Ok, let’s keep it civil one! Two, let’s not bring drama from one forum to another please!
Cheers!
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Yo. Why is it such a common thing for people to say the Elex is an Elear with Clear pads? They’re completely different pad materials and are worlds apart in sound. The alcantara does feel nice though.
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I think theirs a rumor that the Elex is recycled Elears. Recycled by drop the way they do sometimes with excess stock. they take the stock and make some changes to it and sell it on their site with an “X” on it. can anyone confirm this?
Impossible since the Elear is discontinued while the Elex is still being made.
That is interesting, I’ve seen some measurements with pad swapping and they do indeed appear to be virtually identical when the Clear pads are used on Elear. I haven’t heard either, but I’d love to hear the Elex. The all-black color way is very appealing to me, but I own the Clear Pro and I think might be a little redundant/downgrade.
Hopefully I’ll get a chance to listen to the Elex at some point.
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Many positive outcomes have come from people using Elex pads on the Elear, leaning bass out and fixing the hole in the mids according to everyone I’ve seen try it. To me, the ladder was wildly dynamic and punchy when trying them at Canjam. Can’t say much because each Focal has such unique pad material. The phrase ‘apples to oranges’ can’t even describe it. Not so sure about them sounding exactly the same because the Elex has a really forward sounding upper mid range. I’d probably love the Elear a lot though given the current source chain. Clear pads are much, much thicker (at least against Elex) making music come through with more mid bass, body, and slam. Haven’t heard a Focal that sounded bad for first impressions. They were all enjoyable headphones. 
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So more forward vocals than the Clear? Now I’m really interested. 
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Anything in particular you want to know?
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I never heard about Elear with Clear pads = to Elex , but I do heard a lot about Elear with Elex pads = to Elex, which make more sense.
I have never listen to the Elex, but I have done the test of swapping the Elex pads in to Elear and to be honest , I prefer the original sound of Elear to the shouty sound of Elear with Elex pads… this starts to get confusing…
Any way, if Elex sound is like Elear with Elex pads, then is a downgrade compared to the Clears.
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Keep thinking they all have different tunings tbh. 🤷 Think there were strengths in each one.
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Mrphotography does great video work… His review of the aeolus was well done with the best video imagery of zmfs I’ve seen! 
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I guess just the overall differences between the Clear and Elex.
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Looking forward to the Clear review! I’m definitely loving the Clears and curious how you like it vs the Aeolus. The resolution of the Clear is great, but loses out on the laidback musicality of the 6XX so the Aeolus is something I really interested in trying next.
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I remember joining SBAF. I’m still a RANDO with around 25 posts. Joined two plus years ago. Got a dislike on my very first post for not introducing myself properly. I’m sure the member who hit the dislike button enjoyed the flaming. I mostly read and lurk over there. Definitely some smart people on SBAF, but there are some mega-turds too.
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LOL if you get disliked again, PM me. I’ll shower you with likes 
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I just laughed when it happened. I’ve never figured out the how to become a friend thing…
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who cares about some random internet likes/dislikes right?
Also, I can’t confirm it, but I have a possible theory on how it works 
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I’m beyond getting upset about anything on the inter-webs.
If you want to see some loony thinking, twitter can be quite the spot for moronic thought.
What’s your theory?
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We’ve discussed this in the Focal threads a lot.
I own the Elex and Clear. If doing it over, I’d skip the Elex entirely as I sincerely prefer and use my HD-600s more.
The Elex can indeed be brassy, shouty, metallic, and painfully penetrating. If your source was recorded flat or was compressed during mixing, then the Elex might bring back some zing and life. However, if the source was normal, energetic, or dynamic, then the Elex will exaggerate these characteristics and make everything sound fragmentary and unrealistic.
Some commented that the Elex was a ‘music decomposer’ in that it splits each instrument away from the other instruments. The magnitude of the differences between the soft and loud components of a mix can be comical.
I believe @Torq and others reported on or generated charts for the frequency response of the Elear with Elex pads (almost identical). This was a hot topic when the Elex was released, as the retail price was well below the Elear’s.
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