As I recall in an earlier post, I think you had said you had the Focal Clears. To me first and formost are the headphone selection, and then the rest.
Although I sold my Clears to help pay for my Audeze LCD4, I really miss them and see them back in my home soon. I liked them a lot. In fact I liked them more than the Utopias I had. To me they are a tremendous bargain for their quality.
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Yes Iāve only had them a short while and are still forming impressions really. But from my few weeks with them I really like them. I am very impressed. The build quality is the best I have come across in overear headphones. Though I havenāt had any other TOTL headphones besides these and the HD800 the rest of my overears are Mid-Fi. Sound wise they live Upto their name in being, well, very clear. Theyāre very good in all departments without being outstanding in one and weaker in others like many headphones. They are top quality. I am very impressed. I will give a review of them in the near future. Oh and another thing these are the heaviest headphones I own but they certainly donāt feel like it. They dissipate the weight so well.
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Hello;
While I joined this forum a while ago I have only just come around to introducing myself. This is my first post and after spending quite a bit of time perusing sites like Head-Fi and SBAF, I decided to give this forum a try.
I was never really into the āin-your-headā experience of headphones except during my university years working in community radio and listening to the likes of Tangerine Dream and King Crimson. But a family and apartment living have brought me back and since those days I have noticed a significant change in the quality of sound, to the point where I sometimes prefer my Focal Clears to my 2 channel speaker system, something I thought I would never say!
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Welcome @Cariad, great to have you here!
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Welcome to @Cariad . Glad youāre aboard. Lok forward to your experiences as wells as ours to you. Great headphones you have. Focal Clears .
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Iāve always liked King Crimson. On speakers, headphones, and live!
Welcome.
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āIn the Court of the Crimson Kingā My favorite. Still love it after 50 years
Thanks. I saw them last year at the Montreal Jazz Fest - spectacular! Three drummers and Fripp as frenetic as ever.
Hi and welcome Cariad. 
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Focal Clears are great arenāt they. I too really enjoy mine.
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Thanks for the welcome. Regarding the Clears, do you mind me asking if you have tried various headphone amps with them and if so, which do you prefer? Or should I ask this in another thread?
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Here is a good place to start with questions.
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Yes there is a dedicated Clear thread. But I can try answer your question. I donāt have an extensive collection of Amps to be honest. Definitely not when compared with others in the forum. I have plenty of portable options and my Pioneer XDP-300r Dap, but I only really use my Matrix M-Stage HPA3u Amp/Dac. I only use the Amplifier and use my Dap as Dac and Source. I also have a Topping D50 Dac to run into it if need be as well. My only other Amp I sometimes use is the JD Labs O2 Amp.
Firstly the O2 Amp runs it fine volume wise but it can make it sound a little thinner sounding than the larger more powerful Matrix Amp. Bass is also a little less prominent with the O2 Amp but is still perfectly serviceable. Hope this helps. @Torq is the man to ask.
I have taught him all I know.
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Thank you for taking the time to answer my inquiry.
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newbie here from the pacific wet coast.
iām also on SABF and headfiā¦how does this forum differ?
getting back into audioā¦albeit slowly.
sold a bunch of gear off recently (sonore MR, fostex thx 00) etc
as i seldom listen to just music anymore (not even as much with my kef ls50 w and svs sb2000 sub).
but this exit became temporary when i subscribed to āquelloā for a few weeks, enjoying live concerts
on my 65āā OLED tv, along with my chord mojo (optical out from TV to cans).
so i guess i like the visuals, too, alongside with my music.
am now looking to reenter the cans world: getting a nice pair of cans (MD hfm edition xx, focal clear, zmf auteur etc) and then upgrading my dac/amp with separates.
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I would say that itās a friendlier than either, which is something we intend to actively maintain (no tolerance for aggressive nonsense, guidance away from authoritative/definitive statements about subjective matters).
No manufacturer sponsorship/advertisements - or the ills (perceived and/or real) that come with that. More details about which, and how the site is funded and the ideals behind that can be found here.
Active interest in developing community reviews/reviewers, with an official site-sponsored āCommunity Preview Programā (gear loan/library - which is being progressively added to) with clearly defined and consistent participation requirements.
There are other differences ā¦ but those are some of the major ones.
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Welcome @chopstix . Easiest way to say it is much more āMellowerā A great thing for the old farts like me.
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Greetings @chopstix!
I definitely agree with these sentiments. This community, albeit significantly smaller, seems more mature and mellower. Iām still pretty active on head-fi and reddit and mostly lurk on SBAF ā but there are definitely some recent threads on HF that make my head hurt. Some people are obsessively crazy in drilling their opinions on you. I think most people here are fairly open-minded even if they donāt necessarily agree. I really do enjoy the openness, yet courteous tone here versus some other places.
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great thanks gangā¦very refreshing to hear how this new forum is trying to differentiate itself
ā¦headfi is not a bad place overallā¦i learned lots there and have some nice connectionsā¦
SABF, while its members can be more technically savvy at times, could sometimes come across as a more surly and sour sounding group. i guess is you were an āinā member to the clique, it was different.
letās hope this group grows in popularity and technical savvy.
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New here from Vancouver. Iām Resolve on SBAF and Spandy87 on Head-fi. I do headphone and equipment reviews at Resolve Reviews on youtube (I wonāt link for fear of self-promotion guidelines).
My current daily drivers are the ZMF Auteur, AFO, Andromeda, and Nightowl off a Cayin IHA-6 and an iDSD Micro BL. I also have a Schiit stack and a hifiman tube amp that donāt get any use haha.
Iām looking for an opportunity to do more reviews, but of course this hobby gets expensive, so Iām hopeful to get into some loaner programs to keep creating videos and writing content.
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