What happened to your previous account? Never mind: read it elsewhere.
Good, I think it’s a pretty public incident by now.
Lossless is hazardous especially with 70’s music as it conveys every damn tiny blemish sound engineers couldn’t even hear on their equipment back then. I also listen to less-than-perfect streaming when I feel like it which is often. Heck I like many videos on Youtube fer cris’sakes.They don’t sound like no audiophile material but good enough to please is good enough. You have to go through a lot of garbage sound to dig up the good ones though.
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Thank you @MuzeMuff! They had a discount for SoundID good through today, so though I’m not fond of more subscription models, I grabbed that and just got set up. A little weird to calibrate through a mobile app, as I usually only use desktop for audio, but giving it a shot. Calibrated for Elears with my Clear pads on as you described. Kind of like a trip to to the optometrist with the A-B choices. (I have True-Fi also, interesting but didn’t seem to work with hi-res through Qobuz and Audirvana, and the trial Reference 4 - didn’t need to uninstall that, both on Mac). As you noted, a little harder to set up, not showing up at first as audio output from Qobuz until I changed system preferences, but once done turned on just like Ref 4.
(Note I used a bluetooth connection from my iphone to the xdsd for the calibration, using that wired with balanced cable, and a mojo, from desktop Qobuz and Audirvana for actually listening.)
Too early to give any impressions. Just wish I had a set of Clears to compare them to now! Anyone want to lend a pair? 
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For calibration I used the oldish but iconic iPhone 6S which has the jack and the DAC that made it a music lover favourite. So I only had to use a miniplug adapter but I don’t know if the wired connection yields more accurate results. Probably not that much of a difference and besides, the Elear sounds weird on any phone even through an external DAC imho. While going through the motions of calibration I briefly thought “this is irrelevant, how will they be able to translate rinky dink sound into high SQ output from an audio-configured desktop system?” But it works. I liken it more to Ref 4 than to True-Fi, the latter had mainly been designed for portable audio and sounds a little “narrower” on a desktop, perhaps due to “stretched” bandwidth, perhaps not. To me SoundID sounds a lot more like Ref 4 but smoother. On the Elear and Clear at least.
Also tried the HFM Sundara but that planar phone is much less affected by DSP since it’s pretty flat to begin with, and there’s almost no difference. On the other hand the Elear has dramatic response to correction with SoundID like it does with Ref 4 but I noticed you need a little more power with SoundID to drive it at the same volume level than Ref 4, as if it had more negative gain applied. This would typically yield a silkier response but usually also generate a smothering effect which Sonarworks appears to have been able to avoid. Good job.
I would lend you my Clears but current confinement regulations give me a perfect excuse not to 
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I just heard from Sonarworks that all True-Fi license owners will be getting SoundID for free. Not bad!
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Well then, I guess my 60-day trial just became a God-only-knows-how-many-days “trial” that will last for a couple years until they come up with some other headphone enhancement software. That’s a sound strategy, if I may say so, to establish early dominance on this yet little-tapped market segment of non-pro, user-friendly DSP correction that can benefit even some high-end models with great potential that have been less than optimally tuned by their manufacturers, the Elear being only one of several that only sounded great on select high-end DAC’s (like the $3k V1 in this particular case). Audeze has its own version of correction software for it’s less-than-perfect models but as as I know no one else use the Sonarworks approach of providing (for download or webcasting) model-specific correction profiles to owners of phones that require correction.
But nothing is perfect in this world. After many hours of careful listening with SoundID I noticed minor glitches such as going offline without the user login off (software logs off Google/email or Facebook on its own, after displaying this info “you are offline” for about 3 seconds) which cause the cessation of monitoring and reverts progressively to the Focal Elear Wired Average profile similar to the profile provided by Ref 4 but more smothered (negative gain becomes definitely noticeable). The only way out of this is to use the GUI to log SoundID off Google and restart it. This may be a Goggle issue though, not necessarily a problem with SoundID itself. Anyway I’m sure it’ll get fixed soon, after all this is almost beta testing we’re doing here and I still haven’t acquired the reflex of turning to the phone app to manipulate SoundID settings. Did some more calibration today and my phones sound a little better even. A little confusing for my 57-year-old novelty-challenging mind but still quite amazing.
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Since you have Ref 4 here’s a quick glance at settings that will make the Elear sound just a tiny brighter than the Clear with more detail, very pleasing to my ears. Important: notice the tilt and boost numbers, makes the curve fly right above those wild dips and peaks that give the Elear its err… colourful personality. Some like it some don’t. I don’t so kiss 'em goodbye. Also gets rid of the driver clipping issue for those who have it (early models).
