INTRODUCTION
The Focal Radiance, or more technically the Focal + Bentley Radiance, is a closed-back, dynamic-driver, around the ear headphone designed and built by Focal but with Bentley styling and name plastered on the headband. Iāve been sitting on this one for awhile because Iāve been loaded up on review material. To let the cat out of the bag a little, this one was loaned to me and I bought itā¦I liked it that much and found a space for it in my already crowded headphone collection. Read on to find out whyā¦
TL;DR
In this reviewerās humble opinion, the Radiance is a triumph. It has a warm sound signature with punchy dynamics and very healthy bass presence without the bass bleeding into the mids and while maintaining very good clarity and detail retrieval throughout the audible spectrum. Add to that that itās efficient, easy to drive, isolates well, and is quite comfortable and you have an excellent overall package whether at a desk or on the go. Highly recommended.
KNOW YOUR REVIEWER
My preferred genres are rock/metal and classical/orchestral music. Iām getting to know jazz more and enjoying quite a bit. I also listen to some EDM and hip-hop. My hearing quirks include a high sensitivity to midrange frequencies from just under 1KHz to around 3Khz, give or take. My ears are thus quick to perceive āshoutinessā in headphones in particular. I describe āshoutinessā as an emphasis on the āouā sound of āshout.ā Itās a forwardness in the neighborhood of 1KHz and/or on the first one or two harmonics above it (when I make the sound āooooowwwwwā into a spectrum analyzer the dominant frequency on the vowel sound is around 930Hz, which also means harmonic spikes occur again at around 1860Hz and 2790Hz). In the extreme, it can have the tonal effect of sounding like a vocalist is speaking or singing through a toilet paper tube or cupping their hands over their mouth. It can also give instruments like piano, but especially brass instruments, an added āhonkā to their sound. I also get distracted by sibilance, or sharp āsā and ātā sounds that can make ssssingers sssssound like theyāre forssssssing esssss ssssssounds aggresssssssively. Sibilance does not physically hurt my ears nearly as quickly as shout, though. Itās distracting because itās annoying and unnatural. Finally, Iām discovering that I have a preference for more subtle detail. I like good detail retrieval and hearing what a recording has to offer, but I prefer what many would consider relaxed and subtle rather than aggressive or detail-forward. To my ear, more subtle detail-retrieval sounds more realistic and natural than aggressive, detail-forwardness. There is a balance here, though, because detail retrieval can get too relaxed and that can sound unnatural, as well, or simply leave out important aspects of the recording. Readers should keep these hearing quirks and preferences in mind as they read my descriptions of sound.
FEATURES & BUILD
Subjectively the styling of the Radiance is excellent, IMO. The black with bronze accents is tasteful and attractive without being overstated. Outside of that the aesthetics and build are quintessential Focal. The basic look is there from the shape of the earcups, the pattern on the back of the earcups, the yokes, etc. The one possible downside is that the earcups donāt squeeze together when not in use like many headphones do, causing them to take up a larger amount of real estate than many models:
Focal headphones: always canspreading.
The comfort is solid. I donāt notice any hotspots on the top of my head from the headband. The clamp force is snug but not too tight. Iām also a glasses wearer and did not have any comfort issues as a result. The one comfort downside is that the pads are a leather or faux leather as opposed to the fabric covered pads Focal often uses. These trap heat in a bit more and on occasion they could get warm. This didnāt happen enough to me to be a deal-breaker, though. The pads also give excellent isolation. There is very little sound leakage inward, and itās not bad outward either, depending on volume, of course.
I think unique to the Radiance and its pad material is its inability to hide dust. If ever they sit out, either on a stand or on a tabletop, and arenāt used for awhile, the amount of dust that collects will remind you that you havenāt used them. Hereās a pic I took after not using them for about 48 hours:
I managed to get that in direct sunlight and made a mark with my finger to wipe the dust off one spot. I frequently have to wipe the pads down with a paper towel or cloth before putting them on.
The stock cable is as bad as it is on any other Focal headphone. Itās thick, stiff, and generally unmanageable. In a departure from other Focal cans the cover of the cable is vinyl as opposed to nylon or cloth. Fortunately, my set came used with a nice Plussound cable (which the seller couldnāt remember the name of). I used either the Plussound or Hart cables for this review. I think Focalās motto for their cables is āAt least they arenāt HiFiMan cables.ā And thatās about all that can be said.
Finally, the driver is the typical M-shaped, formless voice coil, dynamic driver that is common in Focal headphones. In this case the driver material is aluminum/magnesium. The rated impedance is 35ā¦ and the rated sensitivity is 105dB/mW. Those numbers are quite believable as I found them to be very easy to drive, even for DAPs and other mobile devices.
SOUND
Test Gear
The bulk of my listening was with the Chord Hugo 2 transportable DAC/amp fed by a Cayin N6ii connected via either USB or with Cayinās USB-C-to-coaxial spdif cable. I also tried the N6iiās E02 module 4.4mm balanced headphone output to drive the Radiance directly. Desktop gear included the Berkeley Audio Designs Alpha S2 and Schiit Modius and Bifrost 2 DACs with Violectric HPA-V281, Monolith Liquid Platinum amps, as well as 3 amps from Schiit: IEMagni, Magnius, and Asgard 3.
