Personally, I donāt think the price is entirely worth it compared to the $700 Elex in terms of purely sound quality, assuming you already have an Elex. You get a very small upgrade in terms of technical performance. Iāve only had the Clear for a day, so I canāt make any final decisions right now. However, you arenāt missing a crazy amount with the Elex vs the Clear to my ears. The main reason I got the Clear is because I wanted the Elex type sound but with better support from Focal and warranty, carrying case, available (better quality) pads (because the Elex pad long term availability is not looking good, and they are clearly cheaper made than Clear Pro pads). And actually, the build quality is better on the Clear Pro, the headband is not creaky at all, and there are tighter tolerances for sure.
If you donāt have an Elex yet, Iād say it is worth saving up for a used Clear if you can get it around $1,000. If you already have the Elex, just get some Clear earpads (which do feel and look higher quality than Elex pads) and that is very close to what the Clears sound tonality wise. The Clear does have noticeably tighter and better controlled bass and smoother in the treble. Since the Elex exists at $700, I personally think the Clear should be at $1,000 and not $1,500.
I swapped some pads with the Clear to more compressed Elex pads, and I could barley tell a difference in the bass response, aside from it being slightly warmer than normal. I canāt comment on how similar it is to the Elegia, as Iāve never tried it.
So, third day of listening, probably 5 or so hours total listening so far with the Clear. Yup, it has more treble extension, bass extension, and better resolution than the Elex. I did pad swapping between the two, EQ experimenting, different amps (RME ADI-2 DAC, JDS Labs Atom, FiiO Q1 MKII), the Clear sounds amazing out of all of them. The Clear is like a brighter, smoother, more articulate Elex, which surprised me because some reviewers were saying the Clear is actually warmer than the Elex, there is no way they are to my ears. More neutral, smoother in the top end, a little brighter, and flatter in the mid bass. Perhaps a little less mid bass slam than the Elex, but itās cleaner and more detailed. The Elex never sounded all that airy to me above 10-11 kHz, even compared to the HD600, and yet it had a spike at 10.5 kHz that made things sound weird. The Clear has a similar peak at 10.5 kHz, but has quite a bit more air. Using a little EQ, the Clear is easily my new āendgameā (for now), along with the Sundara which surprisingly holds itās own against the Clear.
Uh oh, guess Iāll be selling the Elex soonā¦ lol.
iām copy+pasting the impressions about the Clear i just purchased, that i wrote in another thread. Mind you, iām not an experienced audiophile, just a guy whoās hobbies are hoarding gear and listening to music. (and sometimes trying to play the guitar)
jep, my first placebo-impressions didnāt fool me. I love these headphone. Thereās so much going on, but i try to pick out the most outstanding features:
detail. Detail everywhere. Itās like looking into an 8K-monitor. If you focus onto one spot, one instrument you just can pick up more. Or you just donāt focus at all and youāll get suprised by details you didnāt ever hear in your music, i guess thatās what resolve reviews spoke about when he said, that the Clear shoves the detail in you faceā¦ but it does it in way, that still sounds natural. so great.
wonderful, engaging, sweet tonality. You can get all the bass, highs and detail you want - if a HP isnāt nice to you, you donāt like it. This is. The tonality is engaging and delightful. One thing i want to bring up to the table: Being a brighter HP, it sure reminds me of my HD700. It reminds me, what i actually really, really liked about my 700sā¦ itās a sound signature i can only describe a ācitrusā or ālimeā. Like really sweet with a hint of bitter. So might the Clear be what the HD700 should have been as an upgrade from the 6XX series? Musical, neutral, transparent like the HD600 but with more detail an a sweeter sound?
the perfect balance of analytical, technical, musical and fun. I let this stand as it is.
bass: yes, it has perfect bass for me. Detailed and deep for sure but much more like what i think of when talking about a dynamic headphone. Not the sound of planets crushing against each other like planars do, but much more like ājust the right amountā to let the the sound and music express itself the way it should be enjoyed. Iām talking rubbish, i know. But itās what iām hearing.
if i listen to stuff like youtube i constantly have the feeling the my Clear is bored. Itās like it constantly shouts ācome at me bro!!ā but doesnāt get challenged. What i mean is, that the sheer quality of the gear on my head seems somewhat out of proportion compared to the rest of my gear and what iām listening to most of times. This is GREAT, since iām confident it will scale well with upgrading everything in the future. That also reminds me of Tylls saying itās the first time he could say thatās a HP worth over a thousand dollars. Yep, you can just hear it. Fair deal for me.
but it still does one thing really right: even if itās bored with lower quality recordings, they STILL sound nice and engaging. You sure might hear things where you realize how low quality something is, yes, but you still have an overall nice experience.
they sound confident. If you pick out an instrument like i.e. a snare drum, youāre like āyes, thatās how itās really supposed to sound likeā. It get this quite often currently, depends on the recording obviously.
