Thatās a great question. Sorry Iām not going to have a better answer, but headphones are personal things, especially fit. Both my mom and my girlfriend refuse to even put a headphone on their heads. Iāve heard mixed results over the FOCAL design. FOCAL headphones are extremely well designed and made from durable materials. That also means they arenāt light. But they arenāt LCD4ās either. You need to try them and find out for yourself if theyāre right for you.
Point of entry could be an Elex or Elegia. I just sold an Elex for 500 and the Elegia for 300 both in mint condition. Just know that moving to the OG or MG Clear over the Elex will be a substantial upgrade, especially if you have the right rig to drive them.
Personally, Iāve never had issue with the comfort or fit of FOCAL headphones, but because of how the headband is constructed, if someone has either a wider or more narrow head than usual, they may have fit issues since the headband is fairly fixed and does not clamp anything like a 600 series Sennheiser.
The 6XX weighs almost nothing but has a lot of clamp force. You just need to break it in and get the clamp right for your comfort and I feel the 6XX is very comfortable. I still have a 6XX. Fantastic timbre and midrange but not much anything else. A total steal for its price though.
Thanks for the reply. And I understand that fit is highly subjective. I live in a major metropolitan city where I know I can try out the Clear/Clear MG fairly easily - well, before COVID - havenāt taken a subway trek inā¦ over a year now, so a little leery about that, but youāre right - only true answer to my question would be to try the fit for myselfā¦
Have a Bifrost 2 + Asgard 3, with a Lake People G111 in the mail, so fairly confident I can drive whatever pretty well.
I know the Arya probably wonāt fit me well - had to send the Ananda back, despite liking the sound, because the pressure of the oddly shaped cups against my jaw/upper neck were too distracting/annoying over more than a few minute periods of wear. HD800s Iām curious about the soundstage and detail but enough people seem to not love themā¦ Clearās seem good but heavy, and Crinacle seemed not to like the MG at all - which worries me because I love the Blessing 2 and Thieaudio Monarch, which he does too. ZMFs seem very idiosyncratic, wouldnāt buy any of those w/o trying.
Sorry for thinking out loud here and no need to reply ha. Hopefully this interior monologue is of some benefit to this board.
To ease your mind a bit about liking the Clear Mg, if you like how the 6XX sound then youāll like the Clear Mg. It is pretty much the closest thing to a direct upgrade the HD6X0 series has.
As for the 800/800S/8XX, what to know about those is that they have very specific things they are good at, and for those things they are either the best or among the best. But everything else, not so much. Specifically, if you listen to a lot of classical or orchestral, then they may be something you want to look into at some point, otherwise, unless you are getting them to add to a large collection Iām not sure Iād bother personally.
I listen to a very wide array of music - ambient, electronic, jazz, all kinds of different rock, classical, etc. The only music I specifically use my 6xxās to attentively listen to is like Neil Young and Beach House, but I have them on my ears plenty all the same, if only for how pleasing they sound while being so comfortable - so I listen to loads of ambient/electronic (like echospace[detroit] music, Tetsu Inoue, Astral Industries label, etc - and love it all on my 6xx, even though it sounds objectively better, say, on my Monarchs.
But the important thing I guess is that Iām definitely not opposed to warmth, so long as thereās still detail and range there, and generally just way better technicals, while also sounding natural (and not metallic, like how the OG Clear is sometimes characterized as). So as you say, it sounds like the Focal Clear MG absolutely could be a headphone Iād love. The Crinacle thing still does worry me though - feel like his taste is about as close as mine Iāve come across in a reviewer thus far. Iāll try and try them out soon enough.
There is plenty of detail to be had with the Clear Mg, and they have apparently gotten rid of the metallic harshness that sometimes cropped up on the OG, but I canāt personally confirm that as Iāve never heard the OG Clear. And I really wouldnāt put much stock into Crinacleās review, that got discussed earlier in the thread and if I recall it was (mostly?) agreed that headfiās review was the most accurate to those of us who had the Mg.
Its more of a one trick pony headphoneā¦ it does soundstage really well and can image really wellā¦ but thats really about it for most people lol. Itās bright as hell with peaks that can be sharper than a beyer 1990, if you can tolerate it though its a very good headphone for the most partā¦ personally even though I preference bright headphones I despise that oneā¦ I would take the Arya over the 800s any day of the week easily as not only is the signature quite similar I feel the tuning and presentation of the arya in comparison is a hell of a lot better and more tolerable let alone much more enjoyable. The comfort was a miss for me as well on the 800s as the designs a bit weird and unwieldy to me.
see, I know what people are talking aboutā¦ and I agree it is dealt withā¦ but I actually kinda enjoyed that more metallic sound from OG lol.
If itās any consideration, I have the Monarch and itās my favorite IEM. I prefer listening to everything with it, but I just donāt want IEMs plugged into my brain all the time. I love the Monarch and the Clear MG.
As open back headphones go, FOCAL Clear, either OG or MG are some of the best.
Thanks, thatās definitely good to know - Monarchs (after an admittedly, and oddly, rough breaking in period - bass sounded bloated, highs shouty) have become my favorite listening device for sure as well. But like you, even with the XELASTEC tips molded to my ears, having IEMs jammed in there all day isnāt ideal.
Iāll try and see if I can demo the Clear MG, but Iām plenty more excited now.
You think they scale reasonably, also? I heard theyāre very easily drivable, but that doesnāt always mean they canāt scale and sound better with nicer sources. I enjoy allowing my sources shine.
Day 2 impressions. Itās a real shame how the MG punishes ānot so goodā recorded music. I was so disappointed in Rod Stewartās greatest hits and Van Halen 5150. Hell, Abba sounds better.
Disclaimer: All my music files are flac files downloaded from Tidal.
Has anyone tried the Mg pads on the original clear? Also, is the red on the clear professional Mg the same red as the regular clear professional? I was thinking of picking up Mg pads for my clears further down the line.
I actually have my elex pads on my MG hoping the wife wonāt notice . Iāll eventually try the reds on, and make an excuse. Still outclasses the elex by alot!
The Clear are notorious for being capable of scaling with better and better equipment. @M0N who has a lot more experience with amps and dacs has spoken about the OG Clears ability to scale with better and better equipment, but he has yet to hear the MG.
I only have two dac/amp stacks and three mobile amps, so I canāt speak from experience. Sorry.
They scale to a bit of an annoying degree lol. I own both OG and MG and they are roughly the same in this regardā¦ in that they are picky as hell to what they are sourced tooā¦ I would highly encourage if someone plans to get this headphone to make sure you have an amp thats higher than an asgard 3 so something like the jotunheim 2 over there, one of toppings higher ends, rnhp, etc something in the higher price brackets that can synergize with this one.
not to say it doesnāt perform with asgard and othersā¦ just absolutely not to the fullest
I absolutely feel like they have more to give me than the Jot2 offers, as much as I like them together. I might get part of that when I finally pull the trigger on buying the Bifrost 2, but I can see myself spending between 1.5-2k on a new amp towards the end of the year for something to really make them shine.
They do scale VERY well. I ordered a Decware Zen Taboo for them (itāll work with my other headphones as well, of course), thatās how much I like them.