Quick Editorial
Itās not very often that I put a headphone on and am immediately grabbed by it. I was immediately captivated by the Radiance. My first impression with it came while sitting out in my sunroom with the Hugo 2. I had been looking for a headphone that isolated well and sounded great off the Hugo 2 for a transportable solution, as the Hugo 2 is quite picky as an āamplifier.ā The Radiance immediately made me sit up straight and pay attention. Bass. Detail. Clarity. An almost tactile dynamic punchiness. I knew right away this one was a serious contender. HiFiMan did this to me with the Edition X V2 and then again with the HE1000V2. The transformation the HD6XX makes on a tube amp did it the first time, too. But usually, even with cans I end up liking a lot, the initial impression isnāt the raw āWHOA!ā that Radiance gave me. With that said, on with the detailsā¦
Sound Signature
By ear the signature of the Radiance presents as having an elevated bass shelf of 2-4 dB above neutral until about 100ish hertz. There is a slight dip in the midbass, but not very audible with most listening material, and then seemingly neutral and nearly flat frequency response starting in the lower mids and going all the way through the air frequencies. This comes across as almost an āLā shaped signature, which is a very odd term but is how many audiophiles communicate an elevated bass shelf into a more flat remainder of the frequency spectrum. The resulting presentation is warm and bassy without being bloated and maintaining excellent clarity and resolution in the mids and treble. The presentation is both aggressive and relaxed overall, as well. Itās aggressive in the macrodynamics, punching very hard in the bass, but also having a lot of pop and snap in the transients throughout the frequency range. At the same time itās relaxed and laid back in terms of details, not forcing itself in that regard, and maintaining a smoothness despite the physicality.
Bass
As a self-professed basshead, the Radiance leaves me satisfied. The bass is extended, plentiful, punchy, detailed, and pulls this off without being boomy or bleeding into the vocals. There isnāt quite as much texture as my HE1000V2 can pull off, but thatās also more than twice the price. For a dynamic driver headphone under $1500 the bass texture here is noticeable and impressive. I love it, but I must also caution many a reader. Many listeners are not as much into the bass as I am. If youāre bass-sensitive this headphone could very well be too over-the-top for you. There also can be a bit of an adjustment if listening to my HE1000V2 for awhile before going out to a transportable situation and listening to Radiance. In comparison the bass on the Radiance can be a bit one-notey. I donāt think most listeners will call its bass one-notey in an absolute sense, but itās not as tonally accurate as the more expensive model.
Iām just going to say one more time this headphone punches hard. It is very dynamic, almost to the point of being able to feel it.
Midrange
My previous experience with Focal was the Elegia. The Elegia had very detailed mids but at times could sound too mid-forward and shouty. I did not notice any shoutiness with the Radiance that I can recall. The mids are clear and detailed, with good instrument and voice separation, and a generally natural timbre. The timbre doesnāt quite rise to the level of organicness that the Senn HD600/650 reach, but itās quite solid in its own right.
Treble
The treble is clear, sparkly, and extended but will strike some as recessed. To my ear it isnāt recessed, itās more in line with the same level as the mids, but some will want a bit more top-end presence. The detail and separation are good here too, with the ability to separate rapid cymbal crashes reasonably well and present the attack and decay of each strike. Sibilance is also never added, just presented if itās in the recording. The balance here between being laid-back yet sparkly, detailed yet relaxed, at $1300, is remarkable. I can listen to it for hours without getting fatigued or feeling like I am missing too much.
Resolution & Detail Retrieval
The Radiance is not the most detailed headphone I have ever heard, but for a $1300 closed-back it is excellent. Classic signs of excellent detail retrieval like room reverb and āhearing the roomā are appropriately present without coming across too aggressively.
In what will certainly be a controversial statement, the Radiance also has the resolution chops to distinguish between DAC and amp signatures as well as slight differences in the sounds of headphone and signal cables. The Plussound cable that came with my set definitely sounded better than the Harts I used, with a little cleaner overall sound, slightly wider staging, and better tonal balance in the treble. Cymbal hits sounded more natural and less tizzy, for example. The Cayin usb-to-spdif cable I mentioned earlier showed up after I had been connecting my N6ii and Hugo 2 via el-cheapo USB cable. The Radiance showed me that the Cayin cable was cleaner, smoother, and separated sounds better. The Radiance showed me that the Magnius is what it is, rather flat and dull sounding (a curse of these high feedback op-amp designs, Iām afraid). It showed me that the Asgard 3 and V281 have very similar overall signatures (warmer, thicker, and highly dynamic) but that the V281 is several tiers higher in overall technical performance. I make this point because this stands in contrast to what the Elegia was able to do. The Elegiaās biggest party trick was to sound fantastic when powered by budget-tier source gear at the expense of it being able to scale up and truly resolve differences between higher quality source gear. The Radiance also does a good job of sounding excellent on budget gear ā I thoroughly enjoyed it from the IEMagni and Asgard 3 ā but still having something left to resolve differences in higher level source gear. Its scalability is not on the legendary level of the Senn HD600/650 or Beyer DT880 ā which all keep finding new ways to surprise you as you go up in source gear quality ā but it also does not seemingly approach an asymptote in its scaling like the Elegia does.
