🔶 Focal Clear Mg

Resolution · August 3, 2021, 8:10pm

I think he’s got a lot of experience. He made mention of the Susvara a few times, so he’s comparing the Clear MG to the very best he’s heard and trying to give the most accurate impressions within his experience. Good or bad. I respect that.

I find it very refreshing that he gets critical and 95% of everything reviewed isn’t simply “the best”. It’s refreshing in a sea of reviewers that are all trying to make a living reviewing products that can’t be too critical of any products because they don’t want to upset the manufacturers.

DivineCurrent · August 4, 2021, 3:40pm

I gotta be honest, this youtuber lost some credibility to me because he claims to hear better soundstage and separation on high end DACs. I do not agree with DACs sounding better than the audibility threshold, maybe that’s the objectivist in me.
That being said, I agree about the warm nature of the Clear MG, that’s exactly why I love it. I can only hear up to 17kHz, so I don’t hear this supposed 18 kHz resonance he was talking about. I know the Elex had a measurable resonance around 19 kHz, but the original Clear removed that. And according to measurements at SBAF, the MG does not have any resonances in this area, so I’m skeptical: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/focal-clear-mg-measurements-analysis-review.10755/page-2

Resolution · August 4, 2021, 4:20pm

I agree. I’m also a huge fan of the additional bass/sub bass extension and better timbre vs the OG Clear and of course, the slam.

Just remember, at the end of the day, nothing else matters as long as YOU like it.

Atrox_V2 · August 4, 2021, 6:47pm

SBAF measurements are taken with a MiniDSP Ears rig with their own compensation. Not an industry standard measurement rig.

DivineCurrent · August 4, 2021, 7:12pm

Yeah I know, but the 18 kHz driver resonance should at least show up in some way if it was actually there. I heard weird resonances with the Elex which was at least backed up by the CSDs, but I hear nothing on the MG which is also backed up by the very clean CSDs in comparison. Anyway, I can’t hear that high so maybe it’s placebo.

rgdelato · August 9, 2021, 11:07pm

Okay, so I bought both the OG Clear and the Clear MG over a week ago, so let’s ramble for a bit.

Honestly, I think that by far the biggest difference between them is exactly the thing that GoldenSound is referring to as a “wooly” texture over everything (which is a reasonable description, imo). I initially wanted to call it a muddiness, which also sounds insane to me considering that these two are the most resolving headphones that I own.

The Clear MG is fuller, slightly bassier, and muddier while the OG Clear is “clear-er” (lol) and thinner. If my chain was just a smidge thin-sounding, I think I’d dislike the OG, honestly (which explains why everyone pairs the OG with the Bifrost). Also, I should mention I’ve spent like 90% of my listening time on the Quicksilver, which is a tube amp.

What I find especially funny about this is that while that texture on the MG definitely sounds weird to me in spots, I didn’t always find it disagreeable. For example, I listened to the first few tracks of Jai Wolf’s “The Cure for Loneliness” and I preferred the separation of the sound on the OG while listening to “Lose My Mind,” but while listening to “Still Sleeping,” I preferred how the MG made it sound more full and cohesive. And it’s not like these are two different genres of music, they’re literally two songs on the same album.

Some other notes: I’m 32 years old and I can’t hear 17Khz. It would be a stretch to claim I can even hear 16.5KHz. So I definitely can’t hear the 18KHz treble issue on the MG. Before COVID, I used to attend weekly swing dances with live music, so yeah, several years of loud music events on a regular basis probably hasn’t helped my hearing.

As for timbre, I don’t think the difference in timbre between the OG and the MG is particularly significant. They do have different timbre, but like, my daily driver is an Eikon, which has much better timbre than both imo. So it’s kinda like, if you care about timbre a lot, you probably don’t want either Clear, but I personally don’t find the timbre of either one of them offensive, so if it’s not that important to you, I think you’ll be fine.

Anyway, the real reason I bought the Clears in the first place is because I had recently bought a new DAC. My most resolving headphone was my Eikon and I wanted something a little more detailed to really let me hear the improvements in my chain. From that perspective, I don’t think I would’ve been dissatisfied with either of the Clears (though interestingly, the jump from my previous DAC to my new DAC was a bigger jump than from the Eikon to the Clear).

Crinacle’s review of the Clear MG mentioned some weirdness with the pads, so probably at some point, I’ll try putting the OG Clear’s pads on the MG and vice-versa and see how that goes (yay for the Pro skus including extra pads).

