. Certain drivers and makes may need burn in for example the ZMF lineup. A better person for this advice would be @Torq as he’s the go to guy on all things audio. I hope I have helped you a little.

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I don’t recall the Clears needing much burn in if at all, and the difference was not as “noticeable” as with ZMF headphones. Now it has been awhile so this is all based on my crappy audio memory…mostly going off feeling. Also the Clears since the day I got them were my primary headphones, due to how they sounded, they only recently got knocked from the top spot, by the Aeolus, which once I get the Verite…we shall see lol.

I am confident @Torq will have a more knowledgeable answer. I am still what I consider fairly new to audio, and also more of a hobbyist, and wasn’t paying all that much attention to nuance, and details like this until recently.

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I haven’t found any notable change in the sound of any of Focal’s non-Beryllium-domed headphones due to “burn-in” beyond the first few-seconds to a minute or two. And I’m fairly sure any change I heard in the Beryllium-domed units was more adjusting to shift in speed and subtle change in timbre, was more mental adjustment than actual change in the behavior of the units.

I’ve seen claims that the Clear’s take 100 hours, but that wasn’t my experience. They certainly didn’t measure any differently over that period.

The ZMF Vérité was another matter … and while excellent fresh out of the box, they became smoother and more refined over the space of several listening sessions. I stopped noticing differences after a couple of days of listening, but I was also so engrossed in just enjoying the music at that point that I wasn’t really trying to find differences there.

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I’ve had a similar experience with the Aeolus! Just over 100hrs and I was greeted with such a joyful experience last night while listening. Blew me away a little bit to be honest, they sounded amazing initially, but now… (forewarning waxing poetic coming up :wink: )the experience was like that first kiss with a love interest (the first listening) exciting/new/exotic/crazy/fun. That as you fall more and more in love and more comfortable turned into a loving embrace(at the end of the burn in time). Ok #cheeseover, hrmmm… “where’s my whiskey!” “No I don’t want ice! I’m a manly man,” no ones looking slides a rock into the glass and sips :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Thanks @prfallon69 , @TylersEclectic and @Torq for sharing your experiences with the Clears!!! They are coming tomorrow and since are new and some people say they need hours of burning in , I wanna be sure not to make a wrong judgment to them.
I understand some physical changes occurs when a never used headphones go through hours of use, but not sure if is an audible change, but any of you guys has a master in headphones and audio compared to me .
Thanks again !!!
I’ll share my opinions soon.

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I am new to this forum but I have using the Focal Clear but about a month and so far I really like the sound. The two DAC/Amps I am using are the Benchmark DAC3 HGC and Oppo HA-1. I have Sennheiser HD600, HD650, and HD700. I tried the Sennheiser HD800s but I was disappointed. I also have Beyerdynamic T1 series 2, Oppo PM-1 and PM-3, B&W P9, P7 wireless, P5 and P3.
I listen to mainly Jazz, Classical and some Rock. I stream through Roon from Qobuz, Tidal and iTunes Music. I have thousands of CDs (red book), hundreds of SACDs, some DVD-As and a few Blu-ray disks.

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Hi and welcome @abenavraham. You have some great gear. I look forward to seeing you around the forum.

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Clears are a winner for sure. I burn in all my gear before any extensive listening sessions. The Clears are well balanced and enjoyable. A rather fun set of cans that can do most anything well. They aren’t for analyzing music but more for enjoyment! Easy to wear as they are extremely comfortable and light. I’ll be keeping my Clears. Streaming, sms-200 ultra se to a Mytek Brooklyn and balanced out at 6 watts makes for a lot of fun!

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Clears are here and they sound like a keeper to me!!! They have what I was missing on the Elears.
I when straight to them, no burning in, and the premiere was with Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack for Alien, a soundtrack I really love and is been a while since the last time.
Let’s see what happens in the next days/weeks.
Thanks guys for your opinions.

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Have fun with your new toy! Glad it lived up to expectations =) I really enjoy my Clears

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Happy Cake Day Tyler. Have a good one.

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Got a chance to evaluate the Clear thanks to the community preview program.

I rate it like this:

Detail: 9/10
Speed & Dynamics: 9/10
Stage: 6/10
Imaging: 8.5/10
Timbre: 7.5/10
Tonality: 9.5/10

You can check out my video review here:

The bottom line is that I really like the Clear, especially its tonality - I think it’s just about perfect, with the exception of that slight dip in the lower treble between 4-6khz. My guess is that the dip isn’t actually as extreme as it measures on the EARS rig, and I’ve seen on other more precise measurement rigs that it shows up a bit lower as well. I have the feeling though that this dip is intentional because it’s consistent with other Focal headphones as well, and it’s also small enough to potentially be explained by the intent to do something similar to what a notch filter does to subdue a potential problem frequency, because no matter where I try to EQ it, it generally makes things worse.

When you ‘fix’ the dip, it takes away from the overall clarity and blackness of background, so there’s potentially a resonance somewhere in there, and the dip is eliminating it from being problematic - at least that’s been my experience. Perhaps this shows a bit of a limitation of the composite driver and/or material being used. My understanding of this stuff (although limited) is that you want high rigidity in the center for high quality treble response but also high excursion capability towards the outside to be able to accurately produce bass frequencies - and the Clear does use a driver that can do that, but the type of effect that seems to be corrected for by that 4-6khz dip may be the byproduct or tradeoff that you get when achieving it with certain material. In any case, the dip does fix the problem. Either that or I’m just not EQing it in the right spot.

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How about the hump in response at around 3K? I assume that’s what gives me a shouty glare on some recordings. Is anyone else bothered by this and if so have you solved the problem in any way? Despite how really good the Clear’s sound in other areas I find this problem very fatiguing. I listen with Naim equipment and on occasion a modified and improved Musical Fidelity X-Can V2.