So no particular situational or professional means. Mostly itās just to have something interesting thatās closed-back in that price range yeah.
Well, Iāve joined the club.
I wanted an āerrand headphoneā for when I do things around my apartment, and most of my headphones are open backs, so I jumped at the Adorama deal to finally get a good closed back. Also, Iāve been wanting to try out Focal for ages, and the Clear are beyond my current budget, so I figured the Elegia will give me a taste of that Focal sound, while providing the benefits of a closed back.
The deal was for $299, but after tax, shipping, customs, and exchange, I paid about $545 CAD total, which is around $405 USD all-in. If I were to buy them locally in Canada, the current deal Iāve seen is $550 pre-tax, which is about $620 after tax. So I saved ~$75 CAD by going with Adorama.
Anyways, in terms of the Focal Elegia, itās way too early for a review, but here are a few preliminary thoughts:
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Build. The build quality is fantastic. France isnāt kidding around. These things feel like a piece of fashion. The unboxing experience was nice and the carrying case has so much attention and care that went into it. The zipper is high quality and even ships with little plastic protectors, the shape of the case is perfectly molded, and even that little velcro thing that wraps the cable has a little velcro wrap within the velcro wrap so that it latches on to one piece of cable to allow you to wrap the rest of the cable. Focalās attention to detail is really impressive. The headphones even smell like a piece of high end fashion, if that makes sense.
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Cable. Everything people are saying about the cable is exactly right. I got the updated rubber version, and it still feels well built with nice rubber and beautiful connectors, but all of that is moot because the thing is stiff as hell. It may be a nice piece of fashion, but itās terrible for actual usability.
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Aesthetics. The headphones themselves are absolutely beautiful. Even though these are the lowest headphone in Focalās lineup and they use plastic cups, theyāre still gorgeous. The colour choices. The metal yokes. The Focal logo vent. The chamfered edges. The shiny screws. The matching pads and headband. This is all beautiful stuff.
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Size. The headphones are huge. These are bigger than I expected. There have already been several occasions where Iāve inadvertently knocked the cup with my hand when going to scratch my head because the cups jut out so far. Not really, a complaint, just an observation. It might take a bit of getting used to.
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Comfort. I find these pretty comfortable, but finicky. The positioning of the cups affects both the comfort and the sound. Initially I had each cup extended to the 4th notch, and just by pulling them to the 5th notch, that improved the sound by lowering the cups relative to my ears. Also, because these things are so big and unusual, I find that whenever I go back to another pair of headphones, they suddenly feel weird. My brain needs to get re-acclimated to the feel of my other headphonesā cups each time.
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Portable Amp. In terms of amplification, I tried these with my Apple dongle and they sounded a bit congested. For a headphone that is supposedly very easy to drive, the volume on my iPhone had to be almost as high as it is for my 300 ohm Senn 6XX, and I actually find the dongle drives the 6XX better than the Elegia in terms of sound. So Iām considering getting a portable amp/dac like a Qudelix 5K for these. Does anyone have experience with an iPhone + Qudelix 5K + Elegia?
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Desktop Amp. For desktop amplification, I have a PC with a Xonar sound card hooked up to a Topping L30. Those seem to power the Elegia much better than the dongle does. And for reference, I play them on medium gain at about 9:30 on the L30ās dial, whereas my 6XX and K702 are on high gain around there. So in that respect, the Elegia require less power.
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Sound. Now, as far as the actual sound, Iāll need a lot more time with these before evaluating. My first impression is good, but a little weird. Some songs sound much better than others and there is some odd tuning going on. I can tell that thereās a fair bit of information/detail in there, but some songs have this weird recessed sound where a particular vocal might sound like itās hidden behind something. Itās strange because certain things sound really good, while other things donāt. Like others have said, there isnāt a lot of bass, but I wouldnāt consider myself a basshead anyway.
I donāt have much else to say about the sound yet because I havenāt listened enough to really form an opinion. All Iāll say so far is that the headphones sound good, but they havenāt absolutely knocked my socks off. Iām not sure where theyāll end up ranking in my list (see below), but my spur-of-the-moment first impression is that they donāt sound like $900 USD. Their build and aesthetics are the best of any headphone I own, but the sound is merely good, not mind-blowing. It doesnāt upend the below list with a Tier 0 or anything like that. These will either end up falling into Tier 2 or maybe Tier 1 for me. It remains to be seen which. And I donāt know about EQ. Iāve never been one to EQ anything, but since a lot of people recommend it, I may give it a shot at some point.
Just to get an idea of where Iām coming from with all of the above thoughts, here are the headphones I currently own and how Iād rank them:
Tier 1:
Sennheiser HD 6XX
Grado Hemp
AKG K702
Tier 2:
Denon AH-D750
AirPods Pro 2
AirPods Max
Grado SR-60
Koss KPH30i (the technicals are Tier 3, but I love the tuning so much on this)
Tier 3:
Koss KSC-75
Koss PortaPro
Powerbeats Pro
AirPods Pro
Audio Technica ATH-M50
Audio Technica ATH-A900
Tier 4:
AirPods OG
BeatsX
Nothing in the kilobuck range yet, although if things go well with work, Iām going to treat myself to an Arya Stealth in a few months. But for the time being, Iām mostly familiar with mid-fi territory.
Now that I have the Elegia, they are the highest MSRP headphone I own, although they were only the 3rd most expensive in actual cost to me, after the AirPods Max and the Grado Hemp.
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Well, Iām liking the Elegia. It sounds interesting, different and very involving. I was expecting a worse headphone. I only listen to soundtracks.