So now that I’ve upgraded my DAC and bought a Clear, I think I’m in the mood for my next headphone to be something kinda fun and stupid like a Gjallarhorn or something. I dunno, we’ll see how things go after my wallet’s recovered.

DivineCurrent · August 14, 2021, 3:38am

Listening to more tracks on the MG today, I realized just how amazing they are especially for hot/bright recordings. Since they push the sound more in front of you, it adds some space and the vocals are not fatiguing at all, the opposite in fact. You can really tell how well something was mastered because of this, as the details are presented in front of you with great imaging and layering. You can tell if the engineer purposely wanted a certain instrument to pop out, and it’s easy with the MGs to notice, not so much with other headphones. Even with brighter headphones I have like the Hifiman HE-500 and Sennheiser HD600, you can’t dig deep into the recording like you can with the Clear MGs. You would think it’s the opposite given how warm the Clear MG is, but somehow there’s so much more detail than those other headphones. There’s also a unique midrange presence that is hard to describe with the Clear MG unless you’ve heard it. Only thing I hate about the Clear MG is it’s ruined my other headphones for me… darn it.

rgdelato · August 16, 2021, 5:53pm

Quick update: The Clear MG pads visually look quite similar to the OG Clear pads, but to the touch, they have more resistance when you press into them, and they take longer to return to their original shape, kinda like a memory-foam-ish material. The OG Clear pads don’t offer much resistance and just immediately spring back when you press into them, so the two models definitely seem to use different pad material.

I happened to have some pretty well-worn OG Clear pads, so I tried putting them on my MG and I /think/ I prefer the MG with the OG pads over the stock pads, but I would need to give it more time. It does seem to clear up a lot of the muddiness I talked about in my earlier post, but it doesn’t seem quite as clean as an actual OG on first listen. If anyone else has both models, I would love to hear anyone else’s thoughts just to double-check that I’m not crazy! lol

exitwoundz · August 17, 2021, 8:56pm

Your comparison to the Eikon is really interesting as they too are my daily drive. I got a chance to try the Clear MG yesterday and I thought they were actually somewhat similar sounding.
However, the MGs were a clear and huge step up in technicalities, separation was flawless to my ears and the imaging was spectacular - and I mean spectacular. The dynamics, speed, punch - particularly how things like the rumble of thunder were depicted - all really top notch.

The timbre of Eikons, their physicality, all great things ofc. But I’m strongly considering getting those Clears…

rgdelato · August 18, 2021, 2:31am

Yay, we’re Eikon friends!

So first off, I definitely agree that the Clears have awesome dynamics and imaging. And yeah, the whole reason I bought them in the first place was for that step up in technical performance.

I guess I can understand the Clears and the Eikon sounding similar-ish, but now that I own them both, I do think of them as somewhat complimentary. I still prefer the Eikon for listening to stuff like swing jazz, soul music, and indie rock, which is a decent chunk of what I like to listen to. But for anything pop, electronic, rap, etc, I definitely prefer the Clears.

So yeah, if you get the Clears, make sure to keep the Eikon around for a little while and see how you feel between the two!

A couple of notes: I mostly listen to the Eikon with the Auteur lambskin pads, and as I wrote above, I’m pretty sure I prefer the Clear MG with the OG pads, both of which make their respective headphones less warm than the stock pads (and maybe makes them sound more different from each other to me?).

exitwoundz · August 18, 2021, 3:54pm

I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I’d be able to have both and be complimentary. I think that’s a very good way to have them as the Aryas I had before were really like chalk and cheese compared to the Eikons. Whereas the Clears offer something more refined and elegant compared to the Eikon (substantially more so) but not at the expense of feeling like it pulls the music apart or so. And timbre I genuinely didn’t find to be so much worse on the Clears that it was a big loss compared to the Eikons, whereas the Aryas had very planar timbre and far too much sibilance.

I’ve not tried the auteur lambskin pads, I tend to only use my Eikon lambskins although I bought a pair of Suedes a couple of years ago, not a big fan of those for how they soften the sound. I’d be interested to try some auteur pads at some point or some others, I know perforated pads are a big no no on the Eikons though.

rgdelato · August 18, 2021, 4:39pm

Yeah, suedes usually aren’t my thing either. Also, ZMF sells Auteur pads without the perforations [link], so no worries on that. They’re basically identical to the Eikon pads with just a slightly larger earhole opening, but soundwise, it increases the sense of space at the cost of some of that bass boomy-ness.

exitwoundz · August 18, 2021, 10:50pm

I’ll definitely give that a strong consideration actually. Although for now I think I’ll probably be happy to get the Clears. I’m strongly thinking about getting them for Friday if I can.

