The Elegia strike me as placing you in a very well-damped, relatively small studio room, where the instruments are well-delineated throughout the space. They donāt have quite the natural bass slam of the E-mu Teaks, but just sound more refined overall with a slightly mid-forward character and good dynamics. I hear what people say about metallic timbre, but to my ears itās nowhere near as intrusive as the planar timbre of a 4xx or Sundara, and can be reduced with EQ. And they isolate somewhat better than the Teaks.
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Still listening and comparing so donāt have much to comment just yet on, but Iāll say this:
- The Elegia are very comfortable. Theyāve got a stronger than typical clamp force but the pads are very soft and forgiving. The HP-3 sometimes need adjusting to get into a comfortable position which can be kind of annoying, not to mention having Dekoni Nuggets or a ZMF Pilot Pad are a necessity. I love my HP-3 but I would say the Elegia win all day in terms of comfort.
- I need to do more listening/comparing, but thereās really no question in terms of detail - the HP-3 are great but it did not take long to hear more and more detail in the Elegia.
- Elegia are definitely a little more mid-foward as others have said while the HP-3 are more v-shaped, like a higher end Koss KPH30i. The bass can really be surprising though - In an eerie way I hear exactly what everyone is saying about how sometimes the bass seems a little subdued and other times it really packs a punch; it seems to depend on the track.
- Iām kind of perplexed on a few of the complaints I read about build quality: These look and feel very premium to me.
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Soā¦ this happened. I guess I am part of the club now? It just didnāt feel right not purchase this, like it was more wrong not to or something? lol
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Letās goooooooooooooo
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Welcome to the Elegion!
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Damn it Adorama. Stop with the sales so that I can sell my Elegiaās, lol
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I personally have different experience.
The difference between a Fiio E10k and (SP200+Sanskrit 10th MK2) is huge on the Elegia. The Fiio sounds undefined, 1 Dimensional, compressed and harsh. While the sp200 sounds perfect
i havenāt heard em so i cant really say. but isnāt it possible that the elegia is just revealing enough to show their qualities? in adition i mean the full potential without amplifier is kinda already there, dosent need much juice is my point. There will still be differences in amps
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Yes, the elegia doesnt need strong amplification, but it certainly needs atleast good quality amplification. For example: my huawei p20 pro drives them reasonably loud, but the elegias technical abilities would be equivalent of only something like a hd58x. The elegias technical abilities are actually much greater than that, which I can hear with my sp200.
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it{s not that it needs good quality amplification. it just has the ability to scale better. The 58x are bottlenecked after a decent amp. They dont sound much better on a higher end one, they dont scale much. but the elegia and ksc75 sound great off a shitty amp, but they also continue to scale on better ones
Focal Elegia Review:
Ive had these now for 2 months or so (kinda) and my initial thoughts on them have changed alot since i got new speakers with really nice tonality, bass etc. First things first, timbre is pretty good with acoustic stuff in particular i just hear congas, acoustic guitars etc it sounds soooooooo spot on. Thatās always a stand out thing with them, in adition voices sound good DIFFERENT but good. At first i thought that voices sounded super natural and had better timbre than alot of things that ive tried, honestly now im a bit more mixed on that. I think partially itās half because of the headphone tuning itself and half because of recordings, to an extent i believe that based off the elex and elegia the focal tuning sounds very very clear, clean and sparkly. Itās really neat where it sounds amazingly clear, zero grain while maintaining a good timbre and texture for the most part but i do think it exaggerates the cleanliness just a tad bit. Some music feels like it should have a bit more grit in it. BUT ultimately when listening to stuff like Autumn Vacation and then Busker Busker - Yeosu Sea its also evident that autumn vacation has that grit kinda recorded into it while busker busker is more clean sounding. So itās been a super transparent headphone in that way, where stuff that was recorded to sound more clean does sound really clean and stuff that naturally has grit, texture sounds a bit more natural as it should. So the elegias impose the clean sound signature a fair bit, but not overboard for the most part. And it sounds amazing when listening to everything that i typically listen to! Some stuff shines better with the sound sig and some worse. I love the extra clarity and sparkle it adds to stuff like Red Velvet - Psycho, Exo - Call me baby and SNSD - Beep Beep. It just exactly what i look for with music like that, so much sparkle that compliments my kpop. LOVE IT. With other stuff that dosent necessarily sound good with sparkle like Orishas - Atrevido and Nujabes - Waiting for the clouds it still manages to have nice punch in the bass and not mess with the texture on the music too much.
