Quality Control with Focal Headphones

I heard there are drivers issues and channel imbalances with focal headphones. Is this true with the elex and clear OG?

Does anyone know if they fixed this with the Focal Clear MG?

Not a lot to report: I own an Elex, a Clear OG, and a Clear MG, and haven’t had any driver issues with any of them. My understanding is that most of the Elex driver issues had to do with the voice coil, and as far as I know, that’s a possible weak point on basically all dynamic driver headphones? I dunno, others can chime in there.

I do have some suspicions that there’s something going on with the pads on Focal headphones though. Early reviewers of the MG claim that it sounds very similar to the OG, and I found that to be true if I swap the OG pads onto the MG, but my MG with the stock pads sounds more noticeably different, so your mileage might vary there.

So I take it most of the problems reported where from mainly the Focal Elex and not the Clear?

So, I have tried quite a few on the Focal line up… The absolute worst without a doubt was the Elex, it took 7 copies of the headphone back to back to find one that wasn’t imbalanced for me and yet that “good” one had some wire malfunction and still had to be sent in. Elex is a fantastic set of cans for sure but the quality control on drop when it came to the headphone was pathetic.

As for the clears, I did have one with a slight imbalance on the left ear… however they have warranties on this stuff…

Clear MG? I have sat with 4, I usually try to test out a couple to make sure the headphone isn’t faulty or im hearing things correctly if something sounds a bit off, from friends or store wise… no issues

So if I were to get the focal clear OG would the Schiit Asgard 3 be enough or should I save for the RNHP amp?

Power wise? Yep definitely enough… sound quality wise? Eh focals are quite picky and change alot based on connection… either will be fine but rnhp imo is a definite step up for the particular headphone