Thereās no reason for such stiff cables on any of the focals itās annoying
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I am confused. I have been listening to the Clears for quite a while, but these have very little slam and rumble in the bass. Is this just me? They are very clear sounding, but definitely not much in terms of quantity of bass.
Quality more than quantity.
It seems the general consensus on Clear vs. Elex is the Clear is a little brighter (cleaner) and is better extended in the sub bass, would this be accurate to assume? I have the Elex right now, wondering if the Clear offers enough of a different sound to justify the purchase. Itās hard for me to imagine something that outperforms the Elex in terms of technical ability, so the Clears must be something else if everyone is saying theyāre better.
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So here is the thing, what amp do you have at the moment? In order to actually extract a substantial leap forward in performance from the clears you need to upgrade to a higher tier amp. Generally the clears are a leap forward from a technical standpoint, but compared to the elex signature wise they are going to be more neutral (so upgrade in performance but sidegrade in signature if you have a higher end amp)
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Iām using the RME ADI-2 DAC right now, both as a dac and headphone amp. Itās really good with every headphone I throw at it.
adi-2 FS or the og adi-2 dac?
Personally I do think you could get more in the future from the clear with a higher tier external amp, but I think it would drive the clear pretty sufficiently imo
Focals in my experience are extremely amp dependent for sound
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For sure, they really do appreciate good amp quality and will preform pretty lackluster on less than ideal amps
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Yeah. My stellias are just a little bit too, uh, polite on my chord dac on low gain but if I switch to high gain and turn the volume down to match volume back when in low gain, the sound becomes much richer and full bodied.
Same with running them medium gain off my black label but that dac amp has some interesting quirks to it
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Between the elex and clear, what difference is there between width, depth, and height in stage?
They have similar width, but the clear has more depth and better recreation of verticality depending on the amp imo
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I just pulled the trigger on the clears. Everyone seems to compare it to the aryas and pick the arya. Hope I donāt regret itā¦
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Honestly I could own both the arya and the clear and be happy, personally I canāt say I really prefer one over the other
How does the ZMF Auteur compare to them both?
I could only afford to buy one as of the moment. Would you say they can both compliment each other in a collection?
So generally I will say that both the clear and the arya have fairly unique presentation and spatial recreation (where the clear is a bit more intimate spherical/bubble with lots of depth and the arya is a more grand some might say speaker like presentation) where the auteur is going to be more average/normal imo (but still good). Timbre wise I think the autuer has the most natural timbre and most organic sound. Control wise I might say depending on the amp the clear has the most control out of the bunch at times. Impact wise the auteur has the most organic impact where the arya has the largest sounding impact, the clear sits in the middle imo. Detail wise, I might actually argue the clear has the most detail retrieval for the price but that depends on the amp and the arya can be more reliably detailed, auteur isnāt far behind both tbh. Both the clear and auteur are something I would call neutral, and the arya is more bright neutral I would say. In terms of smoothness or forgivingness, the auteur seems to be the most forgiving, but the clear can actually be forgiving at times, where the arya can feel more raw at times. In terms of refinement I do think the clear and auteur sound more refined than the arya. Amp wise for pairing it can really depend the arya is clearly the most amp dependent in terms of power, but the clear is the most amp picky quality wise, the auteur sits somewhere in the middle
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I think if you didnāt mind having 2 neutral cans I think they are different enough to justify owning both if you want different flavors of neutral (which is pretty worthwhile)
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