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Thanks @MuzeMuff - trying out those settings right now (with Clear pads on, will try the stock pads also) listening to the trusty Physical Graffiti on Qobuz. Just 3 days left on the trial though!
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With the Clear Pads you may want to drop bass boost to -3dB or even -4dB. Tilt will self-adjust, just keep it flush with the peaks. Qobuz uh? Going all-French tonight? Qobuz is based in France… I haven’t tried that one yet, will soon though.
Elear is a strange animal. With a superior amp it performs exceptionally well from sub-bass (best of all Focals there) up to 1kHz which makes it very suitable to electronic and jazz music. The upper mids were designed for specific amps it seems, I just can’t imagine Focal or anyone for that matter doing that roller-coaster ride profile in the high-mids and treble without having a matching amplifier in mind.
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Sounds really clean with those settings. Bass is very detailed, not loud or thick - hearing more detail in Mr. Jones’s bass lines in The Rover and In the LIght in Physical Graffiti, and in Zeppelin III, albums I know well that have a lot of layers, the cliché of just hearing a detail I hadn’t noticed before in That’s the Way. Listening through my humble xDSD with a balanced cable and with ifi iusb3 right now. Think I prefer the sound here to what I was getting with SoundID, although I haven’t gone back to do a comparison yet.
Qobuz is nice - there’s a forum thread here which showed more information in qobuz in a test which made me look at it again: Qobuz vs Tidal -- Frequency Spectrum analysis - I also use it through Audirvana, (also French!) but the qobuz app itself works well and switches easily between sources, and integrates well with Sonaraworks. Also have Tidal and have used Amazon HD (pretty good too), lately have been going back to Qobuz mostly.
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To tell you the truth I think I prefer Ref 4 with these settings to SoundID myself as well. I obtained the result after endless juggling with the boost/tilt adjustments, comparing with the Clear all the while since the goal was to get get better than the Clear, not just equal. Finding the right combination is not as straightforward as it appears, you can’t just simply position boost without having tilt move, which is by design from Focal to keep the FR curve even but can be frustrating when both don’t sound in tune with each other to one.
It seems the trick is to get the mids right (just hinting at a dash of cross-feed) and the rest falls into place. Then the sound is very detailed with excellent separation and a clean, tight bass. What’s good with Zeppelin is good with Marcus Miller as well. Clean bass, clear drums, nothing off kilter, yummy. Always suspected that headphone had good potential just not this good. May as well keep listening, my AC unit is down and it’s still like 80 degrees and very humid outside at nearly 2 am, 90 inside. Can’t sleep muggy, gotta wait til dawn as it should dip in the 70’s 'round 4:30 or so, then back up to 90+ tomorrow. Eastern Canada has the the strangest climate I ever lived in: Polar winter, extremely short spring then jungle-broiling summer from May to October. Unreal. Enjoy your sound!
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After a few months of experience with Sonarworks Reference, I thought it would be a good time for refreshing my thoughts. Even though my earlier observations still apply in general, I would like to reinforce the following w.r.t. my listening experience with this DSP. YMMV, as usual.
Golden rule
Engage or not to engage the DSP correction? Decide beforehand
Your brain will normalize the new FR quickly. Give it a song or two. Do not change modes while listening. It ruins the experience.
For instance, I’m having one session as I type and here’s the config for the HD6XX being driven by the Liquid Platinum:
On top of the software correction, a slight bass and treble boost is being applied. Headphone is connected in the SE jack and knob is at noon (need to compensate the 12dB preamp cut), so there’s already some preamp distortion (or “added harmonics” 
) into the pipes. And it feels good. SPL-wise peaking at 87dB. Adjust volume to taste.
Usability
Two clicks volume adjustment at OS level
Since this software loads automatically by Windows, I kind of integrated it into my routine as well. So to quickly adjust volume, depending on the track – e.g.: 70s song vs one from the loudness wars – it’s just a right click followed by the preamp gain selection.
To conclude. I’m still happy with Sonarworks Reference. Even though I use the DSP once a week, the usability features are used on pretty much every listening session.
Cheers.
Looks like an exciting upgrade.
Upgrade for Headphones is $39 / €39, for Speakers and Headphones $89 / €89.
Here, take my 
.
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I’ve leveraged their Summer Sale and decided to upgrade. YT has many videos about what’s changed from Sonarworks Reference so I won’t cover here.
I really digged the custom EQ on top of the calibration being applied, while leaving regions from the spectrum without any correction whatsoever. Hopefully screenshot below is self-explanatory:
Since this is a new piece of software altogether, I have found a few annoying bugs already. If they drive me crazy I’m going to report them.
Other than that, I think it is a worth upgrade from the legacy Sonarworks Reference.
Cheers. 
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