Spatial Presentation
The soundstage is Focal-like in creating that 360-degree bubble around the head. Audeze and Focal are similar in how they stage by wrapping your head in sound rather than presenting it out front like many others do. For orchestral recordings itās often like standing on the Maestroās box rather than sitting in the audience. Itās a different effect that has its merits. The size of this bubble is neither Sennheiser HD600/650/6XX narrow nor HiFiman egg-shaped line HUGE. Itās in the middle. Within that staging, imaging and separation donāt call attention to themselves for either good or ill. I wasnāt wowed by the placement and separation, but I was also never distracted by the lack of them. In my classical recordings the instruments seem realistically placed, but I also wasnāt as wowed by their placement as I was with the HiFiMan Aryaās placements, for example.
Youāre Mostly Fawning Over This Headphoneā¦
Guilty.
Whatās Not to Like?
If anyone is going to object to Radianceās sound I think it will be because itās just too bassy for some. Some may find it chunky sounding as a result. I donāt get that, but I loves mah bass. Some may find it not bright enough. My subjective impression is that the audiophile industry is moving slowly toward a more bright, leaning-to-analytical signature as the proverbial āaudiophile signature.ā At least, more and more stuff is seeming to tilt that way. Radiance goes the other way. That may bother some. If spatial chops are your number one priority, even though the Radiance is pretty good, it may not satisfy that itch. However, I canāt name another full-sized closed-back headphone that matches it for the price right off the top of my head.
COMPARISONS WITH OTHER HEADPHONES
Naturally, we all want to know how the Radiance fits in with Focalās other closed-back models, Elegia, Celestee, and Stellia. I have not heard them all. My understanding is that the Radiance is the bassiest of the set. The Stellia has higher quality bass, but the bass isnāt as present. I honestly donāt know much about the Celestee, other than that blue-green color is SWEET! I owned the Elegia for awhile (review here) and spoke a little bit about the scalability comparison between Radiance and Elegia above. Iāll compare these two a bit more.
The Elegia and Radiance are both easy to drive and are closed-back with good isolation. This makes them both excellent candidates for mobile/transportable use. The Radiance is the more complete headphone from a sonic performance perspective. Itās more resolving, has more natural timbre, and improves upon Elegiaās already impressive macrodynamic punch. The Radianceās signature is warm and bassy where the Elegia is slightly mid-forward. The Elegia also at times suffers from the metallic timbre that Focal headphones are known for among some listeners. The Elegia ends up having a bite to it that is almost entirely absent from the Radiance. Another key difference is the Radiance is nearly $1300 where the Elegia frequently goes on sale for $399, thanks to Adorama.
The other high-end closed-back I have on hand is a Fostex TH900 with Lawton purpleheart chambers and tune-up mod. Strengths of the Lawtonād TH900 are bass presence, impact, detail, timbre, and frequency extension in both directions. The TH900 is also more V-shaped, with elevated bass and treble. I would say the TH900 and the Lawton are roughly equals in terms of bass presence and macrodynamic punch/overall physicality. The TH900 has more treble energy and can come across as sounding overall brighter as a result. The TH900 is also not very forgiving of source gear. It exposes warts and is also quite picky. If not paired with the right source gear, it will sound any or all of very harsh, sharp, shouty, honky, boomy, you name it. When itās matched to electronics well, though, it easily surpasses the Radiance in resolution and detail and timbre, sounding like it costs a few hundred dollars moreā¦because it does (by the time you put the whole Lawton package together). The Radiance is not nearly as aggressive in the high frequency and is also much more source-gear independent. Yes, it sounds better with better source gear, but it also still sounds good with source gear that isnāt great or is more budget-oriented. The TH900 is therefore somewhat of a specialist that can create magic with the right source gear and music selections. The Radiance is much more of a generalist with a lower performance ceiling but a much higher performance floor. This is another reason why the Radiance is mobile/transportable friendly. Itās generalist nature means it can be used with a lot of gear combinations for a wide variety of music, making it a friendly travel companion.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Yeah, Iām keeping this one. I may not have it for long, but to paraphrase a quote from the cult sci-fi movie Starship Troopers āthis is it until itās dead or I find something better.ā I love the warm, bassy signature, the dynamic punch, and the ability to do all of that without seeming to sacrifice much, if anything, in clarity and detail everywhere else. Most importantly to me, it sounds wonderful through the Hugo 2, which combined with its comfort and isolation, make it a great travel companion. I could rehash all of the glowing things I said above but I donāt think I need to. For me this is a great headphone. If your tastes are similar to mine, try to get your hands on this one. Someday it might be tough. Itās a limited editionā¦
Thanks for reading! Enjoy the music! 