Well, what can i say ā¦ reading all this rubbish i just wrote ā¦ i guess the Clears have made me an audiophile at last?
Iām really curious how my journey with it will continue. Last words: if i had known how good theeeese are compared to what i would buy instead in the last years, it would have directly gone for them and actually saved money not buying the other rubbish.
I completely agree with you about not challenging the Clear enough. Genres that are slow paced, smooth with not much percussion, you would think the Clear is only a little better than some much less expensive headphone. But, the moment you put something on that is fast and hits hard with the drums and low bass, immediately the Clear makes you think those instruments are happening right outside your ear in real life! The dynamics and realism is just crazy.
i have to add one more thing, as i wrote somewhere already, i also own a B&W P9. Yes, that B&W P9. I actually still sorta like it for itās unique sound, nice sweet highs etc., takes a bit more brain adjustment time than usual, but after that (and if you can tolerate the comfort issues) itās ā¦ ok for me. Before that i owned the P5s and it really, really like those. I also have the P7 which are exquisit. But the reason i was so interested in the P9 was the sheer amount of expertise a speaker company like B&W has. I wish they made a flagship that sounds extremely well and more like speakers, completely different then the Sennheisers, Beyers etc. so i also was mildly dissapointed. But i know now, that the Focal Clear are exactly that dream An authentic HiFi product by an authentic HiFi company, HPs that sound like really, really good speakers and more. The refinement is what gets me everytime. Wow.
Wanted to get input on a Focal clear used purchaseā¦ I have 2 members on headfi that have pmād me to sell their sets of Focal Clears (no pro version).
The first member is a well known poster with 200+ positive feedback. He wants $700 +shipping + pp fees and the cups/headband look decent.
The second member joined in 2013 but has 0 posts/feedback on headfi but gave me a user id on ebay to lookup history/feedback on. He wants $500 + shipping + paypal and the pads/headband or in worse shape but priced lower.
Pads of the Clear suck so badā¦The headband nothing to do. best you can hope for is some kind of cover for it (asked my wife to nitt something in a soft fabric for mine).
So when buying used you wanna make sure those drivers are still good. You can try some dekoni velour, it changes the sound but you can live with it (my opinion).
Personally i would go with the person that inspires you must confidence regardless of that price diference (those 200 hundred get you a new set of focal pads though).
Sorry if this is not very helpful but its always a gamble i guess.
would you feel comfortable buying for a headfi member that joined in 2013 but 0 posts, 0 feedback, and 0 transactions? Even if that person provided you an ebay id, was going to use paypal for payment, and priced their product below market?
Have you confirmed it is actually his ebay feedback? If you havenāt already, you should at least submit a question to his account from ebay, and get a response back from the seller.
Yeah, I would recommend sending a Message to his Ebay ID for verification, ask for photos with a timestamp of todays date and his username as well as ebay username if needed written on a card in the picture, make sure you use paypal and have an invoice(seller can send you and invoice through use of email) so you have sale protection and of course a tracking number. If he trys to scam you going through all those steps still you can turn him into paypal and get your money back.
Got my clears in today and thanks for the tips for covering my butt on the transactionā¦ I ended up getting them for $500 and they are in 8/10 shape (pad/headband wear) so Iām incredibly happy it worked out well!
Iāve only spent 2 hours with them today but all the praise heaped on them is well warranted as they are quite enjoyable and do everything incredibly well. I actually love the stock cables as I sit 8 feet from the amps so they do quite well when stretched out although if it was sitting 4 feet away I could see the issues.
Have had a few days with these and they pretty much handle everything you throw at them with ease. Any genre I push at them then can reproduce exceptionally āclearlyā.
I donāt listen to much rap but they did struggle with a few of the tones around the 20hz level in that there is some driver distortion. Sound stage is intimate but not phone both closed. The mids/highs are right on point and I get 0 sibilance as I am extremely sensitive to that. Overall detail and speed are exceptional as are fit and comfort.
They arenāt the best at any single thing but they are nearly as good on everything aspect they are now the point guards of my collection. If you get get a pair around $750 or below used I say 100% it should be a go.
