I picked up a pair of Utopia pads for the Clear. Imo it wasn’t bad but I prefer the stock pads. The Utopia pads bring up the highs a bit and I felt they didn’t allow the Clear to extend as low. Something just seemed off. Maybe I could use them for a week straight and then switch back. But I’m leaning towards keeping with Clear pads on from here.
Oh and don’t put the Utopia pads on the elegia haha. I’m mean I guess you can but…yeah. Did it for giggles and it makes the elegia sound like an old shitty radio lol.
New member here but been lurking this thread…
I’ve owned my Elegias close to a year now and have no issues regarding the stock pads, they are still in pristine condition. I must say though, just recently swapped in a pair of the elite sheepskin pads and they sound much fuller!
Welcome @undun to the forum. Please keep us updated on your impressions of the elite sheepskin pads as you use them more. I also have the Elegias and though I haven’t started to consider switching pads yet, it doesn’t hurt to hear other’s experiences.
Sure thing. Perhaps too soon to say anything definitely but I’ll say that it helped tremendously with intermittent seal issues I was having and the bass extension and physicality seems to have improved without muddying anything up at all–remains fast as before. Also, I noticed that mids are pulled back (a positive for me with the Elegia) just a hair and the dip around 4k seems to be less drastic even without EQing. So far, all welcomed changes and I’d call it an improvement. Will report after some time to confirm that this continues to be the case .
Coming back here (after more than a month of continuous use) to say that the sheepskin pads have definitely been my daily driver on this set. Tried going back to the old pads for comparison sake recently and I 100% feel like the dekoni sheepskin pads are a significant improvement over the stock pads as far as FR smoothing is concerned. Said this before–but it makes the bass really come alive and puts the mid-range a little bit more in line with everything else. Don’t get me wrong, the Elegia are going to be a mid focused set regardless but this just balances everything nicely and adds a fullness and body to the vocal range and lower-range instruments (bass, cello, trombone, baritone sax specifically). I can’t go back to the stock pads now, welp. Anyway, anyone who is curious to try pad rolling should definitely try the dekoni sheepskins (non fenestrated–the “elite sheepskin” as it’s labeled on the website).
Catching up on this way late in the game—but I have to start off by saying that you have an enviable lineup of headphones there! I admire how much effort you put in for this evidence-based endeavor as well.
Unfortunately I’m not sure how accurate the results are. I think the fella who requested that you redraw your graphs at 1khz may have been onto something. My reasons for alleging this are two-fold:
First, because I have seen published measurements on ASR (and on GitHub from a guru who produced convolution files for the Utopia rolled with the Stellia pads) that indeed show around a 7db bump in the bass curve with that configuration, along with some attenuation in the high-mids.
Second, and perhaps equally compelling to me, is that I personally have a set of Utopias that I rolled with Stellia pads—and the bass response via that good ol’, analog (albeit anecdotal) methodology that is my ears—is considerably more robust with with the much stiffer, solid and ear-isolating Stellia pads. Not subtly so, but markedly so. And I’ve been using this configuration on and off for a couple of years, and I’ve never wanted in the mids to even a tiny degree.
And so your first hypothesis that the pads might contribute to some of the potentiated bass response with the Stellias vs their open-backed uncle was not only borne out by my lengthy experience with both cans, but by the well-described physics of headphone pad placement and their material qualities. I’m not sure I can explain how you came to different results in your test without my studying very hard to achieve your level of technical proficiency with those machines—but I do know that my ears have studied audio a whole heck of a lot and I trust that they aren’t lyin’
Back to my original comment, I am seriously coveting your collection. You’ve given me something to aspire for when more cash rolls in! Peace…
They’re accurate to the limits of the measurement rig and methodology, and should be taken as being relative to each other.
They’re also presented using just microphone calibration and do not have any compensation profile applied. That’ll result in extreme variations if you try and compare them to compensated plots (which is largely what you’ll find elsewhere).
I never got around to posting the compensated plots. And I did them RAW initially due to the deviations found across different copies of the miniDSP EARs.
Beyond that, they are only comparable to other measurements taken on that same rig, with the same calibration and compensation (none, here).
Even different copies of the same rig can yield different results. Comparisons to measurements on other rigs are not reliable (not just here, but in general).
Here are the measurements for those Focal headphones (each wearing their own pads), using HEQ compensation, so you can see how much things differ between compensated and uncompensated:
As part of another project, I have since remeasured them, and about 200 other sets of “high-end” headphones, using both the more common GRAS setups (used by heapdhones.com, ASR, etc.) as well as a B&K 5128 setup (similar to Head-Fi’s) and state of the art analyzers and interfaces.
I bought the Dekoni valour pads for my elex and found them a bit too dark lacking detail. I have tried them again after being put away for 6 months. My impressions did not change with the exception that i found one channel a bit louder than the other.
When i inspected the pads on the underside i noticed that one of the pads was not glued evenly and
you can easily see the lining sticking out. (See picture showing the lining)
I did not notice this imbalance when i first used them 6 months ago.
I got the Dekoni Limited Edition Stellia pads for my Radiance as they provided more padding so my ears wouldn’t touch the driver, but one of the sides was noticeably stitched unevenly. However after reaching out to them they promptly swapped me a pair.
Could someone share EQ profile for Elear with Clear pads?
Tried some options for Elex and Clear but it sounds strange on the highs, somewhat piercing.
Without EQ it is similarly not good on highs.
Stock sounds more pleasant on highs.
When I try to reduce 12kHz by -5dB it gets better, but there is still something nasty at the high end. There is something similar in stock, but not so obvious, probably little more smoothed.
Elear with Clear pads is essentially the Elex, so if EQ profiles for the Elex don’t work for you, I’d try using a sine sweep to identify the offending areas and then manually EQ those spots.
Interesting idea, though I’m not sure I can hear problems in such a simple signal, this signal sounds just ok.
I will try EQ for Elex one more time and maybe from other sources, thank you!
Run the sine sweep (be sure the volume isn’t too loud) and listen for annoying peaks and dips in the response. Then listen to music to see if those areas bother you; EQ those areas as necessary.
Anyone have experience pad rolling Dekoni pads on the Radiance?
I like the sound on the stock pads but official replacement pads are non-existent.
I’m looking for Dekoni (or other) pads that will give me as close to a sound as the stock pads as possible.
After some digging, I read on Head-Fi that a Focal rep said the Clear MG pads can serve as Radiance stock pad replacements without altering sonic quality. Not sure if this is true, but I thought I’d post it here since Radiance pads are impossible to source.
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