You can still sell them for $600, especially on eBay. People would rather have them now then in three months and its not like youāre a greasy scalper or anything.
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Yeah, listen to @DDT. Plus, they are $100 off on Drop, so they may be $700 in the future. Shipping dates for the latest Drop are a few months from now IIRC. Apologies.
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Love my elexās. they are my daily driver headphones with a wireless modmic for gaming. I do use the eq from oratory1990 on them. still keep my dt1990s around though
Itās just amazing what the Elex can do over my other headphones. They hit so incredibly hard with the dynamics and everything is so focused and tight. Definitely a different flavor to my HD58X and Sundara. In my experience, the right EQ settings can get that last 5-10% of performance I was looking for, because stock I find them just a bit too sharp in some treble frequencies. With the EQ, it really sounds nearly perfect to me for my tastes. If anyone is interested, here are my latest EQ APO settings for the Elex, which gets rid of the slight metallic treble timbre almost completely to my ears:
Preamp: -3 dB
Filter: ON LSC Fc 50 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 0.9
Filter: ON PK Fc 1320 Hz Gain -2 dB Q 1.5
Filter: ON PK Fc 5750 Hz Gain -3.5 dB Q 8
Filter: ON PK Fc 10600 Hz Gain -4 dB Q 10
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Focal Elex Review
Even tho i do think i am still learning a bit more and more day by day, i think iāve got the gist of the headphone down now enough to write my thoughts about it.
Sound signature is a weird one, because to describe these ill have to go into two very different evaluations. First of all, the normal volume evaluation is one where this headphone has crazy depth, addictive presentation ,widest stage iāve heard on a headphone (generally) and dynamics for days. These four traits really make it sound bigger than life and these headphones hit so hard with the lowest lows and highest highs that itās a bit of a surreal exprience. I will get into this later, but i do think that hip-hop, pop, kpop, rock, edm, metal and other very exciting genres of music benefit from this the most. As the Kpop/ Korea shill of this forum i can say that the treble, is the most exciting and engaging treble that i have heard all the mean while completely removing most if not all sibilance from my kpop, including previously mentioned Leessang, hong jin young, and heize stuff from the sundara review. But, this one does it BETTER it truly removes any hint of sibilance from almost everything that i threw at it making it the best headphone for kpop (except still Gfriend Sunny Summer womp womp). Vocals and mids are exceptional super duper forward with great detail and separation at times sounding too intimate lol. I think that the incredibly intimate vocals plus the distance of the pretty far instruments create a typically bigger than life soundstage but at times if the song is right the soundstage can sound really intimate and less wide. The bass, hmmmmmmmm itās great but i personally really enjoy the hawk and sundara bass much more. Donāt get me wrong, there is literally nothing wrong with the bass as itās punchy and fast and not intrusive unlike the hawk bass but it just canāt stand out because the mids and highs stand out too much lol. (in addition using the xduoo plus iāve been told might be bottlenecking the bass dynamics)
Moving away from the frequency related things, the presentation is the real highlight of this headphone. If i had to describe a normal headphone presentation like the 58x, ksc75 and sundaras i would call them linear and simple. The elex however has a really weird almost warped sounding presentation at the beginning, after getting used to it the presentation is a bit more like a (borrowing from mon) spheric stage that is created. Because itās a sphere there is great depth to everything and you feel like you are in the middle of the music at times, itās never an experience that you are just watching since itās always flowing around you and you got the best seat in the house. I canāt stress enough how the dynamics and presentation give this sense of bigger than life type of sound that engulfs you in the middle. Fbizzle says that it feels like there is nothing between you and the music, and i now understand why in full agreement. The dynamics and space between every instrument, added depth to even poorly recorded music and soundstage at times also remind me of a speaker just in terms of raw dynamics.
Is there such a thing as too dynamic? Yes, lol
So whenever i wanted to just chill and watch the music from afar like i do with the sundara it was impossible. Too intimate and dynamic etc. Itās not an agressive headphone but itās definetly all up in your face and the most engaging headphone iāve ever used. Luckily there is actually a simple solution that works pretty well but still does have one downside. When listening to Bol4, Nujabes, Busker Busker etc i donāt usually ( edit: listening to busker busker, yeah, prefer these calm songs all the time with lower volume, i just enjoy it much more) want an engulfing bigger than life sound and luckily if you simply turn down the volume a considerable amount the special presentation kind of isnāt as obvious and dissapears, the dynamics are still very good and engaging-ish but not too over the top or exaggerated. It just tones down the headphone alot for when you want a more laidback expirience (usually when iām in bed laying down) and it does it very well. The only problem is that at the lower volume outside noise really creeps in, not the biggest issue but itās not the perfect scenario! . HOWEVER, itās thanks to this that i feel compelled to listen to all of my music and makes the headphone much more balanced when it comes to moods. I gladly am pushed to listen to nujabes at lower volumes while expiriencing the laid back sound and can also listen to heize and kpop at regular volume levels while listening to the most exciting, engaging and bigger than life sound expirience i have ever heard.
Ultimately itās pretty dang well rounded if you donāt have too much noise around you to lower and raise the volume depending on genre and mood.
Pros: literally everything, dynamics, timbre, well roundedness, soundstage, life
Cons: dynamics and at the same time not
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Just noticed they are now 700 on drop again.
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Today, this week actually, is Elex time. I play a little bit of jazz here and there for a change. Today I decided to go All Miles, All day. I have about 260 pieces of Miles with different partners. 90% of it is ALAC files.
So clear, crisp and natural. Liquid Platinum pumping out the music.
I canāt remember the last time I did a full day of jazz, let alone a full day of one artist.
Started off with Kind of Blue and just went album after album. Awesome!
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thatās sad lol. makes me realize how sweet of a deal i got on these. canāt say iāve heard anything in the same or higher price range, but i can see myself justifying paying double of what the sundara cost for these for sure.
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niceeeeeeee, in the far future. at least imma wait one year iām also going to buy the platinum since i think the elex would pair nicely with a warm amp. looking forward to that pairing
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It is a good time to be a buyer. I had kept a distance at $779.00, but then it kept coming down and down. I was about to bite at $619.00 and then it went to $599.00 and I hit the buy button. Then it went to $549.00 and I think it even dropped to $500.00 for a minute. Good time to be a head-fi person.
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Since the events in the world.
My Elex headphones have been packed for shipping by the āmule transport serviceā.
After months of waiting. They are moving, slowly but surely this way. yeet!
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Something troubling just started happening in the right side of my pair. Iām not sure how to describe the sound exactly, but there is this crumbling/distortion like sound in the right side that just started happening when playing music. I know for certain it isnāt part of the song.
Well it seems to have just gone away after I took the pad off and put it back it on and took the wire out and put it back in, so it might of just been nothing.
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Could be a poor connection on the cable or perhaps just a hair got into the driver?
Is it easy for hair to get into the driver? It does seem like the driver is just out there lol which worried me. But then I looked and it seems to have a net
They will find their way in there from time to time, or other debris
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I wil the say that mine has such a sound wen raising the volume on the right cup too but dosent affect the sound. It was something interesting that I noticed tho
Gotcha hmmmm thatās a shame lol. Iāll have to blow on it once in a while I guess. Specially because of fog hair
Idk what it was and probably never will be it was very blatant it was there when it was making the sound and was irritating to hear. Was a high frequency that almost sounded like it was in my ear. When I played a song it wouldnāt immediately start but rather when an instrument started playing from the right side.
Hmmm thatās a bit more strange, if you twist the connectors on the cable does it happen or cause something to change?