One of the other big things I like about them is their ease of driving, should be pretty good to take on holiday and stuff and just use around the house out of most anything, and long term pick up something like a Diablo and a 4.4mm pentaconn for some really overkill performance on the go.

exitwoundz · August 20, 2021, 10:46pm

Got my pair in today and have been using them all day - a pretty stark difference to the Aryas. Been leaving them on/off, burning in with deep medi when I’m away, and I definitely think that has made a difference.

Many of my observations from before are still there, I find their tone pretty agreeable to great, they pick out a lot more detail, separate much better, and are more consistent through the FR. Going back to the Eikons at the end of the day I find myself noticing them substantially more bereft of the qualities of the Clears… but not alarmingly so (to the point of non enjoyment) and also not really more impressed with the tone. A great complimentary pair.

The Clears overall feel like a genuine step up. I’m excited to see over the course of getting used to them and dialling in low or high gain on my Singxer SA-1 (Low seems better but high definitely may make more sense) how they’ll improve with more time. My biggest gripe currently is the seeming quietness/softness of voices, something I hope does improve or possibly I may EQ.

Brief comparisons to the Arya from memory: Arya does to my ears outresolve the Clears. Clears are still resolving, but Arya thinness and planar timbre gives it that advantage.
Also the Aryas do have similarly ‘big’ sounds to them like the Eikons do, but the Clears are not really small sounding eitther. However the Aryas absolutely were way, way more sibiliant and nowhere near as dynamic. Extremely obvious with anything that involves/involved an ess sound.

exitwoundz · August 26, 2021, 7:53pm

Had them quite a couple days now (week tomorrow), I have a lot of longer thoughts (almost all positive) I’d like to share later but I have a single question:

I’m using my Singxer SA-1 amp with these which is a really amazing sounding and powerful amp, but if you know of it you may know it has a bit of a quirk with volume - the pot is really slow so you only really get volume at the top end, and the high gain is only 11db. This means most headphones need to be cranked, even on high gain. I can get it loud enough on low, but on high I have way more travel (90% vs 50%).

Should I be using low or high? To my ears high gain does seem more impactful and louder, but possibly not evenly. Possibly less dynamic with quieter details more compressed, although drum impacts are harder and such.

rgdelato · August 26, 2021, 8:55pm

Might be worth asking in the SA-1 thread? (Though this feels a bit like a “trust your ears” kind of question.)

Pokrog · August 26, 2021, 10:21pm

Use what sounds best. It’s that simple.

exitwoundz · August 26, 2021, 10:55pm

I suspect I might be getting some harshness and distortion as I push it closer to max on low gain… it’s realy quite hard to say. It may be that I have to switch per song which is admittedly… not great because of where the switches are. But that may actually be more down to the recordings, I would need to do more testing.

Small edit: going back to the Eikons it’s pretty staggering how much clearer and more complete the image is on the Clears. They’re really a crazy step ahead, and impact outside of drums isn’t actually that much worse.

But by far the most fascinating thing really is… these don’t leak very much sound at all. Even quite loud I think you could pretty easily use these at night and not bother people where HD650s and such would be very obvious. Really challenges my original use case for Eikons

rgdelato · August 27, 2021, 9:27pm

@GoldenOne Saw your most recent video on the WA22, just curious, do you have Clear pads on your Focal Elex? How are you liking the pad swap?

exitwoundz · August 30, 2021, 4:21pm

I find it slightly shocking how essentially redundant these headphones have made my Eikons - I really didn’t expect them to be tuned so similarly and yet be such a step up in most areas.

I think the only thing I’m not the biggest fan of is possibly the upper midrange/treble lacking just as much bite as I’d like, and a bit of nasalness/honkiness - essentially I’d like some instruments to step out a bit more through the warmth/veil. High treble pushed me away from the Aryas but I do find the MGs a little too stepped back for how otherwise detailed they are. The basic high boost (although not perfect) on Peace seems to lift things in the right direction so I do think it’s something I’ll have to look into.

But it is fascinating how you still get all the detail despite that. It’s a little warm for me to say it’s outright clear, but it is a distinct, developed image with great imaging and not nearly so heavily at the expense of physicality in the sound.