A combination of the dynamics/punch/slam and presentation are responsible for making the headphone sound very fun, engaging/aggressive. But these do it responsibly where they are still capable of sounding fairly calm enough for indie folk music like Juanes - La historia de juan, Haruka Nakamura - Lamp, basically im still able to just lay down and chill while listening to these lol, which the elex is a tough sell with. But indeed these are crazy engaging, so it will be like driving with a pair of breasts on top of your head, you feel them and know they are there but they dont hinder you too much. But you are always aware, that they are there.
Sound signature, indeed neutral bright. I didnāt really agree with calling them bright in any way but after using some more gear (particularly the iloud micros) i realized that they are fairly netural bright. I donāt know if i would call them revealing per say but i do think they are extremely transparent. The most transparent headphone ive ever used, if a song is recorded with tons of rich texture, warmth, grit etc it sounds like that without being too imposed on with a specific sound signature, just some extra clear/cleanliness to the sound. While if a super clean recording is what you are listening to, it just sounds extra clear lol and like it has less guts than the other stuff. It outputs whatever you input i guess, so all music sounds fairly different on the elegias.
Technical abilities, GREAT speed just phenominal stuff lol makes snares sound great on stuff like Odd Child - Island. Separation is also top tier, accentuates when a singer breathes to sing the next line, also gives all instruments their own space and dosenāt really have too much trouble when handling busy music like OndatrĆ³pica - Cumbia especial. Ridiculously good dynamics with super nice and hard slam that makes all music sound extra fun and i particularly enjoy with stuff like Die Antword- Happy Go Sucky Fucky, Kanye West - Touch the Sky. Strange-ish tonality but good, good imaging but strange.
Incredibly long story short, super balanced, transparent fast headphone with crazy dynamics. Solid rec for neutral bright whores.
Pz: shout out to stella jang, odd child and dua lipa. Up and coming artists that are worth a listen
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Thanks for your insight, canāt wait to get mine tomorrow and compare with everyoneās thoughts!
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Good work, @Jose_G. I like how you focused on different aspects of the sound more than I did in my review. Good to have that variety on the thread (and in other threads).
I keep noticing that it takes my brain a few minutes to get used to what the Elegia is doing with the timbre. When switching from my other headphones the timbre sounds just a little off, maybe mechanical (?) for a few minutes. But 10ish minutes into listening with them and they start to sound really natural and voices and instruments start to sound much more like the real things. By that point Iāve pretty much forgotten Iām wearing them and just enjoying the music.
The Elegia is still an easy recommendation. Especially with the $399 sale back once again at Adaroma, apparently.
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Noiceeeeee. Look forward to your thoughts on them
Accurate review imo. Happy you enjoy them 
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As someone waiting for his Elegia and a fan of Dua Lipa, thats good to know. Also, now Iām really curious to try Orishas on it.
Great review man! Canāt wait to hear these on my gear and compare. =)
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fan of dua lipa and u like orishas? u my good man have my seal of approvement. and i look forward to ur thoughts when u get em!
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The stories of the stock cable is too true! Twenty minutes after listening, I put an order in for a replacement cableā¦
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Lol. Good choice. 20 days later and my Elegia cable was still kinky as hell.
These are what I ordered for now until I can decide on some custom cables from Hart Audio @brux
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