For me it was always noticable but I thought I was crazy. One day was listing to a mono track and it just became too painful so I contacted Drop and even though Iâd had it for a while they let me have a refund and I moved on. Thereâs still a part of me that wonders if the slight channel imbalance added to the experience of 3D sound I got from the Elex though.
I still havenât ever finished getting all the way through EQing my pair, but I pretty much got up to 8k hertz and found that it wasnât really an issue anymore once I adopted not striving for perfection on EQing it and instead just went for âgood enoughâ. I also just EQed by the graph instead of purely the numbers this time. I was being way too meticulous last time and that ended up hurting me.
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Hi. How would the Elegia compare to these for someone hunting in this price range but concerned about the QC (and import costs) of the Elex?
One AV shop mentioned that Focals are the most RMAâd headphones for warranty service out of the ones that they sell (many of the notable brands that you typically see)⊠and that they are the best-selling headphone brand there as well. Take that for what you will.
My few months old Focal Elegia is still going strong⊠with barely any use (thinking of selling them after the current stock is sold out).
@murphtones
For the Elegiaâs, I donât really see as many complaints of out-of-the-box QC issues as I do with Elexâs, the latter of which seems to be Focalâs shit job of securing the voice coil next to the solder pad:
It seems that the voice coil of the Elexâs is not properly secured, which means any changes in tension may cause the voice coil to snap = dead driver.
Hi all. I got my Focal Elex from Drop more than a week ago. Iâm trying so hard to like these headphones so as to not return or exchange them. I love these headphones, the sound, detail, etc, but unfortunately thereâs a treble peak somewhere, and for the past few days, itâs given me slight headaches. Today after 20min I couldnât wear them anymore. Too bad as I love them. Now, Metal571 said thereâs lots of variance on these, so, does that involve the treble peak issue as well? Would it make a difference if I exchange them, or should I just return them once and for all?
Picking up from where this left off on your original threadâŠ
If youâre using the Exlcusive mode with the Qobuz app it will bypass any Windows equalization (like Equalizer APO). The Qobuz desktop app does have an option to not be in exclusive mode, IIRC. If you disable that then Equalizer APO should work.
It also may not be the sound but the pressure. Even if you donât feel the pain, the clamp might be pusing on a sensitive spot for you. I donât know how likely this one is, but I suppose itâs possible.
Thereâs a bug in the Exclusive mode of the Windows Qobuz app it selects the sampling rate of the next queued song instead of the currently playing one.
Yikes. I hope they get that fixed soon. Fortunately Iâve been using Audirvana for Qobuz streaming on my desktop and laptop.
I only noticed because I was playing with a Chord Mojo, and the frequency didnât make sense. I commonly queue lots of tracks at different sampling rates. After I noticed it, it was trivial to determine what it was doing.
Play a 44KHz track then queue a 96KHz one while itâs playing, on most DACâs youâll hear it change sampling rates in the middle of the song.
I donât often use the App, so itâs not a big issue for me.
Now I chose the Wasapi mode (not exclusive) and Iâm now able to adjust the EQ, itâs helping a lot. Only thing is that I now see 384k on the smsl su-8 NO MATTER the resolution of the songâŠbit of a tradeoff, but even if the display says 384, if youâre playing a 96k song, then itâs 96k, right?
Wasapi will just use the setting in the windows config panel for the DAC, it still goes through the windows mixer so windows will up-sample to that.
Exclusive mode gives the app exclusive control of the DAC, nothing else in the audio chain, the app can select any frequency it wants, most will select the matching frequency, but if they donât windows will resample it to the requested frequency.
Honestly I wouldnât panic about the windows mixer, the effect is pretty negligible, especially if you are relying on EQ.
Anytime youâre not using exclusive mode Windows is mixing audio signals together from multiple sources. Youâre definitely using a USB connection and Windows is defaulting to a 384khz output. That means it is up sampling everything to that sample rate. You should be able to change this in sound settings. I recommend setting shared mode output to 24 bit 96khz. That means everything will either be up sampled (or down sampled) to 96khz. The affects of resampling on sound arenât 0. But, for now it will allow to determine if you have a particular headache frequency.
thank you so much guys, this forum replies instantly!!! Iâll take everything into consideration and see what works for me. I absolutely love these headphones, and Iâd rather try everything, or have ear surgery lol
You can also try out Roon. You can use Tidal and Qobuz via Roon but Roon will do the decoding.
So, Iâve got an Elear. Sounds like the overall sound is pretty similar to the Elex. Iâve also got the Elegias. Iâd say they have the same amount of detail with the Elegia being softer and the Elear being more energetic. I like both, but the Elear is definitely the more engaging experience for me. Elegia is good to wear for isolation and background music.
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Did you by any chance âburn them inâ let them play for a bit? I had the same problem so I contacted Drop and they were awsome to deal with. They said they would exchange or refund what ever I wanted to do. But I set them up and let them play for 3-4 days and now they are one of my favorite headphones.
If you still have issues with the elex, maybe the clear would give you what you are looking for without the treble problem (not sure, maybe someone else can confirm) assuming you can fit it in your budget.
I love the Elex. Seriously love it. And am very worried about the stupidly thin, fragile voice coil, now. Sigh.
Iâll actually give that a try. How did you burn them in? Let them play 24/7 non stop? full volume?
Yep I just started I just played music nonstop for 3-4 days straight at decent volume and tried to forget about them. I think some people use like pink noise? There used to be a speaker and headphone burn in on tidal but I always just use music.