Focal has just announced the new Elegia at RMAF, a pair of closed-back headphones priced at $899
"After Elear and Utopia in 2016, then Clear in 2017, its three leading open-back headphones,
Focal is proud to present Elegia . 100% made in France, Elegia are the first high-performance closed-back headphones by Focal!
By integrating speaker drivers into an innovative and perfectly soundproofed closed-back acoustic solution, Focal has written a new chapter in its history."
The specs are as follows:
Type Circum-aural closed back headphones
Impedance 35 Ohms
Sensitivity 105 dB SPL / 1 mW @ 1 kHz
THD 0.1 % @ 1 kHz / 100 dB SPL
Frequency response 5 Hz-23 kHz
Speaker driver 1.57" (40 mm) 'M'-shape Aluminium/Magnesium dome
Definitely have to get my ears on these … for review, for comparison and of course hopefully for something closed-back in the office, to go with the Clear, so I don’t have to buy a 2nd pair of HD820!
Very much looking forward to hearing more about these. Due to household logistics open back headphones are a no-go for me, so I’d been waiting for Focal to put out a closed-back model!
Very curious on this as well as generally how they sound. I saw on Reddit that Alan from AVSource said he thought they sounded more like the Clear than the Elear. Jude also just posted the FR of it.
They definitely sound very similar to the Clear. They don’t sound like an Elear with cups on them that’s for sure.
The cups are aluminum with some carbon fibre. The guys at the Focal booth from France said that was to help with rigidity so definitely not plastic cups.
It was a quick listening session today, tomorrow will be more in-depth since we will have to do less talking.
Early impressions are very good though. Might be lacking a little bit on the low-end for what people might expect from a closed headphone but others will definitely enjoy their more neutral sound.
I might have to pick these up… I need more closed backed headphones…and with the HD820 currently out of my willing to spend budget, these would fit nicely
So I can’t give a for sure date. We were told a month after launch. However, usually whenever a new headphone launches, the date we are given and the date we actually receive it are quite different.
That being said though, we do have a couple early units to get our hands on for preview / review.
Until we get a final date from Focal though I can’t give a for sure shipping date.
I didn’t really care for these. They sound claustrophobic in the head stage, and there’s something wrong with the mids that made me think they sounded hollow.
They’re using the aluminum/magnesium dome, rather than the Utopia’s beryllium unit.
I still haven’t managed to drive any of my Focal cans to the point where I’ve encountered the excursion limit. We know it’s there … because Focal have said as much - as a deliberate design choice. But in any normal listening, which can get pretty damn loud for me, I’ve not run into it with any of the five current Focal cans I own (2x Utopia, Clear, Elear, Elex).
With all due cautions appropriate to listening in show/meet conditions (even with closed-back cans), I would say these are the tonal equivalent of the Clear and the technical equivalent of the Elear. Which, as I’ve said elsewhere, puts them in the same overall ball park as a closed-back Elex.
I will be getting my hands on a production/retail pair as soon as possible and doing a full review of them. That’ll be much more telling, since it’ll be with a familiar chain, music and in a suitably quite environment. I’ll also have some control over how they’ve been driven and how much time has been put on them (my understanding is that the show units were pretty much fresh from the box).
They’re a nice looking pair of headphones that’s for sure. I have seen a few comments now saying they are quite close to the Clears in sound. It will be interesting to see how much they retail for.
open back headphones are a no-go for me, so I’d been waiting for Focal to put out a closed-back model!