Iāll see if Iāll make a comparison with one of them.
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Interesting, especially the part about AKG K702. I feel the K700/600 donāt get enough love for their spacious and laid back sound.
As for the qudelix question, I canāt say specifically to this combo but the Elegia takes well to EQ. I used PEACE for EQ in my PC for a bass boost and some treble corrections (see Resolve EQ suggestions on YT). I find this small changes makes the headphones better at more generic music, a little less āin your faceā but still with that nice tactility from Focal.
My suggestion is trying it yourself and see how it goes, maybe try PEACE or other EQ software in the iphone (android user so canāt help much, sorry).
Enjoy the music!
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I can absolutely vouch for this. I use Peace EQ in my desktop setup and I love it. You can do all kinds of cool things with it to correct anything you wish to in the sound signature. The real nice thing, though, is if you want Peace to be off, you can turn it off and it is actually off! Now, in my bedroom system, I use a physical EQ, a wonderful vintage Realistic 7 band-per-channel unit. And the Elegia responds beautifully to both. I just feel that overall, the Elegia is a very solid performer, and well worth the 400-ish dollar price tag. I also have the Radiance, and both get used multiple times a week.
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Speaking of EQā¦
I recently picked up a Qudelix 5k for IEMs, running on Mac OS I havenāt found any parametric EQ software with all of oratory1990 / crinnacleās EQ profiles pre-loaded like the 5k has (suggestions welcome if anyone knows of one!)
Well, I thought Iād try the 5k as a desktop dac/amp for Elegiaās with oratory1990ās Elegia profile pre-loaded. Then, on OSX, I added a bit of my EQ bump - slightly more bass and highs for an exciting sound.
Holy smokes! These sound absolutely incredible once level set by oratory1990ās profile, fixes all the issues I was hearing!
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Rogue Amoebaās SoundSource
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Do you use it? Itās my first time hearing about it, I did find this reddit thread where one user claims the EQ profiles are ā10 band approximationsā of oratory1990ās parametric profiles rather than exact replicas - but this thread is 2 years old, so Iām wondering if it still holds true. If SoundSource uses full parametric EQ profiles now this is a definite purchase from me. Source for reddit thread:
I do use it and I like it. Iāve seen that controversy, but I donāt know that Rogue Amoeba ever addressed it.
Aside from the AutoEQ presets, SoundSource can also use plug-ins like the all ones Garage Band uses and also the Audeze Reveal presets. It is simply excellent, updated frequently, and worth every penny of its low price.
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Excellent, Iām going to follow up with their support about the nature of Parametric presets but otherwise Iām sold. If it can rival what Qudelix presets can do, it will be a marvel
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This is indeed the droid weāre looking for, see the response I got from their support. Literally about 30 min after I sent the request over to them!
"
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for getting in touch with us about your interest in our software. As noted by the Reddit user florinandrei in the post you shared, that issue was fixed in a development build two years ago. The profiles use full parametric EQ and match the dataset provided by the AutoEq project.
If youāre interested in trying SoundSource to make sure it works to your satisfaction, you can download a free trial of SoundSource from this page on our site:
Keep in mind, while using the trial, after 20 minutes of use, noise is overlaid on any audio being adjusted by SoundSource. Quit and relaunch SoundSource to reset the trial as many times as you want for further testing time.
I hope thatās helpful information but let me know if you have any other questions.
ā
Aaron Wasserman
Rogue Amoeba
"
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Thatās pretty a pretty forthright response.
Looks like you are good-to-go and can use other DACs and Amps in addition to the very good Qudelix 5K.
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Yea color me impressed with Rogue Amoeba, canāt wait to try out SoundSource. Parametric presets are a game changer for a lot of HP like Elegia that have great technical capability and are otherwise highly desirable, but suffer from a widely unlikeable stock FR. Iām pretty sure statistically Elegia has to have one of the least well liked stock FRs, but then applying oratory1990s profile would probably catapult this HP to most peoplesā default fav closed back in the price bracket.
What Elegia does that most other closed backs of similar pricing donāt have is the cup treatment - some sort of strategically placed padding behind the driver, that gives it this really nice decay and extra soundstage. Once EQād to a decent FR, suddenly this HP becomes best in price bracket for closed back, no competition that I am aware of. Add in its portability, drivability, looks for office work, comfort, and idk how youād recommend a different set for the same use case beyond just major stock FR preference.
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Iāve been late to the game with getting the elegia but could not pass up a good deal at adorama. These are the best closed back I have ever heard. Really enjoy the tuning.
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I love mine. You should look into doing a pad swap
I did this and Itās a really nice improvement over the stock pads.
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To be honest I kinda like the stock pads they are comfortable and the bass is perfect.
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Elegiaās have a great sale right now and I miss the Elex I sold. Is this a good replacement?
I currently own HD600, Anandaās and LCD2F for my main rotation. Are these a good complement?
Any idea how the Elegiaās scale on better dac /amp?
Anyone try these on a portable gaming system?
Thanks!
I picked these up and I didnāt find them to be anything special. From your collection I donāt know if they do anything that your other headphones donāt do but that is just my opinion and YMMV.
To be honest though the only closed backs I have found that I like so far have been the T60 argons.
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Theyāre very easy to drive; I do not find them to scale much. And I much prefer the HD600 and Anandas, so unless you particularly need a closed-back, Iād just send me the money instead.
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Haha well thanks for saving my wallet! Their only use would be late night gaming when everyone is sleeping, but the wife is a heavy sleeper anyways.